“These are things that are going to seriously affect your life and the lives of people after you,” said Julia Chung, a financial and estate planner with Spring Financial Planning. “Spend the money.” You will likely need both a financial planner and a lawyer that specializes in estates, and possibly an accountant to review tax ramifications.

Imagine being asked to do your job in an exotic city in a far flung country… Julia gives BBC Capital her planning tips.

Sending your children to private school can mean making some big sacrifices.

In honour of International Women’s Day, Julia Chung of JYC Financial collaborated with Sandi Martin of Spring Personal Finance and Krysten Merriman of Modern Advisor to create a free e-book for women (with tips men can use too!).

Join us for a free evening of cocktails, dinner, and insight on February 11th. RSVP today! tycuda@3macs.com 

My hope for you this year is that – no matter what your circumstances – you take the time to get really, really clear about what those circumstances actually are, and plan to repeat the process when they change.

If you’re in a cash flow bind, you don’t want to wait too long before you take action. But you should take some time to calculate the size of the problem. “A lot of times people don’t really look at their expenses,” said Julia Chung, a financial and estate planner with Spring Financial Planning in British Columbia in Canada. “They have a hard time managing the numbers.”

The particular sequence of market returns that you’ll enjoy throughout your lifetime starts when you’re born, ends when you die, is entirely outside of your control, and, if you’re not careful, will heavily influence when you start investing, how you’ll do it, and your outlook on life when you turn those investments into income.

Planning on earning a fortune in the real estate market? Read this first.