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About Spring Financial Planning

The Story

We met, as many do, on the internet. We were casting about for other fee-for-service financial planners to share ideas and build best practices, and created a group that met online monthly to do just that (we still meet – ask us about it if you want to be involved).

After realizing we shared values and were nerdy in different, but complementary, ways, we decided to work together in a loose partnership – our engagement – and co-authored an ebook on personal finance, “Women & Money”. (You can hear a much longer version of our story here.)

When all of that worked tremendously well, we decided to get “married”, and create a firm that provides fabulous conflict-free personal financial advice across the country. Spring Personal Finance and JYC Financial merged to become… Spring Financial Planning. Hey, why fix what isn’t broken?

We know that each of us can only serve so many people, but together, we can do so much more.

Planning Team

Julia Chung

Julia Chung

CFP®, CLU, FEA, TEP, Partner, CEO, Sr. Financial Planner
Areas of Specialty: Retirement Planning, Private/Family Business, Cross-Border Planning

In 1997, Julia got her first taste of the financial services world – and loved it. She took her career through multiple investment firms and credit unions, trying nearly every role she could find and taking advantage of all the education available. In 2011, she left traditional financial services to form a fee-for-service financial planning firm in partnership with an accounting firm in order to serve more people in a conflict-free environment. Just a few years later, she took JYC Financial entirely independent, and a few years after that… merged with Spring Personal Finance to become Spring Financial Planning.

Julia is also co-founder of Admin Slayer Services, a virtual business services firm and Spring’s “sister.” Along with Sandi and Krysten, she co-authored the “Women & Money” ebook, and with her co-founders at Admin Slayer, co-authored the “Art of Delegation” and “The Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide” ebooks. Julia loves to write and has held the role of Business Editor at two magazines, and has been frequently interviewed as an expert on Canadian finance for numerous publications, including BBC Capital and Global News. She’s been a finalist for several Wealth Professional awards (always a bridesmaid) and made the 2016 “Hot List” of 50 Leading Figures in Canadian Finance.

Julia divides her time among several locations in British Columbia, including Vancouver, South Surrey, and White Rock. She has a son in the first phase of adulthood, and is on the Empty Nester Starter Package, figuring out what the next chapter of her life might look like. It definitely involves financial planning, and hopefully, a lot of music.

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Sandi Martin

Sandi Martin

CFP®, BA (Major: History), Partner, Financial Planner
Areas of Specialty: Retirement Planning, Investment Policy, Planning for Young Families

Sandi started in banking almost by accident, and quickly realized that she could help clients or get good performance reviews…but not both. After almost ten years, tired of the cold calls, team meetings, and apologizing for how many credit cards she hadn’t sold that day, Sandi became an ex-banker (with an ex-pension) and founded Spring Personal Finance, an independent, advice-only financial planning practice to help ordinary Canadians make the best financial choices with the best information possible.

Based lakeside in beautiful Gravenhurst, Ontario, Sandi built a virtual practice so she could serve clients from across the country, while staying home to raise her three small (at the time) children. Five years later, Spring Personal Finance merged with JYC Financial to become Spring Financial Planning. The kids are also bigger.

Sandi is the co-host of the Because Money podcast, and co-founder of Autoinvest.ca (now sold), which helps investors compare the services of Canadian robo-advisors. Along with Julia and Krysten, she co-authored the ebook “Women & Money” in 2016. Well-known in the online world of finance, Sandi has strong opinions about regulation, sequence of return risk, expensive mutual funds…and just about everything else, come to think of it.

Sandi is a loud, frequent laugher, would like more time to read, and has a particular penchant for the ridiculous and goofy. She loves the great food her husband cooks, procrastinates by reconciling her bank statements, and can be found at the beach every summer evening.

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Kathryn Mandelcorn

Kathryn Mandelcorn

FMA, Certified Money Coach, PFP®, FPSC Level 1® Director of Cash Flow Strategies
Areas of Specialty: Personal and Business Cash Flow Planning, Debt Repayment Strategy

After 15 years in banking, investments and financial planning, Kathryn began her work as a Money Coach in 2012 when she sought to provide cash flow planning advice not tied to the management of assets or the sale of products . She wanted to help people let go of their scarcity mindset, to articulate what they really wanted out of life, to get out of debt and to use money as a tool to support their values.

In late 2017, Kathryn joined Spring to lead Cash Flow Strategies and further enhance the lives of our clients. She helps transform habits with money to ones that are more liberating, truthful and mindful. She develops strategies and implements systems to manage money so our clients can save with intention and spend without guilt. She equips our clients to align their money with their values to live a life they love with the money they have now.

Kathryn is based in Port Moody, BC idyllically situated between her two favourite locales – the forest and the ocean. She is 5 minutes from a mountain bike ride or a paddleboard. She gets up awfully early to take her young son to hockey practice but takes comfort that it’s not year round and she still has lots of opportunity to travel.

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Karen Richardson

Karen Richardson

FPSC Level 1®, Certified Money Coach, BA Hon (General Studies) Cash Flow & Associate Financial Planner
Areas of Specialty: Cash Flow Planning, Retirement Planning

As a child, Karen watched her mother pay bills and balance her cheque book every Sunday night at the kitchen table. The idea that weekly cash flow is the foundation of good management has remained with her throughout her life, heavily influencing her career and the advice she provides. Karen understands that people have multiple goals, and those goals can be achieved in multiple ways. She is committed to supporting clients in their financial journey, providing support and updates for many years after the original analysis and plan is created.

In early 2019, Karen joined the Spring Plans team after 7 years in the advice-only planning industry as a Money Coach and as an entrepreneur with a private practice.

Karen is based in Kenora, Ontario, working both in-person locally and virtually with Canadians from coast to coast. She shares her life with her three teenagers and husband on the Winnipeg River, where she is active in her community, sharing knowledge and volunteering as much as possible.

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Support Team

Christopher Enns

Christopher Enns

FPSC Level 1, BA, Music Performance | Associate Financial Planner, Paraplanner
Areas of Specialty: Money Coaching, Cash Flow Planning

Chris has been working independently in the fee-for-service financial planning space since 2015, specifically providing cash flow planning assistance and education to artists with variable income. Like many of his clients, he is an artist (an opera singer!), and it was recognizing the unique financial struggles of his brethren that brought him to finance.  He also joined Sandi as a permanent Because Money podcast host last year.

Chris is focused on spending the next few years expanding his knowledge and experience. As an Associate Planner with Spring, he works on cases both behind the scenes and, with oversight from Julia and Sandi, directly with clients.

Nick Hui

Nick Hui

CFP®, MBA, P.Eng | Paraplanner
Areas of Specialty: To be determined

Nick is a professional engineer turned financial planner, with an independent practice of his own. He takes an analytical approach to helping young professionals and families organize and optimize their financial lives. He is a Certified Financial Planner® and is currently pursuing the TEP (Trust and Estate Practitioner) designation.

Nick is working with Spring behind the scenes, expanding his own financial planning knowledge and learning best practices that he can apply to his independent financial planning service. He provides our planners with yet another lens and perspective that we can use to maximize the benefit our clients receive from their plans.

Lindsay Niedzielski

Lindsay Niedzielski

Administrator

BA (Major: Business Administration) Lindsay is an administrative professional with a mind like a steel trap. Coordinating schedules, data and information for financial planners and clients alike, Lindsay is our control center, making sure that things happen as they should, when they should, and that everyone has what they need.

Tracey Yurkin

Tracey Yurkin

Operations Manager, Paraplanner

Tracey happily runs operations in the background – many of our clients never interact with her, but we’d be lost without her. With more than 20 years in financial services, she knows how to build businesses and keep them running.

Jiveney Trecartin

Administrator

BA (Major: Psychology), CIFFA Certified – Jiveney organizes and manages Spring’s newsletter, website, and social media postings. She ensures that we actually write what we said we were going to write, that we do it on time, and that it ends up in the right places for the right people. She also proofreads our plans and provides backup support for Lindsay.

Tiffany Wilson

Bookkeeping

Tiffany takes care of the numbers behind the scenes, making sure we record things the way they’re supposed to be, report those numbers to the correct people, pay our team, pay the bills, and pay our taxes!

Krysten Merriman

Krysten Merriman

BBA, Partner, Marketing Director

Krysten and Julia met in 2009, working at an investment firm in collaborative roles. Since then, they’ve dragged each other into every company and opportunity that they’ve encountered. Some teams just work well.

As co-author and designer of the Women & Money and Art of Delegation ebooks, Krysten is well-versed in creating useful, actionable communications and content in the world of finance and business. She takes an educational approach to finance and marketing, determined that her audience is looking for the right information to make great decisions. A creative mind with a fine-tuned computer behind it, Krysten is a digital native with a thirst for knowledge and an addiction to hard work.

At Spring Financial Planning, Krysten is the nitpicky tactical creative behind how we present to the world, managing everything from colour palettes to educational materials, data management, and the delicate construction of sentences.

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Recent Blog Posts

May’s Great Reads

May’s Great Reads

by | May 14, 2019 | Personal Finance | 0 Comments

If you like the idea of rental income, you may like the idea of dividend income – but is it really better than taking capital gains? Dirk Cotton takes you through the economic theory, behaviour, and history of these two strategies. In “Get More From Your Financial...

April 2019 Update

April 2019 Update

by | Apr 23, 2019 | Income Tax, Personal Finance | 0 Comments

Don’t you just LOVE tax season? No? You’re not alone. Really, Sandi is the only person who loves tax season. It’s one of the many reasons we keep her around. Someone has to like it. In fact, she likes it so much that she’s been volunteering in her community tax...