June 2019 Update
You made it! You’re halfway through 2019, and by the time this newsletter reaches you, will have already experienced the longest day of the year. Your sunshine time is shrinking now - get out there and take advantage! After all those start-of-summer, Father’s Day, and...
Spring’s 2019 Summer Reading List
We love, love, love reading at Spring Plans. Immersing ourselves in data, research, and stories about people is how many of us spend our downtime. We vigorously wave our nerd flags, and each summer build our own individual reading lists to trundle through on our...
Design Thinking: Estate Planning
Way back in January, we told you what we wanted for you in 2019: Permission to design your life Since then, we’ve given you so many different ways you can apply the concept of design thinking to your life, including investments, disability, taxes, retirement, and cash...
May 2019 Update
It has been an eventful month of May here at Spring, with tax season at an end and multiple statements, returns, and updates flowing in from all of you and your accountants. We hope you are as invigorated as we are about all the planning that you can do now that you...
Design Thinking: Your Business and Disability
When you are working on your business plan - or not working on it, as the case may be - the risks that you are usually considering are things like: How you’ll handle cash flow issues Where your next customer is coming from How you’ll manage staff Your next marketing...
Values
At the end of January, a few members of our team got together in Port Moody, BC (thanks for the hospitality, Kathryn!) and spent several days working with Pam Schmidt, our facilitator, to really dig into our Mission, Vision, Values, and Purpose. Since we live in an...
April 2019 Update
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...
Book Review: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Power of Habit and its follow-up, Smarter, Faster, Better, by Charles Duhigg were some of the bright shining spots in my nonfiction reading over the past year. You never know what you’re getting into with any kind of reading, but at least with fiction, you know...
Design Thinking: Taxes
Yum... taxes. As Canadians, we may have love-hate relationships with taxes. Or, like many of our cousins to the south, just flat-out hate-hate relationships. Regardless of how we might feel about taxes, they’re a part of our lives. We can choose to ignore them, we can...
March 2019 Update
Budgets, budgets and more budgets. The Federal Budget was released on March 19, and you can find our summary here. Some provinces have already released their annual budgets and more are rolling in. If you’re reading as many finance newsletters as we are, you’ll have...
2019 Federal Budget Summary
Every spring, the Federal Government comes out with their budget for the year - all the ways they’ll be putting our tax dollars to use and running this national operation. They often have a news release in fall that telegraphs some of the things they’re thinking about...
February 2019 Update
Happy Lunar New Year! If you’re a regular reader, you already know that some of the team got together at the end of January to retreat and discuss what we did in 2018 and what we’re hoping to do in 2019. Our annual executive retreat, facilitated by the fabulous...
Design Thinking: Income & Cash Flow
As promised in our What We Want for you in 2019 article, we are jacked about design thinking this year, and how you can use it to optimize your life and your finances to create the life that you didn’t know you always wanted. This month, we are applying this thinking...
Introducing Karen Richardson
We are excited to announce that as of February 1, 2019 we have added a new member to our planning team: Karen Richardson, Cash Flow & Associate Financial PlannerKaren joins Spring after 7 years as an independent advice-only financial planner in Kenora, Ontario,...
What We Want for You in 2019
A wish for our readers for the year ahead is becoming a tradition for us. If you’ve been reading the Spring blog for a while, you may remember that past years included wishes for clarity, ownership, structure, and momentum. If you’re new here: welcome—and buckle up....
January 2019 Update
Happy New Year!! Feel free to attack this month’s blog content in bits. Like everything else in January, it’s just best to take it at your own pace, as we have lots to talk about, starting with the markets and moving into tax updates, TFSAs & RRSPs, CPP...
December 2018 Update
MERRY HAPPY!!! We hope that by the time you’re reading this, you’re feeling well-prepared for the holidays, however you celebrate them. Regardless of whether you partake of religious, non-denominational, or just no activities throughout this season, we hope you...
Cash Flow Planning – Building Confidence into Your Retirement Plan
When you think about retirement planning, your mind may start to fill with acronyms: RRSP RRIF TFSA LIRA CPP OAS Just think: that’s only the Starter Pack of Financial Jargon. It gets a whole lot worse. You may think you’ll have to earn a Master’s Degree in personal...
Money Mindset: Scarcity vs. Abundance
We ask some pretty tough questions at Spring. Open-ended, thoughtful and curious questions are among the many keys we use to unlock how we can truly help you move into great success. Without a doubt, some of the toughest questions we ask - the ones we agonize...
2018 Spring Financial Gift Guide
If you’re reading this financial gift guide, presumably you’re interested in helping your friends and family get better at managing their money and making great decisions about their lives. That’s good. When you give gifts like these, there’s a real danger that the...
Finding the RIGHT Financial Advisor
Given the sheer number of articles, 10 point lists, podcasts, and even books out there on the subject, it’s time to face the truth: choosing a financial advisor is hard. We are asked all kinds of questions in many different ways that all boil down to the same...
Where to Start Saving First
The following article is an excerpt from our ebook “Women & Money”. You’ll note some gender-specific language here, but don’t let that deter you. Our advice is the same regardless of the chromosomes you carry. You can download the entire book for free here. Let’s...
October 2018 Update
For many of our clients, one of the most frustrating moments of working with expert advisors is when you have this realization: There is rarely one “right” answer. Even when you process this initial realization, and think to yourself, “Sure, everyone is...
Book Review: Mindset: The New Psychology by Carol S. Dwek
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success is the outcome of decades of research by Stanford University psychologist, Carol S. Dwek. Her findings produced the idea of fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. Dwek describes the Fixed Mindset as belonging to those who believe...
What to do when your parents haven’t planned
Your parents have been adults for as long as you can remember. They always had things in hand. They paid the bills, put a roof over your head, bothered you about cleaning up your room and doing your homework, and cried at your graduation/childbirth/other meaningful...
How CPP and Social Security Integrate
If you’ve worked in both the USA and Canada, you have likely contributed to both the USA’s Social Security program and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). How will CPP benefits impact your Social Security benefits? How will your US residency impact your CPP and...
So You Want to Have a Baby in 5 Years?
Before we jump in to helping you prepare your finances for parenthood, we want you to know one truth: you can be a phenomenal parent without being good at money. We didn’t put together this set of tips on how to prepare for a new baby just to add one more item to your...
August 2018 Update
Just before you slam your nose into the grindstone that September often brings - regardless of whether you have kids in school or work full time, it can still be a thing - let’s stop and consider: What is it you want to achieve in the back half of this year? What is...
A Week in the Life of Julia
This ended up being a week where I didn’t actually work on plans as much - next week, there is a lot of working on plans. This week was…. A lot of the other stuff I do... Monday, August 13 5:00am My alarm goes off and I snooze it a lot. A lot. I was at the Jack White...
You Don’t Have to be Normal
“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ~ Maya Angelou We get pretty excited working with each unique individual, family, and business we encounter - and a lot of that is because you’re unique. We’ve never hoped to provide...