by Sandi Martin | Jun 19, 2018 | Retirement, Retirement Calculators, Retirement Planning
When you think of retirement and everything you need to do to prepare for it, I suspect you might think that some of your success hinges on getting the answers to these questions right: When should I apply for Canada Pension Plan benefits to get the most out of them?...
by Julia Chung | Oct 17, 2017 | CPP, Personal Finance, Retirement, Retirement Planning
“I have a pension through my employer,” says Tim*, in a recent call. “But I don’t understand it.” If you’re like Tim, you’re not alone. In Canada, we have many different potential sources for retirement income, with all kinds of different names. Pensions can be...
by Sandi Martin | Jun 24, 2013 | Blog, Budgets, Personal Finance, Retirement, Series: Avoiding the Useless Retirement Plan
The point: planning for your retirement isn’t just about your investments, although you can be forgiven for thinking it is. It involves exactly the same activities as planning for tomorrow, next week, and next month: active budgeting, debt elimination, robust...
by Sandi Martin | Jun 20, 2013 | Blog, Personal Finance, Retirement, Retirement Calculators, Series: Avoiding the Useless Retirement Plan
The point: retirement calculators are only as good as the information you put in them and the underlying assumptions of the calculator itself, and are useful only to model the future, not predict it. The lure of the retirement calculator is that it will tell you your...
by Sandi Martin | Jun 5, 2013 | Blog, Personal Finance, Retirement, Series: Avoiding the Useless Retirement Plan
The point: Retirement planning using general assumptions about your future income is just retirement guessing. And – surprise – it’s useless. Seriously? Three posts into a retirement series and we haven’t even answered the question “how...
by Sandi Martin | May 30, 2013 | Blog, Budgets, Personal Finance, Retirement, Series: Avoiding the Useless Retirement Plan
The point: You can’t plan where you’re going until you know where you want to go and where you’re starting from. Do you know what you want out of life? If that sounds like a surprisingly navel-focused question coming from a financial planner,...
