Too much success: Maria Tucker now + MORE May 1st

This GIC rate is offered by Oaken Financial and was updated on 2013-11-28. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.

TORONTO – Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (TSX:FFH) has reported a big increase in net earnings in the first quarter, reflecting what it says were both realized and unrealized gains on its investment portfolio and improved underwriting results. The Toronto-based property and casualty insurer said net income was US$784.6 million or $35.72 per diluted share in the three months ended March 31. That compared with net earnings of US$161.6 million or $7.12 per diluted share in the year earlier period.
The post Fairfax investment gains, underwriting improvement power big jump in Q1 profit appeared first on Canadian Business.

Illustrations by Amedeo De Palma
Maria Tucker, Toronto
Then: February/March 2004
&
Now…
Ten years ago Maria Tucker was a 42-year-old marketing executive, earning a six-figure salary in Toronto. She was a single mom just a year away from paying off the mortgage on her townhouse. And because of her good saving habits, she’d tucked away $91,000 into her RRSP. But even though Maria was a huge success at both her job and her finances, she’d grown tired of work-related stress and labouring away at 70-hour workweeks. She wanted to kick back, take a few photography and cooking courses and spend more time with her daughter Christina, then 13. “I feel like the world is whipping by and I’m stuck in a corporate wind tunnel,” she told MoneySense back in 2004.
Being no stranger to hard work, Maria was willing to take part-time jobs—even tending bar or bagging groceries—to finance her escape from corporate life. Still, she didn’t want to endanger Christina’s university education or the quality of their life together…

Houston-based Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. aims to be world’s top energy financial service firm

Illustrations by Amedeo De Palma
Margaret & Ben Francis, Montreal
Then: November 2003
&
Now…
Margaret and Ben Francis were living large when we first met them in 2003. The Montreal couple earned a high combined yearly income of $240,000 and had no kids. But then came a job loss for Margaret, as well as some sour investments for the couple. Their new sense of vulnerability was causing them to rethink their finances, as neither had a company pension to fall back on and losses in their RRSPs threatened to capsize their retirement plans. “It’s time to get humble,” said Margaret, 44, who oversaw the couple’s investments. “I was good at my job but maybe not good at managing RRSP money.” Worse, when two of their stocks—Bombardier and Nortel—began sliding precipitously, they never got a call from their stockbroker. “Because of that, we’ve lost quite a bit of money,” said Ben, 55, at the time.
The couple wondered whether a more frugal existence was the only way to achieve their goal of retiring in five years…