Finding your financial footing + MORE May 18th

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Ages 13 to 17: Teaching teens to budget Aug 24th

It happens so fast you could miss it. But in their teens, kids need to start moving from thinking about money in small amounts (weekly) to larger amounts (monthly). “They should start getting more money for longer periods of time, but now they also need to start taking personal responsibility for .... More »
 house insurance

Sanders Proposes Medicare for None + MORE Jan 18th

His bill would abolish all forms of private insurance and almost all existing public programs..... More »

What is short-term disability insurance? + MORE Apr 1st

Short-term disability (STD) insurance is a term you may have encountered while filling out employee paperwork when you start a job. But what exactly does it do? It provides income for someone over a short period of time if they can’t work because they’re ill or injured, have been in an accident,.... More »

Watch: Home Insurance in Canada—what’s covered, what’s not, if premiums are rising and more + MORE Oct 11th

Planning your home insurance policy? Wondering if you should add on coverage to your existing coverage? Managing editor Lisa Hannam interviews Morgan Roberts, director of sales at RH Insurance, about what is covered with a typical home insurance policy and what’s not covered, as well as if premium.... More »

Manulife results hit by lower insurance sales, slower wealth management growth + MORE Feb 7th

Insurer reported earnings per share after items of 59 cents; analysts had been looking for earnings of 58 cents a share .... More »
Finding your financial footingQ: A little over 3 years ago, I became a widow very unexpectedly with two kids. About five months ago, I had to leave my job due to Parkinson’s disease. I am an owner of a house which I’m trying to downsize without success due to bidding wars. I do have a small CPP pension and a little money from life insurance which I would like to invest somehow. How do I plan for the long term?
—Georgia L.
A: As a financial planner, one of the things I do all day long is build financial plans that show people how long they have to work to retire comfortably at age 62 and fund the rest of their lives through age 95. I often tell people, however, that life is rarely so linear. Yours is a situation that drives that point home, Georgia.
I’m sorry to hear about your misfortune. Life events like this are definitely a time to re-evaluate financially.
Ask a Planner: Leave your question for Jason Heath »
I think it could be helpful for you to build a retirement plan. Based on your current assets, income and expenses, you could use a long-term financial projection to determine things like:

How much of a downsize do you need to do?

How much can you afford to spend each month?

What rate of return do you need on your investments?

How much financial support will you be able to provide for your children, for post-secondary education, for example?

Do you need to plan to return to work at some point?

You mentioned that you left work due to your Parkinson’s…

Continue Reading On moneysense.ca »

Vancouver’s real estate paradoxFor sale sign in Vancouver, May 3, 2016. (Photograph by Jimmy Jeong)
Can a city’s greatest strength also be its biggest weakness?
That contradiction lies at the heart of a new study by the Conference Board of Canada and the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade that ranks Vancouver against 19 other global cities on a number of economic and social metrics. Put simply, the same force that has enabled Vancouver’s economy to outperform the rest of the country in recent years is also a reason its future looks so shaky: Vancouver’s red-hot real estate market.
In four of the past five years Vancouver enjoyed real GDP growth of more than 3 per cent, a pace that put it well ahead of the national average. Indeed, since 2005 Vancouver’s real per capita GDP growth has topped the rest of the country. Over that time frame the two biggest contributors to growth in Vancouver have been the construction sector and what’s often referred to as the FIRE industry—finance, insurance and real estate…

Continue Reading On macleans.ca »

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