How to Handle and Organize SIP Investments in 2017 + MORE Nov 24th

(Illustration by Sam Island)
Presented by Assante Wealth Management
It’s a given that financial goals must be marshalled according to life goals. After all, as the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” Veteran money coach and Certified Financial Planner Karin Mizgala vividly recalls a surprising encounter with a client who had actually achieved her financial goals. We’ll call her Charlene.
When B.C.-based Mizgala, CEO and co-founder of advice-only financial planners Money Coaches Canada, ran the numbers and told her client she was ready to retire, Charlene’s response was unexpected and unforgettable. “She burst into tears,” Mizgala remembers. It was a complete mix of delight and horror in almost equal measure. “It was like opening the bird cage and saying ‘Fly!’” But the truth of the matter was Charlene was pretty comfortable in the cage.
READ: How to achieve financial goals with your spouse
This true story illustrates the importance of basing your financial plan on your real-life goals…

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OTTAWA _ When Doug Hoyes had his credit card information stolen, fraudsters used it to pay for three taxi rides in Toronto.
He wasn’t in that city, but discovered the charges while routinely checking his card transactions online and notified his bank, which cancelled the card.
Hoyes, a licensed insolvency trustee, says the incident illustrates the importance for individuals to keep a watchful eye on their statements in a world where financial information can be stolen in a myriad of ways.
“I realize that the bank will probably cover you anyways, so you’re not going to lose any money, but do you really want to wait until they’ve used up your credit limit and you’re trying to put gas in your car and you can’t because you’re over your limit?”
Earlier this week, ride-hailing company Uber came clean about a year-old hack that compromised the data of 57 million Uber riders. The information stolen included names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers…

OTTAWA _ Thanks to a rally this fall, the Toronto Stock Exchange is up for the year so far, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any losers in your portfolio.
Now might be the time to cull those picks that haven’t worked out like you had hoped and use them to offset the taxes you owe on your winners, tax experts say.
Jamie Golombek, managing director of tax and estate planning at CIBC, says it has been a great year in the market for many, but that doesn’t mean investors don’t have losing stocks that could be sold.
“If you can do it before the end of the year, you’re going to able to use that capital loss to offset other capital gains that you might have realized earlier this year,” he said.
Even if you don’t have any capital gains this year, taking a loss now can still save you money if you have had capital gains in recent years or expect to have them in the future.
Losses must first be applied to any capital gains you have in the year you incur the loss, but once they have all been offset, the rest of your losses can be either carried back up to three years or saved to offset capital gains in future years…

Most of us leave our investment decision to brokers which also include the SIP investments that we make. The broker comes, tells you a few fund names that you should invest in, tells you the benefits of investing in the fund through sip investments and not lump sum investments and then lures you to buy some.
After this, his task is done. Your money keeps getting debited from your account each month, and the sip investments buy units in mutual funds for you. Tracking how the mutual fund is performing, whether to hold on to the fund or to get out of the fund and which fund to access in the case of an emergency is now all your responsibility.
This has become the fate of most investors today who do not do their own research but blindly believe in someone to help them make their investment choices. The process of SIP investments looks easy, but at the end, till you do not know what you are doing, there is nothing easy in the world. Most of the investors end up buying a number of sip investments which also include some tax saving funds…