Let’s Get Blunt About Your Financial Affairs – Book Review and Giveaway

Let’s face it. Nobody likes paying taxes, thinking about taxes or thinking about their estate.  Heck, most people don’t care about personal finances at all.  But you should – because nobody will care more about your money than you will.  Well, I do, maybe a little bit, since I run this blog and you’re reading it.  I know Mark Goodfield does.  Which is why he wants to help Canadians get a better handle on their financial affairs by being blunt.  He’s pretty good at it.

I’ve met Mark and he’s “one of the good guys” – out to share what he knows about taxes, finances and the psychology of money in the spirit to help others.  As a Chartered Professional Accountant for over 25 years and partner with a national accounting firm in Toronto, Mark knows his stuff.  Thankfully for those that want and need to learn more about the world of taxation he’s recently packaged his collection of top blogposts from The Blunt Bean Counter into a new book entitled Let’s Get Blunt About Your Financial Affairs.

Before I give you a chance to win a copy of Mark’s book I thought I would provide an outline of the book including some of my favourite takeaways from Let’s Get Blunt About Your Financial Affairs.

The outline

The book chapters are as follows:

1. The Lighter Side of Accounting
2. Executors – A Thankless Job (except for the fees)
3. Inheritances, Wills and Estates – Love, Money and Greed
4. The Psychology of Money – Is it Everything?
5. Audits and Being Audited – Minimizing the Damage
6. Tax Topics – All You Ever Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask
7. RRIFs and RRSPs – The Retirement Acronyms
8. Family Assets – Dividing, Sharing and Taxing
9. Retirement – How to Avoid Eating Alpo
10. Estate Freezes – A Cool Way to Tax Plan
11. The Family Cottage – How to Deal with It
12. Proprietorships, Corporations, Holding Companies and Family Trusts – The Technical Stuff

My takeaways

I was under no illusions how complex and tedious the role of an estate executor is but Mark’s insight on this subject was revealing.  I’m the executor for a few family members and friends and the information within Let’s Get Blunt About Your Financial Affairs contains a good list of items I need to follow-up on with people in the months and years to come.

For those nearing retirement I suggest you read Chapter 9. Although Mark can’t possibly tell you to the number what your retirement nest egg or “magic number” must be due to a variety of complex factors and variables, Let’s Get Blunt does estimate if you want to spend about $71,000 in retirement after tax (assuming you have some pension income) you should probably be shooting for a nest egg worth between $1.1 million and $1.35 million.

Got a family cottage or other property you wish to transfer to your family?  Better think twice and Mark explains why in this book when it comes to fair market values and figuring about what can be a messy adjusted cost base puzzle.

Summary

Although Let’s Get Blunt has few graphs, charts and illustrations to further engage you this book does what it says it will, help you face the blunt realities about your financial affairs when it comes to many tax-related issues. Canadians interested in learning more about the tax complications of their actions would do well to pick up a copy of Mark’s book and keep it as part of their personal finance library.

Now, time for more free stuff from me, thanks to Mark Goodfield of course.  Enter the giveaway below and I’ll raffle off two lucky winners who will receive a copy of Let’s Get Blunt About Your Financial Affairs.  As always I’ll contact the winners via email.  Good luck!  Thanks for reading friends.

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