Weekend Reading – Big money goals, Your Ever Growing Income, minimize your tax and more #moneystuff

Weekend Reading – Big money goals, Your Ever Growing Income, minimize your tax and more #moneystuff

Hey folks!

Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition where I share some of my favourite articles from the week that was across the personal finance and investing blogosphere.

I got around to posting two articles this week:

I interviewed this millennial who has struggled to enter the housing market.  It was very interesting to hear his take on this subject including the financial sacrifices he continues to make.

I shared the progress, in some cases rather meager though, on our 2019 financial goals here. The bright spot in our progress report is demonstrating how saving just $5 per day is likely going to pay for a new flight for our next international trip.  You can do the same!

A reminder I have this popular giveaway running on my site for the next week or so:  win a copy of Your Ever Growing Income by contributor to this site and CMA, Henry Mah.  Here are some selected comments on this post and about the investing approach that Henry suggests you consider for your own ever growing income:

 “Having a strategy that gets one from point A to their destination is sufficient and there can be several strategies that accomplish that goal.”

“There is no one strategy, the best or successful one, but I believe that there is simpler approach than watching price and trying to match or beat the market. I say ignore the market!”

“I also agree that “our” (yours & mine & others) approach is very simple and has very, very little stress. We also have an increasing portfolio value and are up 45% since I retired in mid-2013. (not that it really matters other than knowing the capital should be save and we will most likely never run out of money).”

Enjoy your Easter weekend with family and friends and see you here next week.

Mark

Other articles:

Robin Taub with Ed Rempel shared how to minimize taxes in retirement. From the article, some great points to consider:

• “You can’t decide whether you have money in a TFSA, RSP or non-registered account when you’re 64. You have to decide that way earlier.”
• “Interest is fully taxed, while dividends are taxed at a more favourable rates, and only half of capital gains are subject to tax.” That means you need to put your assets in the right location.  Here is an article on that on my site about my asset location.

Always interesting to read about 60-something couples that are not sure if they can retire and/or are very worried they would outlive their money.  It certainly makes me think they do not have a good financial plan.  This couple has $1.6 M in invested assets but are worried they cannot retire comfortably on spending $8,000 after taxes per month.  In my opinion they have absolutely nothing to worry about.  Go live your life already!!

Apparently some college/university-aged kids are living like kings and queens in Vancouver – pooling together money as a group of 14 renters now occupying would-be vacant multi-million dollar mansions.  Suffice to say I certainly never lived like that as a University of Ottawa student 25 years ago!

Some smart stuff on Retire Happy recently about ensuring your behavioural biases don’t get in the way of investing success. From the article, key points:

• Avoid heuristics or in plain language avoid mental shortcuts – discover the power behind asking “why”, often.
• Avoid home-bias from your portfolio. Recall Canada only makes up about 3-4% of the global economy.
• Overconfidence can lead to thinking you can fortune tell the future!
• Loss aversion can cause investors to hold on to losing assets, too long, in hopes of a recovery that may or may not occur.

Gen Y Money suggests to keep it simple when it comes to capital gains.

Save, Invest, Prosper!

Thanks to my passion for personal finance and investing, some great companies want to offer deals. As always, never an obligation…

Make sure you look at the top of my Deals page to take advantage of any new promo codes since you can get hundreds if not thousands in cash back when you invest!

Happy investing!