Weekend Reading – Financial checklists, dividends, rate cuts and more

Welcome to your Weekend Reading folks! This week I surprised myself and managed to publish more articles than usual, here is what made news:

It’s impossible to predict the future but our financial plan has to start somewhere. Here are some income needs and wants in retirement.

I wrote “Good Luck” to financial experts and their 2015 market predictions.

Although I’m indexing more this year I answered some reader email questions about how to invest in dividend paying stocks and some things to consider to get started.

Enjoy these articles and video links this weekend friends. See you here again next week.

Justin Bender and Shannon Dalziel from PWL Capital discussed seven things for your financial checklist.

In dividend stock news, Canadian National Railway Co. boosted its dividend by 25% as fourth-quarter profit rose by almost a third. Then you have Canadian Oil Sands who cut their dividend, again, down to $0.05 per share.  Rogers boosted their dividend to $0.48 per share. You take the good with the bad when it comes to individual stocks!

I watched Peter Hodson’s YouTube video on dividends here. He said they rule. I like them too Peter.

The Dividend Guy compared dividend stocks:  Enbridge versus TransCanada.

BrighterLife wondered how the Bank of Canada’s recent rate cut may change consumer habits. It won’t change our approach:  save, invest, kill debt and then have some fun.

Canadian Mortgage Trends shared some news on the recent rate cut. Here is a nugget I found interesting: “Markets are now pricing in a 61% chance of another rate cut in March. (Source: Bloomberg)”

Michael James on Money re-opened the safe withdrawal rate for retirement. I’m aligned with Michael favouring a 3% withdrawal rate and we’re aspiring for this in another 15 years.

Here are some pros and cons regarding how to acquire life insurance.

This Globe and Mail article profiled David Chilton, wealthy barber turned wealthy dragon.  I’m a big Chilton fan.

Canada’s top mortgage experts share their best mortgage tips.

Million Dollar Journey told us about a smiling saver digging out of debt.

Financial pro Mark Goodfield was in this video with Rob Carrick, talking about the “in case I die file” and more here.  Informative and critical stuff.

My name is Mark Seed - the founder, editor and owner of My Own Advisor. As my own DIY financial advisor, I'm looking to start semi-retirement soon, sooner than most. Find out how, what I did, and what you can learn to tailor your own financial independence path. Join the newsletter read by thousands each day, always FREE.

17 Responses to "Weekend Reading – Financial checklists, dividends, rate cuts and more"

  1. David Chilton is such a nice guy. It ticks me off how a lot of people dismiss him on Dragon’s Den. It seems without Kevin O’Leary and Bruce, David is getting a lot more respect this season and rightfully so. David seems like someone who would work hands on with you and help you succeed. I’m sure Kevin would just get one of his assistants to help you. You probably would never see him again after Dragon’s Den.

    Reply
  2. I have based my financial independence projections of using the safe withdrawal rate of 3% as a worst case scenario. Hopefully I will be able to cover my retirement expenses with dividend income to leave my principle asset base untouched.

    Thanks for sharing this collection of articles,

    Mr. Captain Cash

    Reply
    1. That’s very good, 3%. I’m aligned with Michael James’ thinking on this…3% is good, and worse case, you scale back your spending to keep your 3% withdrawal rate intact. This means for us we are basically planning to spend the dividends and/or distributions from our portfolio and not really touching very much capital. We figure we need about $1 to $2M to retire on “comfortably” and zero, zilch, nada debt.

      Reply
  3. I read that life insurance article over at insureeye. It was….weird. Looks like one of those ‘I did my research on the internet’ types of articles. It certainly wasn’t written by someone with direct experience in the life insurance industry.

    Just be cautious of believing what you read about this stuff online.

    Reply
    1. I don’t believe everything online Glenn, I’ve learned from you to challenge your assumptions. In that list I read, I would only deal with an insurance broker going forward myself. I did so in the past and like my mortgage broker I would do it again. I have not used “Captive Agents” or banks myself. I think the article was not written by an insurance expert, it didn’t seem that way but I could be wrong.

      Thanks for your comment as always.

      Reply
  4. Wow… weekend again? The weeks just fly by. Enjoyed watching some of those ‘dividends rule’ videos as well as your article about the financial guru predictions. I guess it’s just human nature to want to predict the future even though we are all so bad at it. Thanks for sharing and have a great weekend.

    Reply
    1. Some of the dividend predictions aren’t too difficult. Companies either have cash flow for dividends or they don’t. See COS as an example of late. It will come back. Investors will need to be very patient.

      As for the market predictions, well, I wish them luck 🙂 Thanks for reading.

      Reply

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