Weekend Reading – Richest people in the world edition

Weekend Reading – Richest people in the world edition

Welcome to a new Weekend Reading edition folks: highlighting the richest people in the world edition.

You can find some other popular recent reads below:

How much money do you need to retire at age 55, with 3.5% inflation?

How can you retire when time is no longer your friend – starting late?

With inflation running higher, should you consider an All-Weather Portfolio? What is that anyhow?

Here are some of our financial goals leading us towards semi-retirement in a few years.

Enjoy your weekend and Weekend Reading!

Mark

Weekend Reading – Richest people in the world edition

Wow.

Pretty cool infographic over at Visual Capitalist highlighting the richest people in the world. 

The Richest People in the World in 2022

These billionnaires don’t need to worry about inflation – but we do. 

And BlackRock President Rob Kapito has a warning for us when it comes to higher inflation:

“For the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want,” Kapito said, according to Bloomberg News. 

From the article I read:

“The economy is reckoning with what he dubbed “scarcity inflation,” or the fallout from a shortage of workers, agricultural supplies and housing, and of oil in some regions.”

Which means….

“I would put on your seat belts because this is something that we haven’t seen,” Kapito said.

Humm…

Interesting times.

Times that are about to get more interesting for those that have lots of debt on the books too.

From The Globe and Mail: it’s straight up for mortgage rates (subscription).

With thanks to Scott Barlow:

“After a clear hawkish shift within the halls of the Bank of Canada (and the Fed), 50-bp rate hikes now likely in the immediate future, and longer-term bond yields rising sharply in recent weeks, it’s straight up for mortgage rates. In Canada, five-year fixed rates have already pushed toward 3.5%; variable rates should be north of the 3% mark by mid-summer. And, don’t forget that U.S. mortgage rates have already jumped about 120 bps since the turn of the year. For Canadian home prices, which were priced off low-1% mortgage rates (first fixed, then variable as buyers shifted to the latter), this will be a stern test…”

“BMO: Mortgage rates start their climb” – (research excerpt) Twitter

As part our financial goals linked above, I’m happy to report we’re almost debt-free and could be debt-free rather easily if we wanted to today. Instead, we’re slowly paying down our mortgage at a rate of 1.67% – while we invest in our TFSAs, RRSPs and taxable account – a mortgage that should be dead less than 2.5 years. 

What do you make of these inflationary times? Got a plan? Know what to invest in?

A reminder to check out this post for ideas. How to invest for higher inflation. 

Reader question of the week (adapted for the site just a bit):

Mark, 

You keep writing about deferring CPP and OAS but what if you need the money? Also, any tips about making your money last longer or investing in certain sectors?

Thanks for your insights!

Thanks for your questions. 

When to take CPP and/or OAS are big financial decisions. I believe there are many reasons to delay CPP to age 70, or even take CPP at the standard age of 65. The decision about when you take CPP can be related to one or more of the following:

• Your desired or needed income stream. I mean, if you need the money, then take it. 
• Whether you plan on working while receiving your CPP.
• How much you have contributed and what your income benefits might be.
• The sum of your personal savings, investments or company pension plan (in addition to CPP income).
• Your current health, family health history or any disabilities.
• Other income streams in retirement such as business investments, winding down a corporation, rental income, etc.

Here are some articles on my site and other sites, related to those subjects:

When to take your CPP benefit.

When is the best time to take CPP?

When it comes to tips about making your money last longer or investing in certain sectors, I have a number of ideas but I will be concise below.

1. Be frugal. Retirement income planning doesn’t have to be about moving money around or managing a shell game associated with drawdown orders. One good way is to live more frugally. Consider spending money on things you value and avoid consumerism on things that don’t.
2. Let compounding work. Yes, you might not want to dely semi-retirement or retirement but it could be a great idea to let RRSP assets compound away tax-deferred and TFSA assets multiply tax-free as long as possible. In fact, although I love maxing out the TFSA over the RRSP almost any day – RRSPs are a great way for investors to cut their tax bills and help deliver future retirement income. As you get older, you can consider converting your RRSP to a RRIF in the year you turn age 71 to ensure you have an income stream in your 70s and tax advantage of tax savings via income splitting. 
3. Be more stock and dividend heavy in your portfolio. I can appreciate the stock market might seem like a rollercoaster ride for many most days, but over time, it usually trends in one direction. Also be mindful that investing in companies that pay dividends can both calm your investing nerves and fatten your portfolio. In particular, consider Beat the TSX stocks. I keep that list updated on that page. 

Source: RBC. Yes, dividends matter!

Those are my quick suggestions among many others! Thanks for your readership.

More Weekend Reading…

I’ll be posting my latest dividend income update next week but here are a few that caught my dividend eye recently:

Kudos over at Mr. Tako Escapes pocketing a tidy $1,100+ in an “off month”.

“January was also a pretty quiet month for dividend income.  Dividend income for the month totaled $1,189.  Nothing too crazy, but I’m happy to pocket another $1k of passive income, even during an ‘off’ month.”

Rommel at My Prudent Life announced his March 2022 dividend income update.

“The month of March has provided us $871.20 of passive income in our TFSA accounts alone. This has shown a 20.21% YOY growth compared to same period March 2021.”

Incredible work by Dividend Daddy!

“This means that in February:

• I earned $74.91 every day from dividends ($2,097.49 / 28 days).
• I earned $13.11 per hour from dividends (assuming a 9-5pm job)
• I earned $3.12 every hour of every day of the month from dividends.”

Love it. 

In other interesting reads:

Tawcan shared some of his investing lessons learned.

Robb Engen highlighted a few considerations for buying a home for your adult child.

I must say, the fact that some parents are helping their adult children buy houses with hundreds of thousands of dollars is more than bizarre (and entitled) to me but different times I guess. 

A shoutout to Dale Roberts on his final making sense of the markets column at MoneySense. This tweet from me pretty much sums up how I feel about that. Well done Dale and best wishes on any future work!

 

Jon Chevreau recently looked at CDRs, or Canadian Depositary Receipts. You can find the full column by clicking on the highlighted text: CDRs versus U.S. Blue-chip stocks: which makes more sense for Canadian investors?

A reminder you can follow me on the Twitter machine here.

RRSP vs. TFSA and vice-versa

On Cashflows & Portfolios, we offered some takes on this debate you won’t find anywhere else:

TFSA vs. RRSP – Why the TFSA wins

AND…

When the RRSP actually beats the TFSA

Have a great weekend!

Mark