Weekend Reading – The one more year edition

Weekend Reading – The one more year edition

Welcome to some new Weekend Reading the one more year edition. 

You can check out other recent editions below:

I shared my Financial Independence update here and I also answered a reader question about how to invest a large sum of money.

This post included some dividend mentors and I recently posted my own monthly dividend income update. 

One more year…

I’ve been doing some thinking, lots of thinking this year, and it appears other bloggers and investors I know have done the same. That includes thinking about overcoming this one more year syndrome as you approach retirement.

I think some of the easiest ways to overcome this one more year mindset is to reflect on a few things in particular:

1. Death is very final. Time has a way of flying by and I can’t believe I’m in my late-40s now. I want to slow down a bit in the coming decde. I will do this to avoid missing out on many of life’s valuable but also simple moments.
2. Figure out your “enough” number. I have mine. I’ve been targeting a few financial milestones for almost 15 years now. I’m getting very close to a few of those goals now. I believe once you set some goals, and as you work towards them by monitoring them, you should avoid this syndrome.
3. Consider retiring to something versus running away from something. Don’t like your current job? Change it. Need a more fulfilling life? Change that too. I have some plans to work part-time in a few years and with less than three (3) years to go in our journey, give or take a few months, I’m mentally preparing myself now for the leap.
4. Avoid defining yourself by your career or job. I know some people continue to work well into their 60s and 70s because they love what they do. That’s awesome. For many of us however, our careers may or may not allow us to do that. I know when it comes to my plans, I would be more than happy to scale back a bit with my current employer if the role was right but that may or may not be an option.
5. Test out living off less money. We hope to do this in 2022 a bit, as a trial – see exactly our spend rate for a few months just to see if #2 above is correct. We’ll test out how we feel about that spending as well which is just as important. 

Interestingly enough, 700+ folks voted on a recent Twitter poll what their “enough” number was:

Having some money is nice and largely necessary for retirement of course but having some money and lots of time is much better.

What do you make of the one more year syndrome? Are you thinking about it? Faced it? Moved past it?

Enjoy the rest of these Weekend Reading articles!

Mark

Weekend Reading

Matt Poyner from Dividend Strategy was on the same wavelength this week – he also wrote about the one more year syndrome and raised some other points that I didn’t. 

How much is enough for retirement anyhow? We have our financial independence plan here.

Great reading on Cut The Crap Investing from Dale Roberts this week, including this update on his own portfolio:

“Here’s the total returns for our market-beating U.S. stock portfolio. Quality came through on the dividend growth and total return fronts. It is a very simple approach, and takes almost no time to manage the portfolio. I also have three stock picks in the mix that have greatly contributed to the returns. Mostly thanks to Apple and BlackRock.

A reminder I have a huge discount off The Grumpy Accountant thanks to the author! You can find my personal promo code and recent interview with Neal Winokur in this post.

Here are some great year-end tax season tips over at Cashflows & Portfolios. 

Tawcan reviewed National Bank’s brokerage.

Tom Drake included some great renewable energy stocks to own.

Dividend Growth Investor reminded investors to Just Do It – get invested and stay invested.

“Investing is simple, but not easy. We all know that we should own great quality companies, which offer great products and services that consumer like. We also know to diversify, not trade too much, and keep investment expenses low. However, we also know that we should not overpay for quality companies as well. In addition, we know that we should not time the markets.

The fascinating part for me is that a lot of investors I speak to seem to agree with the last two statements. They know that we should not time the markets. They also know that we should not overpay for quality companies. While many investors seem to understand the theory, real world application is quite often the tough part.”

I always enjoy the 5 articles from 5i Research – some great reads found there. 

A good letter below by Canadian investor advocate Ken Kivenko (who I had on my site a few times, here).

Ken’s letter re-published with permission to the Honourable Peter Bethlenfalvy Ontario Minister of Finance;  another plea to ban DSC funds and any terrible segregated funds:

This is a great time to remind you to avoid any financial advisors or planners supporting these products. 

Always great to read the MoneySense edition about trying to make sense of the markets.

More FREE content

How I invest in dividend paying stocks is always found here. 

Looking for free calculators, tools, or even my support to help you draw down your portfolio in a tax efficient way? Check out my Helpful Sites page and hire me on the cheap here!

This is how you can invest in many low-cost ETFs here. Ditch your advisor – keep your money!

My Retirement page is filled with many successful retirement case studies – folks that have been there and done that! Learn from them for free. Here is just one example from that page: 

Mike and Julie want to spend $50,000 per year in retirement starting in their 50s. How much do they need?

Save, Invest, Prosper!

As always, check out my Deals page.

Have a great weekend!

Mark