Your Money or Your Life Book Giveaway
It’s not about being frugal or being right. It’s not about spending money on certain things and not spending money on anything. It’s about spending money on things that are aligned with your values – so you can have the time to spend on things and with people for which money cannot buy. These are the basic tenants of Your Money or Your Life – a book I reviewed on my site earlier on my site here.
To help you with your personal finance cartography in 2018, I’m giving away one (1) copy of Your Money or Your Life to one lucky reader in the coming week – so you can ramp-up your financial plan just in time for the New Year.
Our goals
With sufficient savings to master, along with some sort of part-time work, it is our hope to achieve a modest level of financial independence within the coming 5-10 years. We’re certainly ‘not there’ yet but on our way.
In the coming years we’re optimistic if we can keep a modest savings rate for investing purposes, we’ll reach a crossover point whereby a good portion of our fixed monthly expenses could be paid for by our monthly investment income.
2018 is approaching fast and we’ve got some big decisions to make.
Your goals
I’d be curious to know what plans you have for 2018. Have you started to think about those yet? Do share in a comment.
Giveaway
Whatever you have planned – what we do with our money and our lives is personal and the same applies to you. I hope winning a copy of Your Money or Your Life Book will help you out.
What did you think of this book? What plans do you have for 2018?
Stay tuned to my blog for more book reviews and giveaways next year.
My main goal in 2018 is to ramp up the downpayment fund for our future house hopefully by end of 2018 or early 2019. I’ve already bumped up my RRSP contributions relating to my pay raise so I’m set there.
I’m totally stumped on what plans I have for 2018. I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants person. I guess I plan for one of my stocks to go up another $20 and then I’ll sell it and go to Hawaii for a week.
My goal for 2018 is attempt to continue our savings rate and increase our net worth while starting a new chapter in life. We are expecting our first child, my wife has already finished work and is hoping to return to school in September and I will be taking 9 months of Pat leave at a reduced income level. This will be the first time I am not working or in school for longer than 3 weeks in about 16 years, hopefully I can handle it haha. Maybe our decline in travel this year will offset the extra expenses.
Save and Invest regularly
Nice to see so many women commenting — that means they’re reading your blog and empowering themselves.
My goals for 2018 include staying the course with my current retirement saving rate, and reviewing my budget to see if I can increase savings a little. Thanks for the giveaway!
2018 is the year to be consistent with my IPS. This is quite a challenge for me as I sometimes get distracted by “market noise” and start tinkering my investments. Simple is never easy.
It is often to easy to focus too much on saving or spending and not on how to properly balance these with life goals.
My plan is to continue to save 17% of my regular pay and 30% of my overtime. Plus, keep money aside for all of my expenses and contingencies and remain debt-free.
First 6 months of 2018 – I plan to stay the course with our investments. Will re-balance in June / July and cut back on the pot holdings if they have doubled – again. Will increase our cash position and perhaps pick up some utilities – if on sale.
To make the jump into safely investing… bit nervous.
Open a low fee TFSA account with 2018 top up funds. Currently use a high commission broker for trades. Likely invest in index (vanguard emerging) at Questrade
I read “Your Money Or Your Life” years ago and it made a lot of sense at the time. I’m not sure if there’s a new edition, but I’d be interested in reading it if there is.
My goals for 2018: Move some money around. Move my cash assets, which are mainly in term deposits, into EQ Bank’s high interest savings. Move some RSP and TFSA money to a “robe-advisor” and reduce investment fees to below 1%. I’m very conservative, and this is all I can do for now. For my remaining financial assets, they’ll stay with my current financial advisor. Also in 2018 I’ll look at my finances and see if I can retire at 60. Not likely, but there could be a possibility that I could leave a job where I’m very unhappy but earning lots and move to a job that pays less but is a better fit for me.
To retire and start travelling
It’s a bold goal but by the end of 2018 I hope to be part of the 0.5% of Canadians who has maxed out both the TFSA and RRSP accounts. I’ve been able to max out the RRSP every year but put ‘off’ the TFSA investing due to other financial priorities (repayment of a six figure student debt) and other priorities. With an aggressive and realistic plan in place, maxing out both in 2018 should occur
I have lots of cash right now on hand due to having sold my old house. I will top up our rrsp, resp, tfsa accounts the first thing in January. With the market on its top and still up everyday, it is difficult to buy any equities. In the other hand, with the inflation and we are getting older and closer to retirement, it is difficult to have cash on hand that is losing its buying power without being invested.
Right now my plan is gradually buy more equities that generates income, until at least 60% of our investable assets in equities. Also, we continue to save while both of us are working with decent income. By the end of year 2018, hopefully our portfolio can generate enough dividends/interests to cover our core family expense. With few more years, hopefully the income will grow to cover all the expense. Most likely we will continue to work after that but we will have more options.
Our main, and very high priority, goal for 2018 is an update to our wills. Financially, a move to less market exposure is mostly done with some minor tweaks to follow. Establishing some family memorial trusts is in the works. Renovations and maintenance to the houses is underway and likely to continue for the year. Farming is now year to year, not much motivation for it anymore.
My goals are: 1. Increase my biweekly savings rate to 20%+, 2. Renew my mortgage favourably and make a 5K lump sum payment in April, and 3. Increase overall savings (RRSP+TFSA) by 30%+ (it’s not that high yet, but it’s something!). I am single and live in an expensive city but there are definitely parts of my budget that can be sharper to meet these goals. And not a goal but I will continue to travel but only once the funds have already been set aside on top of the above. Thanks for getting my wheels turning and inspiring me to write them down!
Plan is to start winding down to retire in couple of years..
2018 will be a year of calculations and meeting my employer’s pension specialists. Retirement is one of life’s milestones we look forward to and now that it is so close, I’m met with trepidation and anxiety. Should I pull the plug 2018 or 2019? Is it worth staying an extra 12 months for $100/month? Or can I make up that difference if I pump up the dividends? What would you do if you are just watching the clock?
My plan for 2018 is to simply stay the course with our overall plan. For the last number of years our major priorities have been: gradually increase mortgage prepayments; gradually increase RRSP and TFSA contributions; maintain an emergency fund with at least 3 months of living expenses; and maximize the government-matching grant on RESP contributions (soon to be for 2 children!). With a growing family it is increasingly challenging to meet each of these objectives, but so far we’ve stayed on track and it looks like 2018 shouldn’t be any different.
2018 will be spending alot of time with the calculator and my employer pension specialists. Should I pull the plug Dec 2018 or Dec 2019.
Is an extra $100/month worth working 12 more months? Or could I make up that difference in dividends? How much will the tax man take?
So many unknowns. I really wish I had paid more attention in math and accounting class 🙂
2018 will be a year for financial decisions – again. My last one was retirement 4 1/2 years ago. This time I need to decide whether to reduce my pension fund (you know, one of those defined contribution things) and use the extra money for needed home renos plus a bit of savings. Or do I just leave my withdrawals ‘as is’, which have been providing me with a modest pension on top of CPP and OAS. The pension pot is not large (about $200K) but I live carefully, have no real wants, and am in my 70s. However, there are things about the house that really should be done (on top of maintenance like a new roof) and the question is: do I take more pension funds and get things done sooner? The plus with this choice (aside from the obvious peace of mind with an up-to-date home) is that my pension fund will be reduced sooner and, if I die before it’s gone, I will have enjoyed it before the government gets their percentage of what is left. The obvious drawback is that I may end up with minimal income as a frail elderly person. I am building funds in a TFSA which will hopefully manage any shortfall down the line. Nevertheless, it’s something to think about before leaping into action. Does anybody know approximately what percentage the federal and provincial governments take on a LRIF balance of, say, $100,000 on my death?
One of my goals is to balance my savings for tomorrow with my spending for today. I have been working hard to pump up my savings the last decade. With the success that I have been observing, it’s time that I rebalance my portfolio and my life.
You’ve got to spend your money at some point in time. As long as it brings value to your life.
2018 is a year to simplify. As I near retirement (and getting older) I want to make sure that management of finances and plan can be done taking up less time and by myself or my wife.