Posts by Sandi Martin
What’s All This Retirement Planning For, Anyway?
Imagine a world of total certainty – you know when you’ll die, how many times your car will crap out on you, what the markets will do, and if your third kid will need braces. In that world. figuring out exactly how much money you’ll need to save so that you can stop working entirely…
Read MoreNecessity Tetris: Retirement Income Edition
Let’s play a game of Necessity Tetris (Retirement Income Edition). Your screen is the amount of monthly income you’d like to have in retirement, and the tetrominos (yes, I looked it up) are the various sources of income you’re counting on to appear as a result of your hard work, diligent saving, employee benefits, and…
Read MoreBreaking Up Isn’t Hard To Do: Transferring Your RRSP
You’ve switched banks. You’ve moved. You want to start do-it-yourselfing in a discount brokerage account. Whatever the reason, you need to know how to transfer your RRSP, TFSA, or RESP money from one institution to another (or sometimes, from one part of an institution to another), and you want to make sure that it stays…
Read MoreBuckets and Glidepaths: What to Do With Your Money After Retirement
Do you ever feel like you spend most of your life saving and saving and saving for retirement (or financial independence), worrying about how much you should have invested in stocks or bonds or mutual funds or GICs, and if it’s enough, but that what you do with your money after you reach that magical…
Read MoreAn Easy Way To Estimate Your CPP Benefits
Raise your hand if you’ve spent any time thinking about what kind of money you’re likely to get from the government when you retire. Now raise your hand if you don’t really know how much money that will be, or how to figure it out. …twenty-seven…twenty-eight…twenty-nine…almost everyone, then. How To Estimate Your CPP Benefits A…
Read MoreLifetime Pension Vs. Commuted Value
Can I tell you a story? It’s a true one, and – unfortunately – it’s happened more than once. Way more than once. It may even be your story. Here goes: Sam is leaving his job, and with it his defined benefit plan. He gets a small sheaf of paper from his company, asking him…
Read MoreIntroducing Sandi Martin (A Fee Only Financial Planner)
Ahem. Hi. (Is this thing on?) I’m Sandi. I’m thirty-four, married, with three kids, a house, and no pets. I drive a minivan. I like Dr. Who, Terry Pratchett, and butter. Lots of butter. I live in the very small town of Gravenhurst, Ontario, where I operate Spring Personal Finance, a fee only financial planning…
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