Jonathan Chevreau

Jan 27: Best from the blogosphere

January 27, 2014

By Sheryl Smolkin

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RRSP season is in full swing and since the beginning of the year, we have been bombarded with a media blitz suggesting few Canadians are saving enough and exhorting us to maximize contributions to our retirement savings plans by the end of February.

If you wonder what all this retirement planning is for, anyway, take a look at Sandi Martin’s blog or boomer & echo. She says planning for that inevitable day when you stop collecting a paycheque, or invoicing clients, or collecting ad revenue is an exercise that will let you spend more money than vaguely worrying about “saving enough” or “running out” will.

In order to save enough to retire worry-free, you need to figure out how much you will need. On the Canadian Finance blog Tom Drake suggests that for every dollar of annual income you need in retirement you should plan to have $20 in savings. That doesn’t include the value of your home because it is not earning income.

You can save in many different kinds of accounts including the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, employer-sponsored pension plans and RRSPs. But Jonathan Chevreau at MoneySense says investing in a tax-free savings account (TFSA) should be a priority for most Canadians. In fact he says the moment you make your January contribution, you should start accruing for the next year’s installment, even if it means parking in short-term cash vehicles and paying a little tax for the balance of the calendar year.

Brighter Life discusses how you can pay yourself from your retirement savings when you retire. Some of the options are annuities, registered retirement income funds, and payments from several kinds of locked-in accounts holding funds transferred from locked-in company pension plans.

And Jim Yih on retirehappy.ca reminds us that one area of tax planning that does not receive enough attention is the designation of beneficiaries when it comes to Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) and Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs).

When you open up an RRSP or RRIF, you are opening up a special contract under the Income Tax Act, which allows you to designate one or more beneficiaries. Far too often, this is done too casually and without enough thought. More importantly, as your circumstances change, like marriage, divorce or children, you should consider reviewing your beneficiaries to make sure you have the right people designated.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere. Share the information with us on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.


Dec 23: Best from the blogosphere

December 23, 2013

By Sheryl Smolkin

Wreath

As the year draws to a close, I am pleased to join brighterlife.ca in celebrating some of the best Canadian retirement writers in 2013. I thank them for including me on the list.

Week after week we link to these and other fine bloggers who freely share their time and considerable insight with us. To get to know some of these people a little better in 2014 savewithspp.com will present a series of podcast interviews with prominent personal finance bloggers.

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Retire Happy. Follow financial expert, author and speaker Jim Yih on Twitter: @jimyih

MoneySense. Follow MoneySense Magazine editor Jonathan Chevreau: @JonChevreau

Boomer and Echo. Follow mother-and-son financial writers Marie and Robb Engen: @BoomerandEcho

Sheryl Smolkin. Follow this lawyer and financial journalist: @SherylSmolkin

Unretired Life. Follow coach, consultant, speaker and author Eileen Chadnick: @unretiredlife

I’m a sonic boomer… not a senior. Royce Shook writes about issues important to Boomers, grandparents and others, who are changing what retirement looks like.

Canadian Dream Free at 45. Follow engineer and financial writer Tim Stobbs on his journey to early retirement: @canadiandream

Everything Zoomer. Follow executive editor and travel writer Vivian Vassos (@vivianvassos) and associate editor and arts and culture writer Mike Crisolago (@MikeCrisolago)

Grey Routes and Tips. Follow travel-for-grownups writer Jane Canapini: @janecanapini

Best from the Blogosphere will be taking a three week break, but I look forward to bringing you more great retirement and money saving ideas beginning again in mid-January.

Have a happy, healthy holiday season with friends and family.

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What to do on your staycation

August 1, 2013

By Sheryl Smolkin

SHUTTERSTOCK
SHUTTERSTOCK

I am convinced that there are two kinds of people in this world. The first group includes workaholics who never use up all of their paid vacation days. The second group carefully plans how each vacation day will be used and yearns for more.

This dichotomy was recently illustrated in the results of the 2013 Expedia.ca Vacation Deprivation Survey which revealed that employed Canadians forfeit an average of two days of vacation per year which could be used to relax or travel. This amounts to 32 million untaken days and $5.1 billion in wages handed back to employers.

Yet many Canadians show a strong desire to take time off, with one in five employed Canadians saying they would take a lower salary for more vacation time (22 per cent). Also, “an extra vacation day” tops the list of perks employees would like to receive as a reward for company loyalty.

In many organizations vacation days cannot be carried over to the next year, so it’s “use it or lose it.” But even if you can’t afford to take expensive trips to exotic locations, there are plenty of good options for taking a staycation close to home.

Wikipedia describes a staycation as “a period in which you or your family stays home and participates in leisure activities within driving distance, sleeping in your own beds at night.” You might make day trips to local tourist sites, swimming venues or engage in activities such as horseback riding, paintball or visiting museums.

The benefits of staycations are that they are far less costly than a vacation involving travel. There are no lodging costs and travel expenses are minimal. However, to make it feel like a vacation, budget for local trips, one or two meals out and tickets to local attractions.

Since 2011 the Government of Saskatchewan has funded the “Saskatchewanderer” project. One creative, energetic and motivated student has been hired each summer to discover everything that makes Saskatchewan great. Their job was to visit, video and blog about special events, little known gems and remote locations in the province.

You can learn from their experience. Andrew’s 2011 Adventure, Jeff’s 2012 Adventure and Caitlin’s 2013 Adventure include lots of terrific ideas about things to do on your staycation regardless of what part of the province you live in. Also check out the The Saskatchewanderer on Facebook.

Already this summer, a few of the places and events Caitlin has visited include Regina’s 46th Annual Mosaic: A Festival of Cultures; the PotashCorp Children’s Festival in Saskatoon; Grasslands National Park; and Hudson Bay, SK.

In contrast, Jonathan Chevreau, the editor of Moneysense and author of Findependence Day has a different take on staycations. In a blog posted on June 17th, he says one type of staycation is where you continue to work, but on your own projects rather than for your employer. You can also tackle various chores or home improvement projects.

If you still have a day job but have reached the point where you have several weeks of paid vacation a year, Chevreau says you may find a working staycation is an excellent trial run for retirement. He wrote the first edition of Findependence Day in the summer of 2008 during paid vacation weeks from his newspaper staff columnist job.

Whether you decide to travel on your vacation or spend the time working on pet projects closer to home, don’t forfeit paid vacation days. In years to come, no one will have fond memories of the extra time you put in at the office. But your children and your grandchildren will remember your quality time together, even if you went no further than the pup tent pitched in the front yard.

Do you have tips for people planning staycations? Share your tips with us at http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And remember to put a dollar in the retirement savings jar every time you use one of our money-saving ideas.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

8-Aug Garage sales How to make money on your garage sale
15-Aug Back to school Back to school shopping: A teachable moment
22-Aug College/University Stay at home or go away to school?

Jan 21: Best from the blogosphere

January 21, 2013

By Sheryl Smolkin

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This week’s best blogs are a mixed bag.

If you have a give-away pile accumulating in your basement or garage, Marc Saltzman says you may be throwing away items that could be be sold on Kijiji or Craigslist.

Ellen Roseman reports on how ignoring a 3-cent balance affected a reader’s credit rating so she couldn’t get the mortgage she needed for her new house.

On Boomer and Echo, we learn the true cost of tapping into your RRSP nest egg early.

Jim Yih concludes Freedom 35 is possible but not likely unless you have sufficient passive income to support your lifestyle.

And if you are thinking about giving up on savings altogether, MoneySense editor Jonathan Chevreau says you may also be giving up the chance for financial independence while you’re still young enough to enjoy it.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?”  Send us an email with the information to so*********@sa*********.com and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.


Talking to Jonathan Chevreau

August 2, 2012

Jonathan Chevreau podcast

Hi, my name is Sheryl Smolkin. I’m a lawyer and a journalist. Today I’m pleased to be continuing the Saskatchewan Pension Plan’s series of financial expert interviews with Jonathan Chevreau.

Jonathan was the personal finance columnist for the Financial Post from 1996-1998 and then for the National Post since its launch in 1998 until this year. He has recently been named Editor of MoneySense magazine.

Although he has authored or co-authored seven non-fictional financial books, his most recent work is “a novel about one couple’s turbulent journey to financial independence” called “Findependence Day.” And that’s what we are going to talk about today.

Welcome Jonathan.

Q. Is the expression “Findependence Day” a Chevreau original or has it been used before by others?

A. I would say it is a Chevreau original although at one point there was an unrelated film called Findependence Day. I just looked at the American Independence Day, played around with financial independence and came up with “Findependence Day.” The title came first, and then I thought I should write a book to go with it.

Q. You are known as a financial writer who writes serious articles and books about complex financial matters. What made you decide to write a novel?

A. I think like a lot of journalists there was always a secret closet novelist lurking because it seems like a more creative, long-term project than bashing out daily columns. Then there is always the example of David Chilton’s The Wealthy Barber.

Q. Although Findependence Day is clearly fiction, some of your characters and concepts seemed very familiar to me, so I have to ask you:

  • Is Didi Quinlan of the television program Debt March based on Gail Vaz- Oxlade’s show ‘Til debt do us part?

Well like most fictional characters it’s a composite, I would say she’s was certainly one of three or four people, keeping in mind the book was also written for the US market. We have a lot of financial reality TV shows now. When I talk to American journalists they’re convinced I am talking about Suze Orman. But I would say that Gail is probably the single closest model.

  • Were you thinking of Stewart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe when you created “The Vinyl Cave?”

Actually, that was based on Kate Dunn’s Vinyl Museum around the turn of the century. Then Peter Dunn had two Vinyl Museum stores in Toronto – one was close to where I lived on the Lakeshore.

  • Did you draw on Finance Professor Moishe Milevsky’s characterization of people as either “stocks” or bonds” as discussed by the financial advisor Theo in the book?

I think I actually did credit Moshie’s book in the fine print or in “Theo’s library”at the end of the book.

Q.  In the opening chapter, television host Didi Quinlan tells the young couple Jamie and Sheena Morelli that she is going to drill two words into their skulls: guerilla frugality. Is this phrase also a Chevreau original and what does it mean?

A. Yes it is original. I came up with that expression in a column long before I wrote the book. To me it’s like guerrilla warfare. In order to save and invest you have to first get out of debt, and then you have to continue to be frugal in order to build wealth. What I mean by the term is “guerrilla warfare on the economic consumption front.”

Q. Another thing Theo, the financial planner in the book advocates is developing different streams of income on the road to financial independence. Does that mean moonlighting or working at more than one job? Is that practical for hard-working, busy parents?

A. Ideally you can always give yourself a raise. You can get a raise from your boss or change jobs and earn a higher amount. You can aIso take on extra work to earn another $10,000 or more on nights and weekends but this may be stressful and perhaps not the optimum approach if you have a young family.

Ultimately as you know anybody who is a retiree probably does have multiple streams of income – two or three pensions, government benefits and private savings in a RRIF. But when we’re in the wealth accumulation phase, if both partners are employed we tend to be dependent on one or two different sources of income.

You have to go from one or two salaries to these multiple sources of income when you become financially independent and ultimately when you are in full stop retirement.

Q. If you could identify one or two key messages in the book for people striving to achieve financial independence, what would they be?

A. If your goal is financial independence or findependence, the means is guerilla frugality. The two go together. So be frugal first to get rid of your debt and second to build wealth. These are the key takeaways in order to achieve what I call Findependence day.

Q.Have you reached your Findependence day, and if not what is the magic number?

A. I used to put anywhere from 57-64 on my blog, the Wealthy Boomer. Right now I’ve joined MoneySense magazine at 59 years old. I guess my partner and I have achieved financial independence of sorts, but we want to achieve a higher level. I am at the stage of working now because I want to, not because I have to. And as you know everything gets better the longer you wait.

I enjoy what I do and I don’t find there’s a big distinction between what I do evenings and weekends and what I do during the day. I’m up reading all this stuff on twitter and social media and I might as well get paid for it as long as I enjoy it and I’m healthy. The thing is, at some point, I may not have a willing client, or a willing employer even if I want to work to 70 or 75. At some point we all must have financial independence because our body or our minds won’t permit us to earn the single employment stream that most people rely on.

Thanks Jonathan. It was a pleasure to talk to you today. I read your book cover to cover and learned a great deal. I actually joined the SPP to get “another stream of income” although I have an employer-sponsored pension plan. If they haven’t already done so, I’m sure many SPP members will be interested in ordering the book from your website.

It was a pleasure Sheryl. There’s actually a question and answer about the Saskatchewan Pension Plan in the June issue of MoneySense.