After spending likely 15 – 30 years focused on building an investment portfolio, it can be quite a challenge to switch gears when it comes time to withdrawing income from a retirement portfolio. This change leads to new ways of looking at investing as well as re-assessing habits that have been honed over decades.

Many retirees looking to generate income from investment assets often think that they can make withdrawals from their investment portfolio while also continuing to grow the assets over time. This is generally a tough goal to achieve.

If retirement money is mostly held in registered funds (RRSPs and LIRAs)...

There is a legend about a successful financial advisor in Warren Buffett’s stomping grounds of Omaha, Nebraska. It is reported that this advisor has learned the art of communicating the basics of wealth building with the local farmers. The advisor, who we will call Fred Smith, greets clients in his office with a window behind his desk that overlooks fields of blowing wheat and corn.

Many clients look at him skeptically when he explains the simple power of investing for the long-term and multiplying their savings into large amounts of money from their modest savings. They often blink at him with glazed over eyes and ask: ’How can this be?’.

To demonstrate his point about the magic of compound growth by owning a share of the growing profits over time of a group of world class equities...

Almost everyone agrees that it’s a good idea to have a will. However, it is estimated that about half of Canadians do not have one, and it is likely that many wills are out of date, perhaps even invalid.

Not having a will can make the sorting out of your estate unnecessarily expensive, complicated and time consuming. When having your will prepared, one of the most important decisions you will make is who you would like as executor.

An executor’s responsibilities include finding out what your assets are, where your assets are and what your assets are worth; protecting your assets; paying outstanding debts; preparing your final tax returns; and, making distributions to your beneficiaries. It’s important to choose the right person to take care of this often demanding task.