Wealth
Education Planning
Parents and guardians of young children strive to give the best to their children. They encourage them to follow their dreams, reach for their highest potential and pursue what makes them happy. For many children there is some form of higher education that creates part of this journey.
Many families feel that providing a good education for their children is one of the most important gifts you can give. But it is no secret that the cost of post-secondary and further specialized education comes at quite a cost. That fact is true no matter where they choose to study. We will assist when strategizing a way to meet the required funding, even if it’s more than just the tuition. Student housing, books and supplies, travelling, commutes, meal plans and many more factors may also be in play. Stress can become a major concern for anyone who is responsible for that tuition bill; but does it have to?
In some instances, parents, grandparents and guardians make extraordinary sacrifices to make sure they have enough savings to fund a child’s education. Instead, what if you could ensure that you were financially secure to not only fulfil a child’s dream, but continue to live yours? Proper planning and incorporating the available mechanisms are not only great ways to alleviate the potential stress when tuition is due, but a fantastic way to invest in your child’s future! It’s important to consider those potential expenses carefully, and in advance.
Our team has an extensive understanding of the challenges that families face when funding education, but we also know of the tools available to help mitigate them. Knowing these tools inside and out means that we can provide an understanding of what is available, offer the proper advice and recommendations that fit for you. It allows you to feel comfortable, reduce the stress of having to do all the research yourself and just focus on living life.
A great vehicle in funding education is the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). It is one of the most common routes taken to prepare for education costs, but there are specific contributions and limitations that must also be considered to maximize the benefit to you and your child. Depending upon the Province or Territory you reside in, the government may provide grants into the account as well.
Based on your individual or family circumstances, our team will be confident in recommending a planning strategy that will meet your children’s unique education funding needs. We will help guide you through the process of selecting, establishing and managing the plan that’s right for you.
Let's set your child up for educational success!
Retirement Planning
Retirement makes up such a large part of a person’s overall life and is usually the time you wish to reap the most reward out of all the years you forged ahead and made some sacrifices along the way.
You work hard now to build a life that you are proud of and can enjoy in the present moment and for years to come. Everything you do is in hopes of pursuing a fulfilling life, with fulfilling memories to look back on, for both you and your loved ones. But as you make the most of every day, have you considered the planning needed to ensure you can continue to live this way once you no longer have working income to supplement funding those memories?
Failing to plan for life in retirement may jeopardize your goals, objectives, and your dreams. You could be left with more questions than answers that lead to financial stress and chaos, instead of life-enriching experiences and freedom. Retirement planning shouldn’t start at retirement; it should start well before.
Our focus is to understand your lifelong goals through an extremely personalized approach. No two lives look the same, so we will never assume what matters to you. Whether it’s travel, new hobbies, spending more time with the people you love, for example, we’ll help you plan for your ideal retirement. To do so in a meaningful way, you need to know where you’re starting from. We’ll help analyze where you stand today and build a process to ensure you have the potential to reach the end with the desired outcome in play.
Our goal is to create an understanding of your investments, your available income sources in retirement and the expenses that make up your day-to-day life. Knowing what your retirement lifestyle may look like helps be better equipped to handle any shortfalls that may exist.
As your life evolves and changes as you move towards retirement, so will your retirement planning process. We will help you implement an action plan each step of the way so that your transition to retirement is as seamless and stress-free as possible.
We can provide guidance on pension and government benefits; how and when to take them can impact your chances of a successful retirement. How and when to apply are just the tip to a vastly complex concept that affects you for years down the road. A long and fulfilling retirement takes multiple other facets of your financial picture into consideration as well; health care, long-term care, insurance, legacy planning, and charitable giving.
Our team is here for you when you need personalized advice that you can feel confident about. Our mission is to turn the unknowns into knowns for your peace of mind and financial longevity.
Let's plan an enriching retirement, together!
Investment Planning
Every day you engage in numerous subconscious acts of personal investment. How you spend your free time, your education, what you read, what you watch, who you interact with, are all forms of investments made in yourself and all are done in different ways, for different reasons. How you invest your time into the tasks requiring your attention, with the limited time available to fulfil those tasks, all while finding the balance to your individual needs is a necessary planning strategy for life. Much of this also occurs without really considering that it’s happening, what it means and how it may impact you.
There are however other forms of investment planning that require a more focused and alert approach, like when considering your financial investments, and it is just as important.
Most people consider the outcome of investment planning measurable by a rate of return, but how many take the time to truly understand the need for this from a planning perspective?
How many times have you heard someone say they want to have a million dollars at retirement? Probably more than once. But how do you ever know if a million dollars is the ‘magic’ number? How without any planning could one possibly know whether a million dollars would allow them to meet every goal in life? How do you know this million-dollar number isn’t excessive and unnecessary to do all the things you want, yet you made certain sacrifices just to reach the number that the media told you was required?
The real answer is, there is no ‘magic’ number, but there is your number.
Like every avenue of our business, our focus is to understand your lifelong goals through an extremely personalized approach. No two lives look the same, so we work with you to find what number is needed to make your goals happen. This is discovered throughout the entirety of the financial planning process.
Understanding how your investments can work for you is also very rewarding. We help to educate and provide guidance on everything from risk management, diversification, avoiding short-term distractions, and financial markets so that you can stay focused on the end goal and the actions needed to reach it.
Even if you don’t have thousands of dollars to invest, starting is the first step. Working with our team we will analyze where you are in terms of your current portfolio position, develop an investment strategy going forward and help you implement that strategy, all with your number in mind and focusing on obtaining the greatest upside capture of return in growing markets while limiting the downside in declining markets.
As your life transforms, circumstances evolve and new positions in market cycles create a need for change within your investments, we’ll guide and advise you on investment planning transitions we recommend to best overcome any of this, while maintaining constant communication in the ways that put you in control of your future.
Asset allocation and diversification do not ensure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets.
Disability Planning
A prolonged or lifelong disability can impact so many factors within one's personal or family life. It’s important to know what resources are available to help you manage your disability as effectively as possible without feeling the pressure of needing to subsidize every cost. There are very distinct challenges that individuals with disabilities will face throughout their lifetime.
The Disability Tax Credit (DTC) is one avenue available if you have mental or physical impairments that restrict your ability to perform one or more of the basic activities of living, such as speaking, hearing or walking.
The Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP) is a tax-deferred savings vehicle introduced to help Canadians with disabilities and their families save for their long-term financial security. Many Canadians living with disabilities aren’t getting the financial help they need today, to ensure they’re better-off tomorrow. It’s a complicated program to navigate and that is where our expertise can help mitigate those concerns and simplify the process.
The federal government also offers assistance within this plan through the Canada Disability Savings Grants (CDSGs) and Canada Disability Savings Bonds (CDSBs). Generally speaking, RDSP assets and payments shouldn’t have a negative impact on eligibility for programs such as subsidized housing and long-term care. However, it is important to get the advice needed to know the specific legislation in your jurisdiction. Our expertise can help simplify the process and provide guidance that makes your path easier to navigate.