Christmas 2011

2010 Christmas Song List

Hope you are enjoying this year’s Christmas CD. Have a safe and happy holiday.

1. Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer – Straight No Chaser
2. It’s Christmas Time Again – Peggy Lee
3. The Christmas Song – Dexter Gordon
4. Sleigh Ride – KT Tunstill
5. Let It Snow – Celtic Thunder
6. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Jewel
7. Hark the Herald Angels Sing – Jessica Simpson
8. Silent Night – Nat King Cole
9. Everyone’s a Kid at Christmas Time – Stevie Wonder
10. Winter Wonderland – Kate Havnevik
11. Pretty Paper – Roy Orbison
12. Frosty the Snowman – Bing Crosby
13. I’ll Be Home For Christmas – Straight No Chaser
14. Have A Holly Jolly Christmas – Harry Connick Jr
15. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Toby Keith
16. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Sarah McLachlan
17. White Christmas – Sheryl Crow
18. Christmas Is – Lou Rawls
19. O Christmas Tree – Will (Glee Christmas)
20. The Holly and the Ivy – Annie Lennox
21. Christmas Medley – The Carpenters
22. Christmas Time is Here – Holly Cole
23. It Must Have Been Ol’ Santa – Harry Connick Jr
24. God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman/Saw 3 Ships – Barenaked Ladies

Merry Christmas – Client CD Song List 2009

We hope you are enjoying the Christmas Classics on this years CD.

1. It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas – Bing Crosby
   
2. Sleigh Ride – The Carpenters
   
3. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town – Harry Connick Jr.
   
4. Winter Wonderland – Aretha Frankin
   
5. Baby it’s Cold Outside – Anne Murray and Michael Buble
   
6. O Come All Ye Faithful – Charlotte Church
   
7. Let It Snow – Dean Martin
   
8. The First Noel – Ella Fitzgerald
   
9. Winter Song – Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson
   
10. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Frank Sinatra
    
11. Frost the Snowman – Fiona Apple
    
12. The Christmas Song – Michael Buble
    
13. Here Comes Santa Claus – Gene Autry
    
14. Silver Bells – Jerry Vale
    
15. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year – Harry Connick Jr.
    
16. Silent Night – Nat King Cole
    
17. Carol of the Bells – The Carpenters
    
18. White Christmas – Michael Buble
    
19. My Favourite Things – Tony Bennet
    
20. Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer – Dean Martin
    
21. O Tannenbaum – Vince Guaraldi Trio
    
22. 12 Days of Christmas – Straight No Chaser
    

Simple Steps to Estate planning

An incomplete will or a careless legacy can hurt feelings and divide families. Here’s how to ensure that doesn’t happen to you:

On paper, an estate plan consists of four documents. The first is a will that details how your property will be divided. The next two documents are powers of attorney — one for property, one for personal care — that spell out who can make decisions for you if you’re incapacitated by illness. The final piece of paper is an insurance policy. This isn’t required, but it is a good idea if you’re leaving behind young children or a substantial tax bill.

What should unite all of these documents is an understanding of your family’s feelings. Experts can advise you on tax and legal matters, but no one knows your loved ones better than you do. A small amount of time spent communicating your intentions now can avoid leaving your kin with an eternity of questions. Just ask my family.

Organization

Your very first step toward an estate plan can be accomplished in an hour or even less. It requires nothing more than finding the documents that show what you own and what you owe. For starters, look for RRSP statements, pension plan forms and the title deeds to any property that you own. List any loans, mortgages or lines of credit you have outstanding as well as your credit cards. If people owe you money, note this, too. And, if possible, try to find documents that show what you originally paid for the stocks, bonds or other securities in your portfolio.

Talk to a Financial Advisor & Your Accountant

If you have any amount of wealth, it pays to spend an hour or two with an advisor and an accountant who specialize in estate planning. You might think that these professionals do nothing more than crunch numbers and calculate tax, sell insurance or set up RRSPs, but they are very good at giving advice about your options — options you may not even know you have — and often they take the lead in developing an estate plan.

One of the goals of any good estate plan is to minimize taxes. When you die, the tax man attempts to treat your registered assets — in other words, your RRSPs and your RRIFs — as though you had cashed them in and taken all the resulting money as income. You can avoid the tax damage on registered assets by leaving them to your husband or wife. You can also sidestep the tax hit by leaving these assets to a financially dependent minor child or grandchild, or to a financially dependent handicapped adult child. Otherwise, your estate has got to take the hit, and it can be a blow, erasing as much as 48% of the value of your registered assets.

See a Lawyer

By some estimates, fewer than half of adult Canadians have a will. This is shocking. If you die without a will, your property may languish in trust for months before your heirs can touch a penny of your money. Your wealth will ultimately be divvied up by the government according to a strict formula that apportions your possessions to your nearest relatives. Your wishes about who should get what, even if you expressed those desires frequently in past conversations, won’t matter.

In most cases, all that drawing up a will requires is an hour or so of your time and a couple of hundred dollars in lawyer’s fees. He or she can open your eyes to questions you may never have considered.

Update

No matter how thoroughly you plan your estate, situations change. Children are born, relatives die, marriages begin and end, property fluctuates in value. For all those reasons, you should dust off your will at least every three years and make sure it’s still up to date.

I have secured relationships with some very capable and trustworthy professionals who can assist you in these matters. Please call me if you are interested in seeking professional estate planning advice from and advisor, accountant or lawyer.

Critical Illness Thought Piece

Lot’s of info on Critical Illness here and please contact me if you have any questions. This is the most important insurance you can buy!

Finding your Income Replacement Ratio

Many high earning executives and self-employed professionals often have inadequate coverage for their current income.

Did you know there are over 4.4 million Canadians suffering from a disability*? At age 45 earning $110,000 a year potential earnings to age 65 are $2,809,912**.

This review can be achieved in a minimal amount of time.

• From last year’s T4 slip (line 14), note your income e.g. $110,000 annually.
• From your employee benefits booklet or individual disability insurance policy, note your monthly disability benefits e.g. $3200/month.
• Then calculate your Income Replacement Ratio 3,200 x 12 x 100 / 110,000 = 35%

The Income Replacement Ratio would be 35% of today’s income, could you live on that?

The solution is finding a way to supplement that disparity. Please contact me or your advisor to find out how this can be done.
Email Trent or 902.209.0425

*FUMSI: Disability Statistics Challenges and Sources
**Assuming 2.5% increase every year.

2011 RRSP Info

RRSP Contribution Deadline for the 2011 Tax Year: March 01, 2012!

How much can I contribute to my own RRSPs? The maximum RRSP contribution limit for the year 2011 is $22,450. However, if you did not use all of your RRSP contribution limit for the years 1991-2010, you can carry forward the unused amount to 2011. Therefore, your RRSP contribution limit for 2011 may be more than $22,450.

What are the differences in the funds I can choose for my RRSP?

A popular question I get.

Money market/ treasury bill funds – these funds are considered to be extremely safe and generally invest in government securities. Traditionally these funds pay a marginally higher interest rate than the average savings account.

Fixed Income funds – have holdings that consist of, mortgages, bonds, treasury bills and debentures. These funds are designed to provide high regular income payments with the possibility of some capital gains.

Equity funds – have holdings consisting of common and preferred shares of Canadian companies. Equity funds are recommend to those investors that are seeking long-term growth through capital gains. Usually 5 years is recommended as a minimum investment in this type of fund.

Balanced funds – designed to provide a blend of income and growth by diversifying and having a mixed portfolio consisting of, common stock, preferred shares, cash and bonds. This type of fund is structured for investors with limited dollars, and have a desire to have a more diversified portfolio in one fund.

Special equity funds – with a focus on investments in real estate, precious metals and resources. However because of the specialization of these types of funds returns tend to be startling, both positive and negative. A word to the wise even experience investors only have a very small percentage of their portfolio in type of funds.

Dividend funds – accumulate dividend-paying preferred shares of Canadian corporations, and common shares that are expected to yield a high level of dividend income. Similar to equity funds there is a potential for long term capital growth. Dividend funds also receive preferential tax treatment.

Global and international funds – invest in money market securities and in bond and stock markets in various and regions of the world. Investors have the opportunity to increase returns through added diversification. In other words if Canadian markets are doing poorly, its not to say that markets in China Japan or Europe are not doing exceedingly well.

Feel free to contact me for more info

Men, women view wealth differently

Women view wealth and retirement quite differently than men a new study finds.

A survey of 1,200 Canadians, undertaken by Fleishman-Hillard on behalf of Sun Life Financial, finds women more committed to retirement, but far less willing to work past the age of 65.

Twice as many men (32%) than women surveyed say they want to work past age 65, according to the second edition of the Sun Life Canadian Unretirement Index. Among the women who expected to work past the normal retirement age, 71% said they will do so to earn enough money to pay for basic living expenses, compared to 65% of men.

“We found men and women had diverse opinions around what factors should be considered in a retirement plan, with women more likely to cite long-term care, low interest rates and death of a spouse,” says Kevin Dougherty, president, Sun Life Financial Canada. “Interestingly, we found that Canadians on the whole were significantly more confident about their retirement if they had worked with a financial advisor for a year or more than those who did not have an advisor.”

More women (61%) also believed their company pension will not be enough to live off of, compared to 56% of men.

More than two thirds of female respondents (66%) believed their current rate of return on retirement savings would not be sufficient, versus 59% of men. Concerns about mortality and health seemed to weigh heavier on the minds of women, with 72% of women worried about long-term care expenses, compared to 60% of men. In addition, 67% of women were worried about their financial plan if their spouse was to die, versus 54% of men.

Only 49% of women felt confident about their ability to fund basic expenses in retirement versus 57% of men. Statistically, women are better savers, but still lack the earning power of their male counterparts, which may account for some of this increased anxiety.

“Women have substantial reasons for worrying that they won’t have enough money to enjoy the lifestyle they want in retirement,” says Alison Konrad, professor of Organizational Behavior at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. “The average Canadian woman earns about 66% of what the average Canadian male earns. So even though women tend to put a larger percentage of their income into their retirement nest eggs, men save almost $1,900 more each year.”

Women place extra value on the home

A recent TD Canada Trust survey founds that even though women continue to expand their position in the workforce, they still place a greater value on of their home than men do.

According to the third annual TD Canada Trust Women and Home Ownership Poll, which surveyed women who have purchased a home independently, 44% of women ranked financial security as the best thing about home ownership, compared to 23% of women in the 2008 poll. Second on the list of best things about owning a home was not having to pay rent or pay other people (38% versus 13% in 2008).

“It’s not surprising that the financial reasons for ownership have increased in importance for people,” says Chris Wisniewski, group product manager, real estate secured lending at TD Canada Trust. “People are looking for ways to feel financially stable again and see home ownership as a way to build equity and invest in their future.”

While financial security continues to top the list of home ownership benefits, the comforts of home are increasingly important to Canadian women. When asked to describe the best things about home ownership, 34% of respondents said it was having a place of their own, 34% said is about being able to decorate or renovate the way they want and 34% say it is about and having a backyard or garden.

Again, theses responses increased dramatically from the first survey conducted in 2008. Women had cited having a place of their own at 22%, being able to decorate or renovate the way they want at 14%, and having a backyard or garden at only 5% back in 2008.

“Even though the comforts of home have become increasingly important to women, the financial reasons for home ownership have also increased in importance,” Wisniewski says.

Making An Informed Decision About Permanent Life Insurance

A lot of people think they’re getting a good return on their life insurance policy, enough to warrant keeping it, even if they don’t have heirs who need the death benefit.

I spoke recently with a gentleman who owns a life insurance policy with a cash value of about $22,000. He’s receiving about $800 a year in dividends and, as a result, thinks the investment is a good return.

But wait a minute … if you’re making $800 a year in dividend income on a policy that has a surrender value of $22,000, that’s the same as investing $22,000 in a GIC and getting a 3.6% annual return. That doesn’t strike me as exciting. By cashing in the policy and investing the $22,000 elsewhere, you could produce a much better return than 3.6%.

Yet people often rationalize why they should keep such poor investments. “Well, gee, when I die, my kids will get the $22,000.” But they’d get the GIC, too, if the money were invested there. So that’s not a good enough reason to keep the insurance.

Sometimes, people say the policy is worth keeping because “it’s not costing me anything.” Although you might not be paying premiums to keep the policy in force, it doesn’t mean it isn’t costing you. It is: in the form of opportunity cost. By earning only 3.6% per year, you’re “spending” the money you could have earned in an alternative investment. The “cost” is the lost income from not investing elsewhere.

So if you’ve got an old policy with a small death benefit, think hard whether it’s worth keeping.