YOUR RETIREMENT LIFESTYLE PLAN IS ABOUT PREDICTING THE WAY YOU WANT TO LIVE IN THE FUTURE Last month as we sat with our financial advisor to review our portfolio one of the questions we were asked pertained to our retirement lifestyle now that we were 100% debt free. With a young child and in our early 40’s the last thing we want to think about is retirement but we both know that we must. Depending on who you ask their retirement lifestyle might be painted as, resort-type community living (retirement villages), lavish holidays, mini-trips, restaurants, activities and organizations outside of the home. Others might be happy living a simple life in an apartment or their home hopefully mortgage free although for many reaching retirement years that’s not even happening. What do you want your retirement lifestyle to look like? That’s what our advisor asked us and we both blankly stared at each other and said, I don’t know. We didn’t know but what we did know was that we had to keep socking away money to max out our retirement savings for future reasons. Over the years Mrs. CBB and I have vaguely discussed what we’d like to do […]
The 2016 Federal Budget is in: What Does it Change for You?
IT’S IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND DETAILS OF THE NEW BUDGET The new Liberal government rolled out their 10 year spending and tax plans on Tuesday, March 22nd. In a nutshell, the 2016 Federal Budget focuses on putting more cash in the pockets of low and middle-income families and on improving the infrastructure in cities and in aboriginal regions. If you don’t have time or just don’t feel like reading through the 271 page document, here is a summary of a few key changes that will affect the majority of Canadians and may affect you if you fall in the category. Are you in the “Middle-Class”? The definition is a bit unclear, but the new budget benefits families earning less than $150,000 per year and individuals in the second tax bracket ($45,282 to $90,563). Most of the benefits in this budget have been targeted to the majority of Canadians who fall within that definition, and marginal tax rates were reduced by 1.5% at the end of 2015 for the second tax bracket. If your family income exceeds $150,000 or your individual income puts you in a higher tax bracket, then you will not benefit from most of these changes […]
