Retiring Retirement
Here’ a post from my Financial Independence blog at MoneySense.ca, posted this week from the Morningstar annual conference held in Toronto on Wednesday. Pictured is Michael Falk, a partner with Illinois-based Focus Consulting Group, and I’m reporting on his talk entitled Prime Minister, There’s a Hole in My Safety Net.
And as promised a few weeks back, here’s the second-chapter summary of financial lessons learned in the second chapter of the new US edition of Findependence Day:
Chapter 2: Money Money Money: It’s a Rich Man’s World
• The best investment is paying off debt
• A line of credit lets you consolidate high-interest loans at one combined lower interest rate.
• A more effective method is to spend less than you earn.
• Avoid paying only the minimum monthly payment on your credit card. Better yet, pay balances off in full and never pay a dime interest.
• Build a six-month cash cushion.
• Mutual funds offer young investors professional security selection and diversification and through equity funds, exposure to the stock market.
• Financial Independence is not the same thing as Retirement. It means you continue to work because you want to, not because you have to.
• As your portfolio grows, you can lower investment management costs by using a discount brokerage, buying low-cost passively managed investments, and engaging a fee-only financial planner.
• During Semi-Retirement or the “First Retirement” you can give back to the community by volunteering, and discover talents you never knew you had.
Gold & Findependence
Since the price of gold crashed a few weeks ago, I’ve twice blogged on the topic over at MoneySense.ca, as you can read here. I’ve also done a bit of radio and TV commentary on the topic. As noted at MoneySense, personally I’m somewhere between the 5% “gold as insurance” camp and the “gold bug” camp that allocates upwards of 15 to 25% of a total portfolio to the yellow metal as a permanent strategic allocation in a well balanced portfolio.
My second MoneySense blog looks at Nick Barisheff’s just-released book, $10,000 Gold, a prediction which if it came true would mean a seven-bagger from the most recent post-correction price of $1460 or so. Of course, gold has started to recover from the shocking drop that grabbed the media’s attention earlier this month.
So how does gold fit in with the concept of financial independence? Historically, it has held its own in providing a degree of capital preservation. Anyone who experienced the hyperinflation of Weimar Germany or more recently Zimbabwe can attest to the value of “real money” when contrasted with mere pieces of paper that once promised to pay the underlying metal “to the bearer on demand,” but today are no more real than digits in a computer somewhere.
Bricks & Mortar are another tangible investment I like
So the question isn’t so much whether gold could possibly rise seven fold or ten fold from here, although that’s roughly what it DID accomplish over the past decade. The question is whether paper money backed only by governments with unlimited access to printing presses can continue to be perceived as having value. Just as real estate investors see value in bricks and mortar and the assured streams of income known as “rent,” so too do some investors feel comfortable having at least some of their wealth in tangible precious metals or comparable financial derivatives they hope will retain value if mere paper money falls in value (i.e. ETFs like GLD or SLV). As readers of Findependence Day know, a major subplot of the book is the conflict between Sheena’s desire for tangible bricks and mortar and Jamie’s preference for paper/electronic assets like stocks and bonds.
I’m a Capital Preservation Asset Allocation Bug
Does all this make me a gold bug? No, it makes me a capital preservation asset allocation bug: SOME gold, some cash, some bonds, some stocks and some real estate. And of course, that’s just the investment part of the equation. To this we should add employer pensions and Government pensions like Social Security or the Canada Pension Plan. If someone came to me saying they believed ONLY in their employer pension plan or ONLY in their Social Security or CPP pensions, I’d be just as worried on their behalf as I would be if they told me they had only paper money or — for that matter — only gold coins.
Together, this is my recipe for financial independence.
We have the fireworks; we have the balloons!
Tonight is the official launch party for the new U.S. edition of Findependence Day. The two main ingredients of the cover are fireworks and balloons, and here they are ready to be unleashed. It also happens to be the actual day I turn 60. I’m billing this as the world’s first Findependence Day party. Since we coined the term, we’re entitled to make that claim, right?
Does this mean I’m now financially independent enough not to show up to work on Monday at MoneySense magazine? In theory, yes, since in Canada you can collect the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) as early as age 60. In practice, however, it will be business as usual. But as I say in the book, the key point about Findependence is that you may choose to keep working, but because you want to, not because you perceive you must.
With many North American baby boomers turning 60 and 65 in the coming months and years, I expect there to be many Findependence Day parties — at least if the term catches on and the US edition of the book gets any traction. Here’s how you can help: please use your social media to spread the word, especially if you have American friends you think would benefit from the book if they just knew it existed.
And exist it does, as you can find elsewhere on this site. The paperback and hardcover editions are now available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Trafford. An e-book edition selling for $3.99 will be released in a few weeks. And of course, the first or “Canadian” edition is also available directly from me by clicking on the Buy Canadian edition button.
Budget 2012: Older boomers dodge OAS bullet
While the pre-budget hype was that Canadian baby boomers were going to have to delay their retirement after Thursday’s federal budget was unveiled, their Findependence Day has not been severely postponed for anyone who is now 54 years old or older as of March 31, 2012.
As expected, the Old Age Security eligibility age will rise gradually from the current 65 to 67 but this doesn’t start to happen until 2023, according to the just-released budget. When you add the 11-year notification of this change to the six-year phase-in between 2023 and 2029, I’d agree with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty that Canadians [or their financial planners] have “ample time to make adjustments to their retirement plans.”
For younger people born on or after Feb. 1, 1962, OAS eligibility will be age 67. Technically, boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 but in my view, if you were born between 1962 and 1964, you likely didn’t grieve over the JFK assassination and can hardly be considered a true baby boomer.
Delaying retirement: OAS takes a leaf from deferred CPP benefits
