financial strategy

If you were going to recommend a treatment plan for a loved one suffering with alcoholism, would you prescribe more alcohol as the best course of action to help them to recover or otherwise improve? Now put this question aside for the moment.

Let us look at the personal situation of the average Canadian these days and make some observations about what their circumstances look like as they go about their daily activities in life, work, & family. Then we will tie these real-life situations together with the riddle.

Clients often call when markets are looking a bit shaky, or newspaper articles are predicting the next market correction, recession, bubble, etc.

The challenge with reacting to such events or news is that the external circumstances rarely have anything to do with your specific situation and plan. Your mission, should you choose to embrace it, is to build assets through savings and investment returns so that you reach your targeted savings value needed to support your lifestyle and cash flow needs in retirement.

What problems does the financial industry solve for Canadian consumers? Where is the value added for interacting with the financial industry and why use an Advisor versus doing it yourself online?

To address these questions, here is a refresher on why the financial industry exists in the first place.

Simply speaking, there are two basic functions for the financial industry:

If you are concerned about your future finances, you are certainly not alone as noted in a global survey of 19,000 adult in over 19 countries (including Canada).

Nearly 68% (or two thirds) of the 1000 Canadians interviewed in the survey conducted by the Financial Planning Standards Council (FPSC) said they still had concerns about their personal finances. For those in mid-life, anxiety caused by an unknown financial future is greater with a reported 79% worried, which shows it is not wise to procrastinate in your early life.