Posts by Robb Engen
Weekend Reading: Personal Inflation Rate Edition
Inflation. It’s on everyone’s mind as the cost of goods and services have been on the rise since early 2021. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures changes in the cost of a fixed basket of goods over time, including food, shelter, transportation, furniture, clothing, and recreation. While inflation may have peaked in June of this…
Read MoreMy 2023 Financial Goals
It’s safe to say that 2022 did not go according to plan. On a macro level we had stubbornly high inflation, rapidly rising interest rates, and falling stock and bond prices. Personally, we managed to execute our revenge travel plans with a week in Maui, three-and-a-half weeks in Italy, three-and-a-half weeks in the U.K, and…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Rental Property Edition
We’re building a new home and should have possession of it sometime in February. I’ve been asked a few times if we are going to hang onto our existing home and rent it out. After I stop laughing I explain why I have no desire to own a rental property. I admit that I have…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Crypto Is Unraveling Edition
It was a sobering week for crypto bros, as yet another epic collapse has exposed the supposed “future of money” as little more than a house of cards. Crypto trading platform FTX, which landed high profile partnerships with the likes of Tom Brady and Steph Curry, and signed a $135M agreement with the Miami Heat…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Master List Of Financial Goals Edition
Most of my work as a financial planner boils down to helping clients use their resources to achieve their financial goals over time. But where do those goals come from? How do we know they’re the “right” goals? The team at PWL Capital dug into the research around goal setting and found that, “people are…
Read MoreMy House Was A Lousy Investment (Or Was It?)
As we get closer to moving into our new home (and selling our existing one) I decided to look back on the financial return of our home purchase. I wish I hadn’t. On first glance, I think my house was a lousy investment. We haven’t put our house on the market yet, but we will…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: The Trouble With GICs Edition
I’ve never heard so much interest in GICs before this year, but with stock and bond markets down and interest rates up it’s no surprise that investors are looking for a safe and profitable place to park their savings. Just two years ago, a five-year GIC was paying a paltry 1.5% interest, while a two-year…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Canadian Financial Summit Edition
The Canadian Financial Summit is a three-day virtual conference featuring 35+ Canadian personal finance experts (including yours truly) speaking on a wide range of topics from investing and retirement, to pensions, real estate, financial planning, inflation, and much more. It’s Canada’s largest personal finance and investing conference. This year’s conference takes place October 12th to…
Read MoreInvestors Are Ready To Capitulate
Investors are ready to throw in the towel. To cry uncle. To capitulate. Can we blame them? This year has been brutal for both stock and bond markets. A global all-equity portfolio is down 16.87%, while a global balanced 60/40 portfolio is down 15.22% as of September 30th. But it’s not just the double-digit losses…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: RRSP vs. RRIF Edition
One question retirees face when setting up their retirement income plan is whether to convert their RRSP to a RRIF or to make withdrawals directly from their RRSP. There are pros and cons to each approach, depending on your age, how much income you require, whether you have a spouse, and where your RRSP account…
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