A constant dilemma for Advisors working with clients to help them realize their goals and dreams is striking a balance between the tyranny of immediate current events with the need to stay focused on your longer term goals.
The recent Brexit vote in the U.K. is a case in point. The media created a firestorm of hysteria, speculation and anxiety with its constant and overwhelming coverage of the impending vote and its aftermath.
Imagine the following scenario for a moment. You and your partner have opened a business, and are feeling extremely confident about your current success. Your primary competition across the street cannot keep up after one of their co-owners passes away, eventually closing down. Their entire customer base eventually comes your way, and business has never been better. This might be a positive scenario strictly as far as your business is concerned, but a wise businessman or woman should be thinking one thing at a time like this—what if our positions were reversed?
Harry and Sally both earned high incomes and liked to live the good life. They leased higher end European cars, took two-week exotic vacations almost every year, and lived in a house much larger than they truly needed. To accomplish this lifestyle, they put off retirement savings. Now in their forties, Harry and Sally are realizing they have some catching up to do. Listed below are a few things to consider:
Delay no more - Procrastination or bad breaks may have derailed a savings plan. Now is the time to make savings a priority.
The European economic community that Britain joined back in 1973, a free and unified trading block, resembles nothing like todays European union - a huge central beaurocracy with thousands of civil servants in Brussels dictating policy to European member countries under the EU’s own flag.
Many consumers find themselves falling into the traps offered by the appeal of easy credit opportunities. They are dazzled by payment plans for tech purchases, zero-percent loans on major purchases, credit card-funded vacations to faraway locations, and blowout sales that tout incredibly long delays before any payments are due. Before long, the spending spree turns from satisfaction into the need for a second mortgage to consolidate and manage the debt load.
In December 2015, an Alberta court decision raised the need for Advisors and their clients to review their existing Beneficiary designation of RRIF accounts as well as RRSPs and life insurance in order to ensure that the Designations on file properly reflected the wishes of the current account holder.
