We here at Smartwealth specializes in helping Winnipeg families protect their financial security and build their future.
Our Financial Advisory Process
Risk Management
Risk management safeguards your financial security and gives you a solid financial foundation that helps mitigate the risks of serious life events affecting your financial security.
If you’re anything like most of us, your financial security may depend on your ability to earn a living.
This means that if you lose your ability to actively work at a job, profession or business, your income STOPS.
A well-planned risk management strategy takes into account the most common serious life events that could potentially affect you and your loved ones’ financial well-being and future.
When a person gets sick or become disabled, he or she may not be able to perform his or her regular activities to earn a living; a solid living benefits plan ensures that you don’t have to worry as to when your next paycheck is coming should you ever find yourself in a position when you’re unable to actively work for income so you could focus more on getting well instead of worrying about money.
There are times when families find themselves in a situation where the person whom they rely upon for financial support is no longer around to provide for them.
Premature death is one of those “difficult” conversations that many of us turn away from, simply because we’re not comfortable talking or even thinking about the potential of an untimely passing.
“It won’t happen to me”
Isn’t a viable plan that can guarantee your loved ones’ financial security and future.
Planning for the worst, even if you don’t think that it will happen to you will ensure your loved ones’ financial security in the event that they find themselves in a situation where the one who provides for them is no longer around to financially support them.
Why Start with Insurance?
Insurance is an important part of your risk management strategy because it lays down the safety-net that protects your financial security against life events that are beyond your control.
Wills and Powers of Attorney
Wills and Powers of Attorney are legal documents that empower you to see through it that your assets and affairs are facilitated as you desire when you’re no longer able to due to death or incapacity through a lawyer or a trustee.
Who Needs a Will?
You may think that only the rich and the affluent need a will. That is wrong thinking, if you have young kids, you should have a will and if you have assets or investments that are not protected by an insurance blanket, you need a will so the people whom you want to receive these assets will rightfully receive them.
Why Is Power of Attorney Important?
A Power of Attorney is a legal document that empowers another individual to act on your behalf when it comes to financial matters should you lose the ability to make decisions on your own due to an illness or disability.
Please note that we are not lawyers and we don’t want you to get the impression that we are; you can ask your lawyer or we can recommend you one that we work with.
Wealth Accumulation and Debt Reduction
A solid financial plan is made up of risk management, wealth accumulation, and debt reduction.
Wealth is something we’re all trying to create more of which can be done by focusing on asset accumulation and debt reduction.
Emergency Fund
It’s been said that without employment insurance, most Canadian are two months away from bankruptcy after lay off. This is due to the high financial obligations that most of us have accumulated over-time.
When it comes to wealth or asset accumulation, the first thing that we all must focus on is in building our emergency funds.
The common advice is to accumulate at least 6 months’ worth of income which one can aside in a TFSA or simply a bank savings account.
An emergency fund helps take away the financial strain of emergency spendings such as vehicle and home repairs which helps you avoid dipping on credit cards and lines of credit for unplanned expenditures like the ones mentioned herein as well as a buffer in case of job loss.
It can also come in handy in case of lay-offs, job loss or career transition.
An emergency fund can serve as an interim source of cash flow to take care of your basic costs of living while you’re searching for another source of income.
Education Fund (RESP)
As we all well know, a post-secondary, college or university education in Canada is one of the most expensive in the world but yet we can not deny the fact that our children will have a better shot in building their financial lives if they finish their post-secondary degrees.
RESP is a great program for parents or grandparents who are looking to give their kids or grandchildren a head-start in life by investing in building their post-secondary education funds.
Without an RESP, a child who wants to secure a post-secondary degree have the option of getting student loans to finance their education or they can have their parents dip into their home equity or try and work their way throughout their university years, hoping that they earn enough to pay for their tuition fees.
Just like any future financial obligations, the cost of a post-secondary degree can be financed by planning ahead; by saving an elected amount on a consistent basis, taking advantage of compounded growth as well as the underlying government grants that your children’s RESP account receive simply by saving for your children’s education in the right account.
This will lessen or completely eliminate the financial stress on your children when it’s time for them to take the steps toward their post-secondary education.
Retirement Planning
Most people never really think of retirement until it’s about time to retire, not realizing that the best time to start investing for retirement is the moment they earn their first paycheck.
Now, don’t be too hard on yourself if you think you’ve missed this because almost all hardworking Canadian professionals do.
Come to think of it, most Canadian adults are pretty much on the same boat when it comes to their financial education after finishing school. This is due to the fact that financial literacy was never taught in school.
The school equips us with the education and skills we need to empower us to make a living; unfortunately, our traditional educational system never taught us what to do with our money after we earn it, how money works, how to make it grow and how to make it work for us so we can eventually stop working for money and instead have that money work hard for us.
Most Canadians actually save too little while most live paycheck to paycheck regardless of how much they make from their jobs or professions, putting off or entirely crossing-out retirement planning and instead, putting their hopes for retirement on government or company pensions.
According to then Finance Minister, late Jim Flaherty; while it’s good that we have government pensions in place, the problem is that it’s too small. This is the reason why he urged Canadians NOT to put all their hopes for retirement on government pensions and instead, save their own funds for retirement.
Understand that Canadian government pensions are never meant to fully replace our active income; rather it is only designed to supplement our own retirement funds and not the other way around.
The challenge most retirees are facing today is not only to have enough income but also NOT to run out of funds at retirement.
It is expected that the majority of the population will not have saved enough money for retirement.
By planning ahead, you can avoid being part of these statistics.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.
The second best time is now.
The sooner you start saving and growing funds for retirement, the sooner you can retire and even if you don’t plan to retire at all; having money working for you at old age means you can still work at a job, business or career because you want to but not because you have to.
Slow and steady still wins the race!
Get rich slow is the key and if you keep at it, you will have more than enough money that will provide you with passive income at retirement.