January 14, 2025 • 24 mins
Norm Murray speaks with Geoff MacGillivray, President of Blue Harbour Financial about 4 steps to building wealth in 2025. Go to http://www.askgeoff.ca and learn about achieving your financial goals.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm Nora Murray.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Nice to have you along today on news Talk Saga
at nine sixty and we are well into the new
year by a few days here, and that means a
lot of things to a lot of people, and one
thing it can mean to our friend Jeff mcgilvrey is
learning about building wealth in twenty twenty five. Jeff, of course,
is president of Blue Harbor Financial. Go to Askjeff dot
(00:45):
ca that's ask GEO f F dot c A and
find out why it's important to work with it with
an experienced financial advisor, as Jeff is, somebody with a
solid reputation, a proactive approach, someone you can try and
get advice for twoenty twenty five especially and going forward here,
I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Jeff, how are you? Happy New year?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Happy new year to you and all of our listeners
as well. Hope you had a good time.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Thank you for that, and I'm sure everybody did have
a good time if they put a little bit of
planning aside to help them to get there. Too, because
it always seems like when the holidays arrive in December anyways,
there's that feeling of anxiousness Jeff, like, Okay, do I
have enough to get through the holidays here?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Right? I'm sure you hear that all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, we usually do twenty twenty five, we do
a show on some stations where we talk about how
to pay off the debt from Christmas. But this year
we did a little bit early and we said how
to not spend so much at Christmas. So a lot
of people are, you know, they're making their New Year's resolutions.
They may have them, they may have to alter them.
(01:50):
You know, talk about people going to the gym, and
you know, how do you to stick to plans? And
we'll talk about, you know, four steps to building wealth,
But how do we stick to these plans and these
goals that we set? And it's by replacing a bad
habit with a good habit. And yet once you do
it long enough, it just becomes second nature for you.
So yeah, so you know we talk about building well
(02:13):
for twenty twenty five and starting the year good.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, that's the idea, right, is to get started properly
and then it'll pay off at the end of the
year and of course going forward. But I'm glad you
brought that up. Four steps to building wealth? I mean,
are there really can you really come, you know, summarize
it to just four steps?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
What would be the first thing that we would introduce
everybody to in this take?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot more steps than
four steps. This just gives us the skinny version because
of the time that we're allowed on air. You want
to see what the other steps are. You know, within
step one, there's multiple steps within step one, and that's
you know, when we sit down with our clients and
we do that. But step one and I talk. I'm
(02:53):
really talking to the younger generation out there, the listeners
that eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty five, five years old, start
saving early. Twenty five dollars a month is the minimum
with some companies. Some companies want five thousand, some companies
want five hundred. I myself, I have zero issues taken
on a young client that's that's eighteen years old, that's
(03:14):
going to be twenty five dollars a month to some
sort of investment just to get those people started. I
remember when, you know, before I started saving before I
got into finance. I remember looking at a bank and
I want to start investing, and they wanted five thousand dollars.
But I was young and had two children, living paycheck
to paycheck and didn't have that money, and I wish
(03:35):
I could have done twenty five dollars a month. So
starting early is definitely going to be beneficial to you.
And then you know, when you talk to somebody like myself,
it's where do we invest. Do we invest in an
RSP or a TFSA, and within that do we invest
in GSE stocks, mutual funds, et cetera. Because the RSP
(03:55):
isn't good for everybody, depending especially if you're eighteen and
you're still going to school. The RSP is not going
to where we're going to want to invest. The TFSA
will be where we want to invest. So starting early
with the right retirement vehicle is definitely going to be
a benefit.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, you know, I hear people all the time, you know,
as they get older say that they're on a fixed income,
meaning that they're only on the on CPP Canada Pension Plan,
Quebec pension plan. And really as the years go by,
it's becoming more and more evident. It seems Jeff, that
that's not going to be enough to give us any
real quality of lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Is it. Yeah, it's it's definitely not enough, especially with
a lot of the younger generation becoming entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur,
as a self employed business owner, like even for myself,
I don't have to contribute to Canada pension plan if
you're paying, depending on how you're paying yourself, whether you're
doing a wage or give it an income, et cetera,
(04:50):
et cetera. I myself having paid Canada pension for years,
I just decided to start doing it this year for
the first time. But there's better ways to do it.
And you can't rely on cpp old age security. You
can't even rely on your work pension. There's pension companies
that have gone bankrupt numerous times. And I always tell
(05:13):
everybody when it comes to life insurance and saving stuff
like that is the only thing you can control is
what you do on your own. Don't rely on somebody
else by letting them put your thumb on you saying
this is how much you're going to have for retirement
to your pension. Let's talk about that. And there's other
ways even if your RSPs are maxed out, there's other
ways that we can increase your way of life to
(05:34):
other savings products other than the traditional RSP and TFSA.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, because with a group RRSP through your employer, it's
all fine and dandy, it seems to me, Jeff, you
tell me, like, there's the thought of Okay, if I
stick with this company, it means I'm going to have
X number of dollars when I'm fifty five, sixty sixty five,
and then and then, Jeff, you lose your job, then
what happens. You only get You only typically get what
(05:58):
you put in, and now you're scrambling and what am
I going to do? All that planning has gone by
the wayside. It seems you're sort of left alone.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, so they've got they've got calculations called a community
value where they'll if you're transferrented out, you do that.
And it's really important that people really look at the
pros and cons because some people, when they lose a job,
they can keep them with the Penching company. And I
think we need to do a show on the advantages
of moving out, because the sad part is if you
leave the job, that money that they say that they're
(06:28):
going to give you every month and you're no longer
with them. If you were to pass away, your beneficiary
only gets sixty percent of it, and there's ways that
you can have your beneficiary get one hundred percent of
that savings that you've had. So it's definitely, like I said,
with different steps. This is the step one of the
four we're talking about, but within step one there's like
ten different steps that it's more of an in person
(06:49):
conversation to talk about those essential things that are important
to your retirement plan.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
This is why for everybody listening, you need to speak
to somebody like Jeff to find out the ins and
out from somebody who knows the ins and outs, solutions
that make sense and getting the best solutions for you.
Time is money, even when you're young, and there's a
cost of delaying good financial decisions. So first thing, as
you were saying, is we're looking at four steps to
(07:15):
building wealth. Saving early, start as early as possible, contribute
regularly as much as you can, and of course speak
to someone like Jeff. Go to Askjeff dot c A.
And as we mature, I suppose Jeff and gain some wisdom,
we start to learn about ourselves, don't we and learn
about our own discipline and what our parameters are.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah. Yeah, And this one is super super important because
a lot of people will just go to an advisor
or they'll do it theirselves, and they don't do what's
called an investment profile questionnaire. And I think it's really
important that people do this, and I'm going to upload
one on the front page of my website. I just
got to determine which one I'm going to use on
here to make it simple for people. But the investment
(07:58):
profile questionnaire tells us how we need to invest for
because if we're investing in a first time Home Savers
account and we're eighteen years old and we're just saving
for a house, our time horizon is going to be
different for a first time Home Savers account, then it's
going to be for an RSP account. But then it
also tells us how risky we're going to be. Are
we going to invest in very high risk, medium risk,
(08:19):
low risk stuff depending on how you answer these questions.
So an investment profile questionnaire has ten to fifteen questions
in it, and each question has a point rating, and
then when you're finished it, you add up the points
and it will tell you based on that what your
risk profile is. So one thing that I can encourage
people to do is go on here. If you're with
another advisor, go on to it, download the investment profile questioner,
(08:42):
answer it for yourself and see if you're hitting goals
your investment profile goals with the advisor that you're with.
Because a lot of people, it's amazing at how many
people have never done an investor profile questionnaer, but they've
been investing in all their lives. And aside from getting
to know what your profile is, staying disciplined within that
profile and staying invested for the long term is super
(09:06):
important because a lot of people when the markets and
we've known the markets the last couple of weeks haven't
been fantastic. We ended this week on a good day,
but a lot of people will do like well simple
where they do their their own investing, but they're not
disciplined in the way that if the markets drop, people
will go and sell their investments. But that's exactly opposite
(09:28):
of what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to buy low,
sell high, not sell low and buy high. And that's
where we say stay disciplined. If you're contributing, you're doing
dollar cost averaging every single month, and you stay investing
in the markets regardless of what's happening. And when the
markets drop, you're actually taking some extra money and putting
(09:48):
it into the markets when they're down. That's when you're
going to become wealthy.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, this is why it's important to plan and important
to have somebody on your side like Jeff, who's going
to keep an eye on thing and as you go
along when you don't know what to do. I mean
here it is January. What typically happens in January versus
tax time in April. It's time to look at this
now and make plans for twenty twenty five. Get to
(10:14):
know yourself, stay disciplined, and trust in somebody who has
the experience that Jeff has.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Go to ask Jeff dot ca.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
That's a s K G E O F F dot
c A because we all want to you know, when
we're young, we don't think of retirement that often. At
least I didn't. I thought, you know, that's a long
ways away. I don't have to think about now that
now that's for old people. It's not for old people.
Jeff and we realize that as we advance in age
(10:43):
and and get closer to retirement and think, Okay, now
what am I actually going to do? I want to
be able to live a decent life here and live
a long one if possible to Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, And we talk about a lot of different risks.
So we talk about risk profile and my high risk
me and risk low risk. There's another risk that we
don't talk about now. It's the risk of outliving your money,
or the risk of like not having enough, or even
the risk of having too much when you just are
going to leave it to your children if you will.
But planning for retirement the super board, especially with all
(11:14):
the advances in medical research and all that other stuff,
we are living longer and when you're living longer, and
people it's a trend that's been going on for years
and I'm following the trend too. People are wanting to
travel in retirement. I know historically when people retired, they
didn't travel as much as people are doing now. Or
(11:34):
they're buying vacation homes or they're buying property stuff like that.
So you really have to plan with all them younger
listeners if you want to have all those different things.
You have to start planning really early because it's not
just what are we going to do with our lives,
it's also the cost of living. I mean, it might cost,
you know, a couple hundred dollars to fly on a
plane around Canada somewhere now, but give it twenty or
(11:57):
thirty years, that one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars
is going to be five or six dollars. So the
cost of living is going to go up. So we
have to make sure that we have enough money to
live the life that we want, and we also want
to make sure that there's enough there that we don't
outlive the money and then when we're sixty five, seventy
years old, there's no more money left. And it's really
sad that a lot of people along with this, I
(12:19):
talked to people about becoming healthy and staying healthy to
be able to enjoy your retirement, because it happens way
too often, and even happened just recently with someone I
know that someone was set to retire in the next
three or four months and unfortunately passed away and didn't
get to enjoy all that time that they put into it.
So staying healthy and planning for retirement to make sure
(12:42):
you have enough is super super important. You don't want
to work all these years and invest all this money
and not be able to enjoy them.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, I know you mentioned that's known as longevity risk
right outliving your savings, as you say, using up all
your savings before death or not at all, like you
just described with that person that you know. Unfortunately this
very sad too, but we do hear those stories from
time to time. So yeah, I mean, it doesn't have
(13:10):
to take a real science exam to come up with
this kind of plan, though, when you have somebody like
Jeff working for you, isn't it true?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Jeff?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I mean a quick phone call or an email to
set up an appointment and you can start talking about
these things and map it out.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It doesn't have to be so daunting.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I think for many of us we feel just the
anxiety even of reaching out is like, oh, this is
going to be a huge thing. It's going to be
a huge boulder on top of my shoulders. But I
think by the sounds of things from what you're saying
that in the interim, it can be very simple at
least to set things up talking human terms, You're a
real human being with a real life, just like the
(13:43):
rest of us. So you understand. You got kids, for example,
you know what a growing family.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You know what it's like.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
And I think that really reassures people that they're speaking
to somebody like themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
That helps.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Yeah, so our job is quite simple. We want you guys,
like we want our clients to go and live their
life and rely on this for us. Yeah, like we
we take care of this for you so you can
go and live the life that you want. And you
definitely want someone who's going to talk to you every
once in a while, not somebody that's gonna take your
money and or you take care of your life insurance
(14:15):
and not talk to you for twenty years. Because there's
a lot of part time life insurance agents and investment
agents that are out there with certain companies. And definitely
want to have someone that's full time and that's going
to talk to you when you need it, not just
not just when the markets are good. You also want
the advisor that's going to talk to you when the
markets are down as well.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, absolutely, and and that brings us, I guess, Jeff,
to those you know, investments that seem to be like
the new big thing right now, and we should all
be aware and be careful of that if we feel
like we're making investments in that area. Like for example,
you take a big company like Apple or something, and
you think, oh, I'll just put all my money in
(14:54):
that one fund, let's say, or one area and you'll
be fine.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Do you buy into that?
Speaker 4 (15:02):
So for my clients, I like to use mutual funds
so you can actually buy into some of these big
companies without having a lot of risks. So an average
mutro fund could have seventy five, two hundred and fifty
different mutual funds in it, so you're actually investing in
that company, but you know, if one company drops and
another company goes up, it helps litigate risk a little
(15:22):
bit because you're not so you're not all in one spot.
I go back and I tell people when I first started,
and I have some stocks on my phone just to
show this. I get people that would come to me
and say, hey, my dad works for this company and
the stock's going to go through the roof from blah
blah blah blah, and I keep it on my phone
so I can tell the story. I say that people
don't ever invest in the flavor of the month, because
(15:43):
look at what's going on with that stock that someone
told me about two thousand and eight or nine when
I first started, and it's it's gone nowhere. So there's
flavors of months that that are just for the month,
and then there's stuff that is doing very well. I
know a lot of people aren't a crypto currency and
it's it's had a great run and then it lost
and then it did really well again. If you like
(16:05):
something that's going to be up and down and you're
not afraid of volatility, that might be a great spot
for you to go or ai. But if you are
like most people, you get some decent returns and you know,
set it and forget it sort of thing, then a
good quality mutual fund is where you want to be.
But you also have to be careful because just because
(16:25):
returns are impressive for one year, it's very rare that
you get it for a two or three or four year,
like a year after year for a long span, it's
very rare that that ever happens. So you definitely got
to watch out for that flavor of the month investment
for sure.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, we're speaking with Jeff mcgilvy. Of course, once again
financial services experience, honest financial advice and solutions that make sense.
Go to ask Jeff dot c A. He's the go
to guy A s K G E O F F
dot c A and speak to Jeff about as he
says on his website or as a quote from Benjamin Franklin,
(17:04):
take care of the pennies and the dollars take care
of themselves. I think that makes a lot of sense.
How do we know, though, Jeff, going forward, how much
we're going to need? You know, is it a million,
is it two million, is it half a million?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
How do we really know? How can we calculate? Can
you help us with that?
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah? So that's again one of the steps within these
four So I call it a fin number, which financial
independence number. So what we do is we take the
way of life that you have now, and we look
at the income that you currently have, and then we
forecast out what the cost of living and all that
other stuff and is going to be and we say, okay,
so your financial independence number is one point three million.
(17:41):
Now on that one point three million dollars based on
the age that you are today, on an average rate
to return depending on their profile questionnaire. If we're going
to get you just six seven eight percent rate to
return over the next so many years, how much do
we need to invest in order to hit that financial
independence number? So that's where thatinancial plan comes in and
we determine what that is. But it's not when we
(18:03):
do the financial plans. And if you've had one done
and all they looked at is what is my thin
number and how to get there, But they didn't look
at starting an emergency fund, or how do we pay
off debt or how do we ensure the debt on
our mortgage? Stuff like that, then you're definitely with the
wrong person because it's all like building wealth is encompassing
about everything. It's about how do we pay off debt?
(18:25):
Because paying off debt increases wealth because the number that
we're always looking at here isn't how much money we
have on our investment account. The number that I want
people to look at is what is my net worth?
Paying off debt and increasing savings increases your net worth.
So it's there's a whole bunch of different factors that
go into a financial plan, and the important numbers the
(18:45):
financial independence number, but paying off your debt also increases
your financial independence number as well.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
And having an investor profile and getting Jeff or asking
Jeff mcgilvery to create and help you create one, and
also be aware. And I like this point that you
put in, be aware of your emotions because we do
have the you know, we have friends or people that
we know, or we see things on TV and we
see things like you mentioned cryptocurrency happening, and our emotions
(19:14):
kick in.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I think it's like, oh, I want to be a
part of that, so I can.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Talk about being a part of that also, But you
have to be aware, I guess, and check yourself on
those kinds of investments, right, Yeah, So I like to.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Call ourselves financial therapists. And we all see these commercials
where they say, oh, if you're investing with an advisor,
you're pain as much in commissions and whatnot. But those
those buy like robo advisors that you're doing yourself, that's
when people get in trouble because when they see the
markets start dropping, that's when they start selling. Like we
discussed a few minutes ago, and when they call an
(19:49):
advisor where there's a human on the other end and
we're able to discuss Okay, do we sell, do we
move to something more secure, what do we do to
make you feel happier, or do we buy more? So
that's like I said, financial therapists is basically what we
are because we take your emotions and we were able
to discuss ways to limit the emotions that you're putting
(20:13):
into it because it's super important and emotion. There's a
chart that I've seen with different investment companies called emotion
or roller Coaster of investing, and people when the markets
are high, they're like, oh, the markets have done really
good this year. I'm going to start buying into the
markets while they're already high, and then they buy it
the wrong time. So it's definitely important to manage the
emotions when it comes to investing.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Is that what you'd call an investor's worst enemy, their
own emotions. We are our own worst enemy sometimes.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Right absolutely, And it's almost like you need to self
talk yourself, but you can't self talk yourself out of
selling when you see that money is going down. I mean,
when two thousand and eight hit and we have the
financial crisis, there was two people out there, people that
took advantage of it and people that didn't. And the
people that took advance mentioned bought while the markets were down.
(21:03):
I had some clients that did, and that's I started
at the worst possible time in the industry because I
got my license at the end of two thousand and seven. Okay,
So it was a horrible time to start because you
start taking some clients money on and then you end
up in that recession. But I had some clients that
understood what was going on and they went and got
ours p loans and they invested at the bottom of
(21:23):
that market, and it went up within three years quite significantly.
So that's where we come in to be able to
talk to them about that.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
We're speaking with Jeff mcgilvory about a number of different
topics within the Four Steps to Building Wealth in twenty
twenty five. What's your gut feeling on twenty twenty five, Jeff?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Here early?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I mean, is it a good time to invest right now?
Rates are down or they seem to be down that
there's talk of them going lower.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I'm just reading the news like everybody else. What's your
gut feeling on this? With your ear to the ground
as you have it there, You know, what we do
a lot of reading with different publications. We talked to
a lot of the.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Portfolio managers with a lot of the different investment companies.
I believe it's going to go up. I don't think
we've hit a top of a market, so I still
think it's a great time to buying anytime. Don't get
me wrong when I say you don't want to buy
at the top of the market. That's when dollar cost
averaging comes in because you're buying it ups and downs
all the time, so you're contributing every month or every
(22:22):
two weeks or every week, whatever you choose to do.
I think there's a lot of growth. I mean, some
of the investments we have at are an all time high.
But some people that's where the investment profile questionnaire comes in.
Some people aren't comfortable with that. So that's where we
determine based on that profile questionnaire because there's their own
(22:42):
emotions in it, and they're like a lot I'm not
too sure about twenty twenty five, whether we see good
numbers or not. Some people have their own thoughts on it,
and that's where we have to as advisors. We have
to take that into consideration with what we do. I
do I'm excited for twenty twenty five. I think it's
going to be a great year for the country. I
think it's going to be a great year for our investments.
(23:04):
And if you haven't started a financial plan, twenty twenty
five is a year to do it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And you can reach out to Jeff at his website
Askjeff dot ca that's ask Geo f F dot ca.
And whether it's cash flow management, estate planning, risk management,
investment planning, schedule a call with Jeff to find out
what's really going on and get honest financial advice. Jeff,
thanks a lot for this, as always. Four great tips
(23:32):
on how we can get into twenty twenty five and
make a difference. Four steps to building wealth. That sounds
promising and that really leaves a feeling of optimism even
just learning right now what you've had to say. Thanks
so much and we'll speak to you again next time.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Thank you again.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Happy new year, all the best, Happy new year. Askjeff
dot ca is where you should go. He is the
go to guy, somebody you know, somebody you can trust.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I hope you feel that you're giving the best you can, certainly,
and let's get together tomorrow. If that's okay with you
between one and two p m.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
As per usual here on news Talk Saga nine sixty
I'm Norm Murray.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Have a great day, no radio, no problem. Stream is
live on SAGA nine sixty am dot c a
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm Nora Murray.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Nice to have you along today on news Talk Saga
at nine sixty and we are well into the new
year by a few days here, and that means a
lot of things to a lot of people, and one
thing it can mean to our friend Jeff mcgilvrey is
learning about building wealth in twenty twenty five. Jeff, of course,
is president of Blue Harbor Financial. Go to Askjeff dot
(00:45):
ca that's ask GEO f F dot c A and
find out why it's important to work with it with
an experienced financial advisor, as Jeff is, somebody with a
solid reputation, a proactive approach, someone you can try and
get advice for twoenty twenty five especially and going forward here,
I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Jeff, how are you? Happy New year?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Happy new year to you and all of our listeners
as well. Hope you had a good time.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Thank you for that, and I'm sure everybody did have
a good time if they put a little bit of
planning aside to help them to get there. Too, because
it always seems like when the holidays arrive in December anyways,
there's that feeling of anxiousness Jeff, like, Okay, do I
have enough to get through the holidays here?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Right? I'm sure you hear that all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, we usually do twenty twenty five, we do
a show on some stations where we talk about how
to pay off the debt from Christmas. But this year
we did a little bit early and we said how
to not spend so much at Christmas. So a lot
of people are, you know, they're making their New Year's resolutions.
They may have them, they may have to alter them.
(01:50):
You know, talk about people going to the gym, and
you know, how do you to stick to plans? And
we'll talk about, you know, four steps to building wealth,
But how do we stick to these plans and these
goals that we set? And it's by replacing a bad
habit with a good habit. And yet once you do
it long enough, it just becomes second nature for you.
So yeah, so you know we talk about building well
(02:13):
for twenty twenty five and starting the year good.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, that's the idea, right, is to get started properly
and then it'll pay off at the end of the
year and of course going forward. But I'm glad you
brought that up. Four steps to building wealth? I mean,
are there really can you really come, you know, summarize
it to just four steps?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
What would be the first thing that we would introduce
everybody to in this take?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot more steps than
four steps. This just gives us the skinny version because
of the time that we're allowed on air. You want
to see what the other steps are. You know, within
step one, there's multiple steps within step one, and that's
you know, when we sit down with our clients and
we do that. But step one and I talk. I'm
(02:53):
really talking to the younger generation out there, the listeners
that eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty five, five years old, start
saving early. Twenty five dollars a month is the minimum
with some companies. Some companies want five thousand, some companies
want five hundred. I myself, I have zero issues taken
on a young client that's that's eighteen years old, that's
(03:14):
going to be twenty five dollars a month to some
sort of investment just to get those people started. I
remember when, you know, before I started saving before I
got into finance. I remember looking at a bank and
I want to start investing, and they wanted five thousand dollars.
But I was young and had two children, living paycheck
to paycheck and didn't have that money, and I wish
(03:35):
I could have done twenty five dollars a month. So
starting early is definitely going to be beneficial to you.
And then you know, when you talk to somebody like myself,
it's where do we invest. Do we invest in an
RSP or a TFSA, and within that do we invest
in GSE stocks, mutual funds, et cetera. Because the RSP
(03:55):
isn't good for everybody, depending especially if you're eighteen and
you're still going to school. The RSP is not going
to where we're going to want to invest. The TFSA
will be where we want to invest. So starting early
with the right retirement vehicle is definitely going to be
a benefit.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, you know, I hear people all the time, you know,
as they get older say that they're on a fixed income,
meaning that they're only on the on CPP Canada Pension Plan,
Quebec pension plan. And really as the years go by,
it's becoming more and more evident. It seems Jeff, that
that's not going to be enough to give us any
real quality of lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Is it. Yeah, it's it's definitely not enough, especially with
a lot of the younger generation becoming entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur,
as a self employed business owner, like even for myself,
I don't have to contribute to Canada pension plan if
you're paying, depending on how you're paying yourself, whether you're
doing a wage or give it an income, et cetera,
(04:50):
et cetera. I myself having paid Canada pension for years,
I just decided to start doing it this year for
the first time. But there's better ways to do it.
And you can't rely on cpp old age security. You
can't even rely on your work pension. There's pension companies
that have gone bankrupt numerous times. And I always tell
(05:13):
everybody when it comes to life insurance and saving stuff
like that is the only thing you can control is
what you do on your own. Don't rely on somebody
else by letting them put your thumb on you saying
this is how much you're going to have for retirement
to your pension. Let's talk about that. And there's other
ways even if your RSPs are maxed out, there's other
ways that we can increase your way of life to
(05:34):
other savings products other than the traditional RSP and TFSA.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, because with a group RRSP through your employer, it's
all fine and dandy, it seems to me, Jeff, you
tell me, like, there's the thought of Okay, if I
stick with this company, it means I'm going to have
X number of dollars when I'm fifty five, sixty sixty five,
and then and then, Jeff, you lose your job, then
what happens. You only get You only typically get what
(05:58):
you put in, and now you're scrambling and what am
I going to do? All that planning has gone by
the wayside. It seems you're sort of left alone.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, so they've got they've got calculations called a community
value where they'll if you're transferrented out, you do that.
And it's really important that people really look at the
pros and cons because some people, when they lose a job,
they can keep them with the Penching company. And I
think we need to do a show on the advantages
of moving out, because the sad part is if you
leave the job, that money that they say that they're
(06:28):
going to give you every month and you're no longer
with them. If you were to pass away, your beneficiary
only gets sixty percent of it, and there's ways that
you can have your beneficiary get one hundred percent of
that savings that you've had. So it's definitely, like I said,
with different steps. This is the step one of the
four we're talking about, but within step one there's like
ten different steps that it's more of an in person
(06:49):
conversation to talk about those essential things that are important
to your retirement plan.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
This is why for everybody listening, you need to speak
to somebody like Jeff to find out the ins and
out from somebody who knows the ins and outs, solutions
that make sense and getting the best solutions for you.
Time is money, even when you're young, and there's a
cost of delaying good financial decisions. So first thing, as
you were saying, is we're looking at four steps to
(07:15):
building wealth. Saving early, start as early as possible, contribute
regularly as much as you can, and of course speak
to someone like Jeff. Go to Askjeff dot c A.
And as we mature, I suppose Jeff and gain some wisdom,
we start to learn about ourselves, don't we and learn
about our own discipline and what our parameters are.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah. Yeah, And this one is super super important because
a lot of people will just go to an advisor
or they'll do it theirselves, and they don't do what's
called an investment profile questionnaire. And I think it's really
important that people do this, and I'm going to upload
one on the front page of my website. I just
got to determine which one I'm going to use on
here to make it simple for people. But the investment
(07:58):
profile questionnaire tells us how we need to invest for
because if we're investing in a first time Home Savers
account and we're eighteen years old and we're just saving
for a house, our time horizon is going to be
different for a first time Home Savers account, then it's
going to be for an RSP account. But then it
also tells us how risky we're going to be. Are
we going to invest in very high risk, medium risk,
(08:19):
low risk stuff depending on how you answer these questions.
So an investment profile questionnaire has ten to fifteen questions
in it, and each question has a point rating, and
then when you're finished it, you add up the points
and it will tell you based on that what your
risk profile is. So one thing that I can encourage
people to do is go on here. If you're with
another advisor, go on to it, download the investment profile questioner,
(08:42):
answer it for yourself and see if you're hitting goals
your investment profile goals with the advisor that you're with.
Because a lot of people, it's amazing at how many
people have never done an investor profile questionnaer, but they've
been investing in all their lives. And aside from getting
to know what your profile is, staying disciplined within that
profile and staying invested for the long term is super
(09:06):
important because a lot of people when the markets and
we've known the markets the last couple of weeks haven't
been fantastic. We ended this week on a good day,
but a lot of people will do like well simple
where they do their their own investing, but they're not
disciplined in the way that if the markets drop, people
will go and sell their investments. But that's exactly opposite
(09:28):
of what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to buy low,
sell high, not sell low and buy high. And that's
where we say stay disciplined. If you're contributing, you're doing
dollar cost averaging every single month, and you stay investing
in the markets regardless of what's happening. And when the
markets drop, you're actually taking some extra money and putting
(09:48):
it into the markets when they're down. That's when you're
going to become wealthy.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, this is why it's important to plan and important
to have somebody on your side like Jeff, who's going
to keep an eye on thing and as you go
along when you don't know what to do. I mean
here it is January. What typically happens in January versus
tax time in April. It's time to look at this
now and make plans for twenty twenty five. Get to
(10:14):
know yourself, stay disciplined, and trust in somebody who has
the experience that Jeff has.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Go to ask Jeff dot ca.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
That's a s K G E O F F dot
c A because we all want to you know, when
we're young, we don't think of retirement that often. At
least I didn't. I thought, you know, that's a long
ways away. I don't have to think about now that
now that's for old people. It's not for old people.
Jeff and we realize that as we advance in age
(10:43):
and and get closer to retirement and think, Okay, now
what am I actually going to do? I want to
be able to live a decent life here and live
a long one if possible to Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, And we talk about a lot of different risks.
So we talk about risk profile and my high risk
me and risk low risk. There's another risk that we
don't talk about now. It's the risk of outliving your money,
or the risk of like not having enough, or even
the risk of having too much when you just are
going to leave it to your children if you will.
But planning for retirement the super board, especially with all
(11:14):
the advances in medical research and all that other stuff,
we are living longer and when you're living longer, and
people it's a trend that's been going on for years
and I'm following the trend too. People are wanting to
travel in retirement. I know historically when people retired, they
didn't travel as much as people are doing now. Or
(11:34):
they're buying vacation homes or they're buying property stuff like that.
So you really have to plan with all them younger
listeners if you want to have all those different things.
You have to start planning really early because it's not
just what are we going to do with our lives,
it's also the cost of living. I mean, it might cost,
you know, a couple hundred dollars to fly on a
plane around Canada somewhere now, but give it twenty or
(11:57):
thirty years, that one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars
is going to be five or six dollars. So the
cost of living is going to go up. So we
have to make sure that we have enough money to
live the life that we want, and we also want
to make sure that there's enough there that we don't
outlive the money and then when we're sixty five, seventy
years old, there's no more money left. And it's really
sad that a lot of people along with this, I
(12:19):
talked to people about becoming healthy and staying healthy to
be able to enjoy your retirement, because it happens way
too often, and even happened just recently with someone I
know that someone was set to retire in the next
three or four months and unfortunately passed away and didn't
get to enjoy all that time that they put into it.
So staying healthy and planning for retirement to make sure
(12:42):
you have enough is super super important. You don't want
to work all these years and invest all this money
and not be able to enjoy them.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, I know you mentioned that's known as longevity risk
right outliving your savings, as you say, using up all
your savings before death or not at all, like you
just described with that person that you know. Unfortunately this
very sad too, but we do hear those stories from
time to time. So yeah, I mean, it doesn't have
(13:10):
to take a real science exam to come up with
this kind of plan, though, when you have somebody like
Jeff working for you, isn't it true?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Jeff?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I mean a quick phone call or an email to
set up an appointment and you can start talking about
these things and map it out.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It doesn't have to be so daunting.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I think for many of us we feel just the
anxiety even of reaching out is like, oh, this is
going to be a huge thing. It's going to be
a huge boulder on top of my shoulders. But I
think by the sounds of things from what you're saying
that in the interim, it can be very simple at
least to set things up talking human terms, You're a
real human being with a real life, just like the
(13:43):
rest of us. So you understand. You got kids, for example,
you know what a growing family.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You know what it's like.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
And I think that really reassures people that they're speaking
to somebody like themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
That helps.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Yeah, so our job is quite simple. We want you guys,
like we want our clients to go and live their
life and rely on this for us. Yeah, like we
we take care of this for you so you can
go and live the life that you want. And you
definitely want someone who's going to talk to you every
once in a while, not somebody that's gonna take your
money and or you take care of your life insurance
(14:15):
and not talk to you for twenty years. Because there's
a lot of part time life insurance agents and investment
agents that are out there with certain companies. And definitely
want to have someone that's full time and that's going
to talk to you when you need it, not just
not just when the markets are good. You also want
the advisor that's going to talk to you when the
markets are down as well.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, absolutely, and and that brings us, I guess, Jeff,
to those you know, investments that seem to be like
the new big thing right now, and we should all
be aware and be careful of that if we feel
like we're making investments in that area. Like for example,
you take a big company like Apple or something, and
you think, oh, I'll just put all my money in
(14:54):
that one fund, let's say, or one area and you'll
be fine.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Do you buy into that?
Speaker 4 (15:02):
So for my clients, I like to use mutual funds
so you can actually buy into some of these big
companies without having a lot of risks. So an average
mutro fund could have seventy five, two hundred and fifty
different mutual funds in it, so you're actually investing in
that company, but you know, if one company drops and
another company goes up, it helps litigate risk a little
(15:22):
bit because you're not so you're not all in one spot.
I go back and I tell people when I first started,
and I have some stocks on my phone just to
show this. I get people that would come to me
and say, hey, my dad works for this company and
the stock's going to go through the roof from blah
blah blah blah, and I keep it on my phone
so I can tell the story. I say that people
don't ever invest in the flavor of the month, because
(15:43):
look at what's going on with that stock that someone
told me about two thousand and eight or nine when
I first started, and it's it's gone nowhere. So there's
flavors of months that that are just for the month,
and then there's stuff that is doing very well. I
know a lot of people aren't a crypto currency and
it's it's had a great run and then it lost
and then it did really well again. If you like
(16:05):
something that's going to be up and down and you're
not afraid of volatility, that might be a great spot
for you to go or ai. But if you are
like most people, you get some decent returns and you know,
set it and forget it sort of thing, then a
good quality mutual fund is where you want to be.
But you also have to be careful because just because
(16:25):
returns are impressive for one year, it's very rare that
you get it for a two or three or four year,
like a year after year for a long span, it's
very rare that that ever happens. So you definitely got
to watch out for that flavor of the month investment
for sure.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, we're speaking with Jeff mcgilvy. Of course, once again
financial services experience, honest financial advice and solutions that make sense.
Go to ask Jeff dot c A. He's the go
to guy A s K G E O F F
dot c A and speak to Jeff about as he
says on his website or as a quote from Benjamin Franklin,
(17:04):
take care of the pennies and the dollars take care
of themselves. I think that makes a lot of sense.
How do we know, though, Jeff, going forward, how much
we're going to need? You know, is it a million,
is it two million, is it half a million?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
How do we really know? How can we calculate? Can
you help us with that?
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah? So that's again one of the steps within these
four So I call it a fin number, which financial
independence number. So what we do is we take the
way of life that you have now, and we look
at the income that you currently have, and then we
forecast out what the cost of living and all that
other stuff and is going to be and we say, okay,
so your financial independence number is one point three million.
(17:41):
Now on that one point three million dollars based on
the age that you are today, on an average rate
to return depending on their profile questionnaire. If we're going
to get you just six seven eight percent rate to
return over the next so many years, how much do
we need to invest in order to hit that financial
independence number? So that's where thatinancial plan comes in and
we determine what that is. But it's not when we
(18:03):
do the financial plans. And if you've had one done
and all they looked at is what is my thin
number and how to get there, But they didn't look
at starting an emergency fund, or how do we pay
off debt or how do we ensure the debt on
our mortgage? Stuff like that, then you're definitely with the
wrong person because it's all like building wealth is encompassing
about everything. It's about how do we pay off debt?
(18:25):
Because paying off debt increases wealth because the number that
we're always looking at here isn't how much money we
have on our investment account. The number that I want
people to look at is what is my net worth?
Paying off debt and increasing savings increases your net worth.
So it's there's a whole bunch of different factors that
go into a financial plan, and the important numbers the
(18:45):
financial independence number, but paying off your debt also increases
your financial independence number as well.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
And having an investor profile and getting Jeff or asking
Jeff mcgilvery to create and help you create one, and
also be aware. And I like this point that you
put in, be aware of your emotions because we do
have the you know, we have friends or people that
we know, or we see things on TV and we
see things like you mentioned cryptocurrency happening, and our emotions
(19:14):
kick in.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I think it's like, oh, I want to be a
part of that, so I can.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Talk about being a part of that also, But you
have to be aware, I guess, and check yourself on
those kinds of investments, right, Yeah, So I like to.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Call ourselves financial therapists. And we all see these commercials
where they say, oh, if you're investing with an advisor,
you're pain as much in commissions and whatnot. But those
those buy like robo advisors that you're doing yourself, that's
when people get in trouble because when they see the
markets start dropping, that's when they start selling. Like we
discussed a few minutes ago, and when they call an
(19:49):
advisor where there's a human on the other end and
we're able to discuss Okay, do we sell, do we
move to something more secure, what do we do to
make you feel happier, or do we buy more? So
that's like I said, financial therapists is basically what we
are because we take your emotions and we were able
to discuss ways to limit the emotions that you're putting
(20:13):
into it because it's super important and emotion. There's a
chart that I've seen with different investment companies called emotion
or roller Coaster of investing, and people when the markets
are high, they're like, oh, the markets have done really
good this year. I'm going to start buying into the
markets while they're already high, and then they buy it
the wrong time. So it's definitely important to manage the
emotions when it comes to investing.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Is that what you'd call an investor's worst enemy, their
own emotions. We are our own worst enemy sometimes.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Right absolutely, And it's almost like you need to self
talk yourself, but you can't self talk yourself out of
selling when you see that money is going down. I mean,
when two thousand and eight hit and we have the
financial crisis, there was two people out there, people that
took advantage of it and people that didn't. And the
people that took advance mentioned bought while the markets were down.
(21:03):
I had some clients that did, and that's I started
at the worst possible time in the industry because I
got my license at the end of two thousand and seven. Okay,
So it was a horrible time to start because you
start taking some clients money on and then you end
up in that recession. But I had some clients that
understood what was going on and they went and got
ours p loans and they invested at the bottom of
(21:23):
that market, and it went up within three years quite significantly.
So that's where we come in to be able to
talk to them about that.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
We're speaking with Jeff mcgilvory about a number of different
topics within the Four Steps to Building Wealth in twenty
twenty five. What's your gut feeling on twenty twenty five, Jeff?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Here early?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I mean, is it a good time to invest right now?
Rates are down or they seem to be down that
there's talk of them going lower.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I'm just reading the news like everybody else. What's your
gut feeling on this? With your ear to the ground
as you have it there, You know, what we do
a lot of reading with different publications. We talked to
a lot of the.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Portfolio managers with a lot of the different investment companies.
I believe it's going to go up. I don't think
we've hit a top of a market, so I still
think it's a great time to buying anytime. Don't get
me wrong when I say you don't want to buy
at the top of the market. That's when dollar cost
averaging comes in because you're buying it ups and downs
all the time, so you're contributing every month or every
(22:22):
two weeks or every week, whatever you choose to do.
I think there's a lot of growth. I mean, some
of the investments we have at are an all time high.
But some people that's where the investment profile questionnaire comes in.
Some people aren't comfortable with that. So that's where we
determine based on that profile questionnaire because there's their own
(22:42):
emotions in it, and they're like a lot I'm not
too sure about twenty twenty five, whether we see good
numbers or not. Some people have their own thoughts on it,
and that's where we have to as advisors. We have
to take that into consideration with what we do. I
do I'm excited for twenty twenty five. I think it's
going to be a great year for the country. I
think it's going to be a great year for our investments.
(23:04):
And if you haven't started a financial plan, twenty twenty
five is a year to do it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And you can reach out to Jeff at his website
Askjeff dot ca that's ask Geo f F dot ca.
And whether it's cash flow management, estate planning, risk management,
investment planning, schedule a call with Jeff to find out
what's really going on and get honest financial advice. Jeff,
thanks a lot for this, as always. Four great tips
(23:32):
on how we can get into twenty twenty five and
make a difference. Four steps to building wealth. That sounds
promising and that really leaves a feeling of optimism even
just learning right now what you've had to say. Thanks
so much and we'll speak to you again next time.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Thank you again.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Happy new year, all the best, Happy new year. Askjeff
dot ca is where you should go. He is the
go to guy, somebody you know, somebody you can trust.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I hope you feel that you're giving the best you can, certainly,
and let's get together tomorrow. If that's okay with you
between one and two p m.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
As per usual here on news Talk Saga nine sixty
I'm Norm Murray.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Have a great day, no radio, no problem. Stream is
live on SAGA nine sixty am dot c a
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.