by Rona Birenbaum BAS CFP®, CHFS | Sep 8, 2025 | All About Tax, Estate Matters, Retirement
Why RRSP Withdrawals Before Age 71 Can Sometimes Make Tax Sense For most Canadians, the conventional wisdom is to leave their Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) untouched until age 71, when it must be converted to a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) or...
by Rona Birenbaum BAS CFP®, CHFS | Dec 1, 2020 | Retirement
An email greeted me this morning from a firm that crafts custom insurance coverage for higher risk cases that have been declined by traditional insurers. There were three case studies. Two of three took my breath away figuratively. The email is below along with the...
by Rona Birenbaum BAS CFP®, CHFS | Sep 8, 2020 | All About Investing, All About Tax, Retirement
Our advice Below is a sample of the various CPP timing recommendations that our firm has made recently. Our advice was customized to each unique situation. One size does not fit all. These are tiny extracts from four financial plans. We’re biased of course, but...
by Rona Birenbaum BAS CFP®, CHFS | Mar 6, 2020 | All About Investing, Retirement, Risk Management
“Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.” Julie Andrews At some point in the past you probably completed an investor risk tolerance questionnaire. Today, you may be discovering that your risk tolerance isn’t immutable. It is influenced by factors such as:...
by Rona Birenbaum BAS CFP®, CHFS | Nov 11, 2019 | All About Investing, All About Tax, Estate Matters, Retirement, Risk Management
Have you ever been uncertain about what your portfolio equity allocation should be? You may have relied on the “100 minus your age” rule. It determines this ‘magic asset mix’ for you in seconds! For example, at age 65 you would have 35 percent in equities and 65...
by Rona Birenbaum BAS CFP®, CHFS | Nov 4, 2019 | All About Investing, Estate Matters, Retirement
If you are close to retirement or are currently retired, you may have heard about the 4% rule. It was designed to help retirees determine how much of their portfolio they should withdraw in the first year of retirement (indexed to inflation in future years) to...
