Investment | Just Business

Best of Blogs – The Globe and Mail contest edition

Posted: May 6th, 2011 by Dnee

I am so excited this week to be nominated for Canada’s Best Personal Finance Blog (Help keep me in top spot – Vote Retire Happy!). It such an honor to be among an esteemed group of people. I also found out that RetireHappyBlog is ranked 16th for finance blogs on Technorati.com. I’m not sure exactly what that ranking means or how I got that but I’m in good company on that list. Add in the fact that my financial education business is firing on all cylinders and you’ll understand why I have lots to be happy about. Oh, and one more bonus . . . it’s mother’s day this weekend.

For this week’s Best of Blogs, I thought it would be appropriate to share some work from each of the nominees from the Globe and Mail contest:

For the Love of Money says that the beliefs and attitudes you developed in childhood are influencing how you deal with money as an adult
Mike, author of the RESP book and the chief of MoneySmartsBlog gives great information on RESP withdrawals from a family plan.
Michael James on Money highlights some contradictory investment advice

Ram, the man behind Canadian Capitalist summarized what we should expect from the Conservatives after their majority win in this week’s election
Dan, the Canadian Couch Potato has a terrific article called Finding the Right Advisor (one that can help people with a passive strategy.
Canadian Mortgage Trends talks about Pre-payments to your mortgages to cut your penalties
Chris Umiastowski gives his view on RIM after Capital Markets Day
Humble Student of the Markets compared government and private compensation
Gail Vaz-Oxlade pulls no punches with her 9 Money NOT to Do’s
Krystal from Give Me Back My Five Bucks is very candid and shares her financial goals and budget for May
Frugal expert Kerry Taylor (Squawkfox) shares 50 ways to save $1000 per year
Sustainable PF shares 16 driving tips to improve gas mileage
Big Cajun Man talks about the humor behind a reputable tattoo parlours and other contradictory descriptions of financial services
Echo from Boomer and Echo gives the numbers behind his personal inflation rate
Get Smarter About Money tells you how to find money to pay the taxman
Balance Junkie gives 5 ways to clear financial obstacles
Consumer advocate Ellen Roseman says customers should come ahead of shareholders
And let’s not forget about Money Index – the site where you can find all the blogs.

Congratulations to all bloggers for their nominations. If you haven’t voted yet, what are you waiting for?

This week, I’ve been hitting up all of my contacts, clients, colleagues, friends, and workshop participants to vote so why stop now! I’ll take any votes you want to give me. Help keep me in top spot – Vote Retire Happy!

This week, I posted 2 articles

Thanks to others who included my articles in their weekly carnivals

This and That by Canadian Capitalist
Linkstuff by MoneySmartsBlog
Friday Links on Canadian Finance Blog
Totally Money Carnival by Money Beagle
Festival of Stocks by Fat Pitch Financials
Integrated Finance Carnival by Integrated Loans

Best of Blogs – The Globe and Mail contest edition originally appeared on Retire Happy Blog on May 6, 2011.

No Comments | Filed under Finance, Financial, Tips, business, investment, loan, money, strategy

5 Common Mistakes Investors Make

Posted: May 5th, 2011 by Dnee

“You can get poor a lot faster than you can get rich.” – Bob Miller

There is a lot more to investing than just setting aside money every month and hoping it turns into a large nest egg in retirement. Here are 5 common mistakes that investors make:

Not Paying Attention To Your Investments

You don’t have to make investing a full time job but you have to put in some effort besides perusing back issues of Money Sense magazine. How well your investments perform can determine when and how you can retire, how big of an estate you can build and whether you will ever get to do the things on your personal wish list.

Whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or have an investment manager, make sure your assets are managed in a systematic, disciplined way. Have a plan that covers both the short and long term – your life goals. Have a strategy to achieve your goals. Monitor how well the plan is working and adjust it if necessary depending on your results and changing conditions.

Trying To Time The Market

Many people are still searching for the secret of buying low and selling high but it’s almost impossible to pull this off. Even though the market’s overall, long-term trend has been upward, many stocks make most of their gains in short, dramatic spurts. Consequently, the price you pay for being out of the market at the wrong time is enormous.

Not only can you miss out on positive returns, but you’ll also pay transaction costs for making all the wrong moves. Overall, it’s easy to see why buy-and-hold investors have an advantage over those who try to outmaneuver the market.

Letting Emotions Drive Investment Decisions

Money is an emotional issue. It has a lot to do with our feelings of success, security and self-worth. When you use those emotions to make reactive, short-term decisions, you’ll get into trouble.

Irrational fear is usually the force behind the classic investment mistake of selling all your stocks after the market takes a plunge. Those with cooler heads and a longer view know this actually may be the time to commit more money to equities.

Some investors are too conservative and let inflation eat away at their low returns. Others ride a tide of enthusiasm and go for the “get rich quick” schemes and super-aggressive investments hoping for a quick score and ignoring the higher risks.

To guard against emotional reactions you need a well-thought-out investment plan that you are willing to commit to.

Underestimating How Much Income You’ll Need

The biggest risk you’ll face is not the chance of losing your principal, it’s the risk of not accumulating enough so that you outlive your money. Calculate how much income you will need and factor in inflation (easier to do when you’re closer to retirement than when you’re just starting out). Life spans are getting longer with each generation so you may be drawing on your savings for thirty years or more.

Don’t assume you’ll stay healthy. The cost of chronic ill health can mean huge financial setbacks especially if you will eventually need long-term care.

Solely Measuring Performance Against Market Indexes

It’s gratifying to learn your portfolio has outpaced the TSX or the Scotia Bond Index and indeed that is how portfolio managers have measured their performance relative to their peers, but it’s much more important to know how well your investment program is doing in relation to your personal goals.

Your results may look great against market benchmarks, but still fall short of the asset growth you’ve targeted. If your portfolio loses money in one year, you’ll have to earn a greater amount in the next year to stay on track.

Look at your actual return after taking into consideration taxes, inflation and other expenses.

By avoiding mistakes you will build your wealth steadily and consistently over time without taking unnecessary risks. You’ll know where you’re going and how quickly you are getting there.

Share and Enjoy:

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Is Retire Happy Blog Canada’s Best Personal Finance Blog?

Posted: May 4th, 2011 by voice-city.info

Wow! I am humbled to think that my blog has been nominated as one of the Best Canadian Personal Finance Blogs by the Globe and Mail. For those of you checking out my blog for the first time, There is no shortage of content here as I have been writing for over 20 years. Just check out my archive page and you will see there is something for everyone.

From Columnist to Blogger

I used to call myself a columnist when I wrote columns for the Edmonton Examiner, Edmonton Journal, MoneySense (Now Canadian Business), The Globe and Mail and many other mainstream publications. About 2 years ago I transitioned from being a columnist to a Blogger and now after launching my new site earlier this year, I am very excited to have my site nominated as one of the best personal finance blogs. It’s a real honor to be among some other great blogging veterans like Canadian Capitalist, Squawkfox, Ellen Roseman and Gail Vaz-Oxlade. Congratulations to some other great blogs like BoomerandEcho, MoneySmartsBlog, Balance Junkie, Give Me Back My Five Bucks and Canadian Personal Finance Blog.

Get your votes in

Do us all a favour and get your votes in! I’d love for you to vote for me but there are a lot of great sites on this list and even new ones I am not too familiar with that I am planning to check out.

Ways to use Retire Happy Blog

If you want to check out the site, I have lots of content here. Use the search feature at the upper right hand side of the site to find an article on your favorite topic. After 20 years of writing, there is a good chance I have something here for everyone here.

The other way to use the site is to simple visit the archive page, where I have organized the articles according to category.

You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Linked-in to get regular updates.

A Special Thanks

A special thanks goes out to Tom Drake of Canadian Finance Blog who has really helped me with the technical side of this site. His other site MoneyIndex.org was nominated for the Best Canadian Investment Blog. Also a much appreciated thank you goes out to Rob Carrick and Dianne Nice for their nominations.

Is Retire Happy Blog Canada’s Best Personal Finance Blog? originally appeared on Retire Happy Blog on May 3, 2011.

No Comments | Filed under Finance, Financial, business, investment, money

Investing Blog Roundup: eBook Price Update

Posted: April 29th, 2011 by voice-city.info

At the beginning of April, when I lowered the prices on the Kindle editions of my books (from $9.99 to $2.99 or $3.99, depending on the book), I promised to keep you folks informed as to how the experiment played out and whether or not I would continue offering the reduced prices.

April’s almost over, so I suppose it’s time to do that.

In March, people bought 284 Kindle versions of my books. As of this writing, it looks like approximately 800 Kindle books will have sold by the end of April. In terms of revenue, that’s actually a slight decline (~$100). But I’m satisfied with that trade-off: almost three-times as many people being exposed to the information with only a slight reduction in income.*

So for now at least, the prices will stay at their current levels. There’s always the possibility I’ll change prices in the future, but I’ll warn you first.

Before we move on to our weekly links, I thought I’d share a brief, fun video from one of the regulars at the Bogleheads forum (username “Boglenaut”). As a bit of background for those who are unfamiliar: The Bogleheads forum is potentially the best place on the entire internet for discussing investment-related questions.

The Race: Active vs. Index Mutual Funds

Investing Articles

CF Cents posted a very kind review of my book Can I Retire?
Advisors’ Pay Tells What They Do from Rick Ferri
Tackling Tactical Asset Allocation from Portfolioist
Time to Spring Clean Your Portfolio from MintLife
Don’t Treat Your 401(k) Like a Savings Account from GenX Finance
Roth Conversion Pro-Rata Rule with Inherited IRAs from The Finance Buff
Will Roth Withdrawals Always be Tax Free? from Bible Money Matters
Do Synthetic ETFs Pose a Risk to Global Financial Stability? from Monevator

Blog Carnivals

Totally Money Blog Carnival hosted by Stupid Cents
Carnival of Financial Planning hosted by Control Your Cash
Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Upside of Money
Carnival of Wealth hosted by Personal Dividends
Wealth Builder Carnival hosted by My Wealth Builder

Thanks for reading!

*This is actually somewhat of an oversimplification. Much like investing, publishing involves making decisions with imperfect information. In all likelihood, there are actually several other variables at work as well. And if I hadn’t changed the prices, either:

Sales would have declined by more than $100 (and it’s only the price reduction that kept things from falling further), or
Sales actually would have grown this month (but the price reduction kept them from doing so).

But of course, I have no way of knowing with certainty which of those is the case.

Retiring Soon? Pick Up a Copy of My New Book:

Can I Retire? Managing a Retirement Portfolio Explained in 100 Pages or Less (Click here to see it on Amazon.)

No Comments | Filed under Finance, Financial, investment, money, strategy

What’s New Around The Blogosphere: April 29th, 2011

Posted: April 29th, 2011 by Dnee

Finding a place to rent for two months is turning out to be a lot more difficult than we thought. Apparently landlords aren’t too keen on short term rentals to people with pets…so that’s two strikes against us right off the bat.

And for all of this talk of renting instead of owning, I’m not seeing much of a discount on rent in our city. Most of the places we’ve looked at are asking for as much per month as we currently pay on our mortgage. The good news is that our new house is still on schedule for an August 1st possession date, even with the rotten weather this Spring.

Enough complaining, let’s take a look at some interesting articles from the personal finance world this week: