Finding Your Financial Independence Number and How to Live Off Your Portfolio

It's RRSP season here in Canada. Remember that March 1 is the deadline for contributing to an RRSP, and have it count towards your 2022 tax year. 

Also while we’re on the subject, remember that your TFSA contribution room grows every year, and for the 2023 calendar year, you now have an extra $6,500 that you and your partner can contribute each. That's $13,000 total if you both max it out.

Last year the limit was $6,000 per person so the government did increase that by $500 per person for this year. 

I find that these are things that are easy to forget as life gets buys, but I always have reminders set up for these things as, especially in the case of the TFSA, it’s always nice to put in the effort to max that out so that you can get that tax-free growth on that new money invested, all year long.

Since it’s RRSP season, and tax season is coming up, I thought it would be worthwhile to have another successful Canadian Financial Planner on the show, so that we can get a good second opinion on:

·         How much do you need to be financially independent and have the option of retiring?

·         What are some of the sustainable withdrawal strategies that you can use when you’re ready to start living off your portfolio?

·         What is the process and calculations that should be done annually to ensure that you are withdrawing a sustainable amount from your portfolio?

·         And, since our guest has been in the financial planning industry for decades at this point, I ask him if he’s noticed certain patterns when it comes to clients that are successful both financially and in life, versus those that are not. This way we can pick some lessons learned from others, apply them to our own lives, and hopefully avoid some completely avoidable mistakes that others endured before us.

Before we get into the interview, I wanted to invite you to a free webinar and Q&A that I’ll be doing with the actual co-creator of the TFSA.

He’s the former Chief of Staff for the Minister of Finance in Canada. His name is Kevin McCarthy, and if you’ve ever had TFSA or RRSP related questions, or would just like to ask the creator of the TFSA your questions, you can do so at this webinar.

I’ll be there too obviously and so after Kevin goes through his educational presentation where he goes over the RRSP and TFSA fundamentals, as well as the tax deductions and tax credits available to us as Canadians, we’ll then have a live Q&A with him and I and so you can ask him or me your questions when it comes to personal finance, investing, financial independence and retirement, living off your investments, etc.

The session is on February 23, 2023, and it will be recorded so even if you can’t make it live, you can still signup to be emailed the replay once it’s released. 

Also, Kevin has informed me that anyone attending live will receive a downloadable version of his and his team’s proprietary Income Tax and RRSP Tax Savings Calculator.

The link to sign up for free is BuildWealthCanada.ca/webinar.

I look forward to seeing and interacting with you there, and now, let’s get into the interview!