Retirement plan to support my "habit"

[KeithG]

"Looking them up" is insufficient.

Anyone reading this thread should get themselves educated about financial instruments, etc. It's not rocket science. Read some books.

- Bill

Books? Which ones? Education! Agreed!

Make sure you understand the various financial vehicles available to you. But try to ignore the get rich quick stuff, although they can be informative. Read the stuff that educates you on the fundamentals. Then expect to PAY for expert advice.

Quiz:
- In Canada, how many of you childless couples have a joint last to die life insurance policy?
- How many of you know what a family trust is?

Note: The rich do not get to be (or stay) rich by being stupid. They (may be stupid, but they) pay big money to ensure that they follow all of the government rules to ensure that they remain wealthy.

 

[KenGordon]

That will happen across all of the strategies. If one of the index strategies went down, I would get 0% for that term. Did the financial institution make money off of me? Yes, but I accept that. Did I lose anything? No, whatever they take from my gains, I never had it in the first place.

Yes you did lose the fair price of the money. With low inflation that might not seem like a loss but it is still a loss. If you were using that return to generate income then you would notice.

 

[KenGordon]

In general, an index annuity guarantees no losses but does not provide full gains.

There are no guarantees. Remember Lehman?

 

[TMHeimer]

Books? Which ones? Education! Agreed!

Make sure you understand the various financial vehicles available to you. But try to ignore the get rich quick stuff, although they can be informative. Read the stuff that educates you on the fundamentals. Then expect to PAY for expert advice.

Quiz:
- In Canada, how many of you childless couples have a joint last to die life insurance policy?
- How many of you know what a family trust is?

Note: The rich do not get to be (or stay) rich by being stupid. They (may be stupid, but they) pay big money to ensure that they follow all of the government rules to ensure that they remain wealthy.

Good post. We have a joint life ins. policy. After the last one of us dies the 2 girls split what's left 50-50.
I suppose that would be a family trust. Anyway, we got some big wig in Winnipeg to write it all up like 20 years ago, then amended it a little when we moved to N.S.

 

[Scandi Divers]

Move to the Philippines, You can thank me later

 

[jlcnuke]

The big issue with many investments (think mutual funds) that people blindly fall into is the fees. Guaranteed fees. Regardless of their level of performance.

Mutual funds generally take a fixed percentage of your principle balance. Your fund makes 3% and they take 2% MER of your balance - so you make 1%. When your fund makes 1%, they take 2% of your balance (so you made -1%, oops). They really do not care what return they give you as they will always steal a fixed percentage of your money regardless of your return. They ALWAYS make money. This is a WIN for them - screw you situation. We blindly fell into that trap for many years...

We now use a "wealth manager" type service where they take a fixed percentage of our PROFITS, not our principle. Their take percentage is large - VERY large. But if they screw up and only make us 1% then they get a very large slice of our 1% profit. They can not can eat into our principle (well they can screw up big time and lose some of it in which case they get $0).

Our wealth manger only makes money when we do.

I use index ETFs/mutual with expense ratios less than 0.1% as a general rule (except the 0.25% fund in my 401k, I can't choose better funds there due to limited selection). I've heard of zero money managers that can reproduce the performance for less long-term and it's simple enough I spend less than 20 minutes per month managing my money.

 

[Schwob]

Move to the Philippines, You can thank me later

Can't let you off so easy with a teaser like that...
Do tell more ...
... or might you offer some links?
(about the moving, living, healthcare, life in general for foreigners there, ... we het that the diving is great...)

 

[Scandi Divers]

I have been living in the Philippines for the last 6 years, I'm based on the island of Mindoro in the north of the Philippines. Its about 3 hours by van and boat from Manila. the cost of living is very cheap, you can rent a 2 bedroom place from US$200 - $400 a month on most of the islands. You can have a great life and spend less than a $1000 a month on everything. Of course life is a lot different, you need to have patience as things are a lot slower than the western world but the beautiful scenery & really nice people make it worth it. The diving is out of the this world, we are in the middle of the coral triangle so we have some of the most abundant reefs in the world. You can dive for as little as $10 - $15 a tank with some dive shops.
There are great visa options and its easy to extend as a tourist, you can actually stay for 36 months before you have to leave for at least one day. There are other longer term visas available which are a bit more complex.
One thing is you can't own any land as a foreigner so it can get really complicated if you try to do that, You have to find people that you can trust. There are plenty of scammers around so you have to tread carefully in that respect.

Hope this is helpful

 

[Schwob]

@Scandi Divers :
Not sure if I'd dare. That would be quite a move. So I can't say yet if it's helpful. But it's encouraging me to look into it some more. Thanks!
May I ask, how is your healthcare set up ? Self (not) insured or somehow within the local system (how, and how is it) or?

 

[Scandi Divers]

I have my own health care for my family, it's about $100 a month for 4 of us. The healthcare and hospitals are good in the bigger cities, in fact I have some American friends that come diving and have all their health checks done over here at a fraction of the cost in the States.