Author Tina Hay’s Napkin Finance is, as the name would suggest, a great way to boil complex financial planning concepts into easy, digestible pieces.

While the book is intended for U.S. readers, there’s a treasure trove of good information for those of us who reside north of the border.

In the chapter on saving, she quotes famed investor Warren Buffett as saying “do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.” It’s a great idea, she writes, “to make sure you have cash available for emergencies, unexpected bills… and future goals,” and a savings account, ideally separate from your spending account, is a great way to get there.

Hay talks about budgeting ideas, including what she calls “the 50-20-30 budget.” That’s “50 per cent for essentials, 20 per cent for financial goals, and 30 per cent for flexible spending,” the book explains.

In talking about debt, she calls borrowing for a home or education “good debt,” and credit card balances “bad debt,” noting it takes the average American 12 years to pay off a credit card if he or she only pays the minimum amount owing.

If you want to have a good credit rating, Hay advises, then pay your credit card on time and, where possible, in full; don’t miss loan payments; resolve your bank overdraft (pay it off), pay all bills on time and avoid going into collection. All these factors are strikes against good credit, she warns.

Investing, she writes, can be a “powerful way to grow your wealth,” chiefly because stocks generally perform well over the long term. By buying stock, you become “a part-owner of the company” and share in profits via growth in the value of your shares and, occasionally, through dividends. With a bond, “you become the lender to the entity that issued the bond,” and the interest you receive is basically like rent on the use of your money. Hay says alternate investment classes can also be good in your portfolio, including real estate (“you may earn a return when your tenants pay rent”), hedge funds, and private equity investments.

Watch for fees if you invest in mutual funds, she writes; fees are lower with exchange-traded funds or if you use a Robo-adviser rather than a broker.

For retirement savings, Hay advises that you “save 15 per cent of your income and invest heavily in stocks while you are young.” She says you should “take advantage” of tax-assisted savings (in Canada, this would be things like RRSPs or workplace registered pension plans). Don’t forget, she writes, to think about your estate planning as well – don’t leave the decision on what should happen to your money and possessions up in the air.

This is a nicely-written book that’s offering up complex topics in a simple, easy-to-digest way. There’s a nice splash of colour, such as the fact that some people measure inflation over time by looking at the historic price of a Big Mac! It’s definitely worth a read.

If you aren’t great at investing, and want to follow a diversified approach while avoiding high fees, take a good look at the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. Through SPP’s Balanced Fund your investment dollar accesses Canadian and international equities, bonds, mortgages, real estate, infrastructure and short-term investments – all for a very low management fee.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Times are volatile, but there are things NOT to do with retirement savings: Gordon Pape

We’re living through a public health crisis that has undermined Canada’s economy and made the stock and bond markets go topsy-turvy.

Noted financial author Gordon Pape, writing in the St. Catharines Standard, says that this situation is particularly frightening to those among us who are living on their retirement savings.

Protecting your health, he writes, is number one. But number two should be protecting your savings, he advises.

“Some older Canadians have a significant amount of money tucked away in their retirement plans, and they don’t want to lose it,” writes Pape. “They’re depending on those RRSPs, RRIFs, and LIFs to support them in the coming years.”

He notes that the stock market “has taken a beating,” and “there’s turmoil in the bond market,” leaving many with no idea “which way to turn.”

Don’t get frightened and put everything into cash, Pape warns. “I’d prefer to have cash reserves to cover two years of expenses and invest the rest in government-issued fixed income securities, high-quality, dividend-paying stocks, and some gold funds or stocks.”

Putting your investments in cash is problematic, he writes. You won’t earn much interest. But the return of inflation could erode the spending power of your cash, notes Pape – governments are being forced to spend more than expected during the pandemic and some economists feel we could see inflation rates of up to three per cent in just a few years.

A second, albeit unlikely scenario with cash investing is bank failure. “Don’t misunderstand me here,” he stresses, “Canada’s banks are well-capitalized and among the strongest in the world.” But there have been failures among smaller institutions in years gone by.

Be sure to take advantage of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation – you can put up to $100,000 per person in CDIC-backed savings accounts, so that in the unlikely event of bank problems, your money is insured, writes Pape.

Pape’s advice makes a lot of sense – he’s describing a balanced approach to retirement savings, with enough cash to cover your expenses for a couple of years, and then a mix of quality equities and government-backed bonds. For good measure, he also recommends a little exposure to precious metals.

There was a time, perhaps in the 1980s, when interest investing through GICs and high-interest savings accounts was seen as the right approach to retirement savings. But in those days, interest rates were far higher, at certain points of time reaching the mid-teens. Save with SPP remembers getting a $1,000 Canada Savings Bond that paid 16 per cent interest – and a car loan, from the bank, that cost 18 per cent interest! So the good old days weren’t always all that good.

The Saskatchewan Pension Plan’s Balanced Fund has an asset mix (as of December 2019) that features 29% bonds, 19% U.S. equity, 18% Canadian equity, 18% per cent non-North American equity, as well as exposure to real estate (10%), infrastructure (3%), mortgages (2%) and short-term investments (1%). Members who have holdings in this SPP fund are benefitting from diversification and professional investment management, with a goal of safe, low-risk growth. Check them out today.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

There’s no question that one day, when we are telling our future grandchildren about what the pandemic was like, we’ll be asked “so what did you do when you had to stay home?”

Now that we are beginning to see the end of some of the daunting restrictions that have closed restaurants, stores, gyms, the Legion, hockey rinks, golf courses and other key parts of our lives, it’s worth remembering what people got up to while stuck at home.

According to a story in Patch magazine, many of us have desperately been trying to buy more yeast and flour.

“For so many who’ve been holed up in quarantine, cooking — and especially baking — has meant either a return to the comforting recipes of childhood or a foray into a whole new world of culinary creativity. Baking bread from scratch, a long-ago tradition, is suddenly a focus, along with Zoom cocktail parties, Netflix binges, and morning gatherings around the TV to listen to New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo discuss coronavirus strategies, and yes, the meatballs and sauce of his childhood Sundays,” the story notes.

While various Internet-based teleconferencing apps, and drive-by birthday celebrations are a big deal, there are more basic ways to stay in touch with others, reports the CBC.

In the suburbs of Winnipeg, a group of seniors at a retirement home wondered how they would handle having to miss their usual weekly get-together in the facility’s restaurant.

“Every Sunday, dozens of people go onto their balconies or stand physically distanced in the courtyard at L’Accueil Colombien to bang on pots, ring bells and sing O Canada for about 15 minutes,” the CBC reports. And according to one of the founders of this new tradition, the goal is to stay in touch.

“I just thought of it because I had heard that somewhere, I think it was in France, at 6 o’clock they would come on their balcony and they would sing,” St. Vincent tells the CBC. “I’m not a singer, so I said, ‘Well, we can ring [bells], we can make noise.'”

Those of us who could continue working at home did, and for some it was quite an eye-opener, reports Global TV.

“A recent survey from Statistics Canada found that approximately 4.7 million Canadians who do not usually work from home did so during the week of March 22 to 28,” the network reports.

“I think this has been a revolution. It was something that was thrown at us, but we have found that working from home has really been working quite well,” consultant Barbara Bowes tells the network.

“I think that from an employer’s perspective, they can save so much money from rental spaces; they will seriously take a look at how they can balance how much time and who is in the office through technology. It is going to change the way we work altogether,” she says in the interview.

Another unexpected fringe benefit to the pandemic – a time when few are driving anywhere, since there is essentially nothing to do but shop for groceries, hit the drug store, or refresh your beer supply – is cleaner air, reports the Toronto Star.

“When you clean up the air, you see a reduction in mortality,” Stanford Professor Marshall Burke tells the newspaper. “It highlights the things we may want to change when we don’t have an epidemic.”

Finally, one last thing some of us are finding is that we aren’t spending as much money.

“If you add it all up, the average family is saving $1,700 a month when you factor in commuting costs, childcare costs, the amount of money folks are saving by not going out to eat, especially not going to the bars,” researcher Nick Johnson tells Milwaukee’s WISN.

It’s certainly been a strange time that none of us will ever forget, a once-in-a-lifetime thing – hopefully.

If you are among the fortunate few who have been able to keep working and have a few extra dollars left over, don’t forget to tend to your retirement savings. Those savings need a little care and occasional watering to grow, so any extra bits of cash you can spare today could be directed to your Saskatchewan Pension Plan account. You’ll be able to harvest those dollars, which will be professionally invested and grown, when you reach retirement age. Your future self-will, no doubt, thank you.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Your parents say it, the experts say it, people who are wealthy say it – if you’re buying something, pay with cash, not credit. And even debit cards can come with hidden fees, they say.

But this crazy pandemic situation has us all tap, tap, tapping away for groceries, for gas, for a box of beer, and any of the other services we can actually spend money on. Could this represent a sea change for the use of cash, or is it just a blip? Save with SPP had a look around the Interweb for a little fact-finding.

Proponents of cash include Gail Vaz Oxlade, author and TV presenter who has long advocated for using cash for expenses, rather than adding to your debt.

“I’m a huge fan of hers and have read every book and watched every episode of Til Debt Do Us Part, Money Moron and Princess… the premise of the system is to use cash only (no plastic), storing it in envelopes or jars, sticking to a budget, tracking your spending, and once the money is gone, there’s no more until next month’s budget,” reports The Classy Simple Life blog.

It’s true – we have read her books and if you follow her advice your debts will decrease.

Other cash advocates include billionaire Mark Cuban. He tells CNBC that while only 14 per cent of Americans use cash for purchases (pre-pandemic), he sees cash as his number one negotiation tool. “If you want to take a yoga class, and they say it costs $30, say `I’ve only got $20,’” he says in a recent Vanity Fair article. More than likely, he notes, they’ll take the cash.

Cash is great because it is (usually) accepted everywhere, there’s no fees or interest associated with using it, and it has a pre-set spending limit – when your wallet is empty, you stop spending. But these days, cash is no longer sitting on the throne of personal finance.

Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick notes that more than six weeks into the pandemic he still had the same $50 in his wallet that he had when it started.

“Paying with cash is seen as presenting a risk of transmitting the virus from one person to another – that’s why some retailers that remain open prefer not to accept it. Note: The World Health Organization says there’s no evidence that cash transmits the virus,” he writes. In fact, he adds, the Bank of Canada recently asked retailers to continue to accept cash during the crisis.

A CBC News report suggests that our plastic money may indeed present a risk, and that the COVID-19 virus may survive for hours or days on money. The piece suggests it is a “kindness” to retailers to pay with credit or debit, rather than cash.

“Public officials and health experts have said that the risk of transferring the virus person-to-person through the use of banknotes is small,” reports Fox News. “But that has not stopped businesses from refusing to accept currency and some countries from urging their citizens to stop using banknotes altogether,” the broadcaster adds. The article goes on to point out that many businesses are doing “contactless” transactions, where payment occurs over the phone or Internet and there is not even a need to tap.

Putting it all together, we’re living in very unusual times, and this odd new reality may be with us for a while. If you are still using cash, it might be wise to wear gloves when you are paying and getting change. Even if you aren’t a fan of using tap or paying online, perhaps now is a time to get your grandchildren to show you how to do it. The important thing is for all of us to stay safe – cash may be dethroned for the short term, but things will eventually return to normal, and it will be “bad” to overuse credit cards again.

And if that cash has been piling up during a period of time when there’s precious little to spend it on, don’t neglect your retirement savings plan. The Saskatchewan Pension Plan offers a very safe haven for any unneeded dollars. Any amounts you can contribute today will grow into a future retirement income, so consider adding to your savings today.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Recession, sure – but keep saving what you can for retirement, experts say

Only the very oldest of us will remember times less scary than the spring of 2020, with so much illness, so many folks forced to stop working and stay home, and scary markets for investors.

Many of us are naturally more worried about keeping afloat financially than retirement savings.

However, a report in The Motley Fool blog says that this COVID-19 crisis should not be a reason to entirely give up on retirement saving.

“The coronavirus is driving the global economy into a recession. Stock markets are very volatile and it’s hard to tell where they’re headed. While it’s normal to be worried, you should continue to save for your retirement,” the blog advises.

You should continue to try and set aside “a small portion of your income for retirement savings,” notes the blog. One reason why is that if you don’t put money in a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) or registered pension plan, “you my not have as much extra money as you expect… as you’ll get a higher tax bill.”

The Motley Fool agrees with the idea of directing some of any precious extra dollars to an emergency fund in this crisis, “in case you get sick or lose your job.”

But, notes the Motley Fool, those who decided to quit saving for retirement during the last big recession more than a decade ago found themselves far behind those who kept saving and who “stayed on course.”

“A study by Teresa Ghilarducci, director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research, showed the negative impact on those who stopped or decreased their contributions during the 2008-2009 recession. People who came out of the markets sold low and bought high. We have to buy low and sell high to make money,” the blog reports.

“After the Great Recession, 64 per cent of high-income workers and 56 per cent of low income workers saw their accumulated retirement savings increase,” the blog adds.

Let’s recap what the blog is telling us, because there are several moving parts here. Some folks stopped saving for retirement during the last recession, and others sold their investments at the bottom of the market.

But those who kept contributing, and who didn’t sell, saw the value of their investments rise after the crisis was over.

It’s been said that every crisis has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s very hard to see the end when you’re at the beginning or even in the middle, but it will come eventually. If you can continue saving, even at a reduced rate, and if you can hold off selling your investments, your future you will thank you for remembering that one day, those savings will be your retirement income.

There’s a great little retirement savings trick that can really work well when markets are low. Say you’re contributing $100 per pay to your retirement account, and let’s say it is a balanced fund, such as that offered by the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. If you continue to chip in the same amount while markets are low, you are essentially buying low, which will help grow your savings when better times return.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

It’s often said that Canadian seniors are doing fairly well, and that the rate of senior poverty experienced back in the pre-Canada Pension Plan days has dropped considerably.

However, says Ottawa-based union researcher John Anderson, the yardstick used to measure senior poverty levels needs to be updated to international standards. He took the time recently for a telephone interview with Save with SPP.

Currently, says Anderson, a “Market Basket Measure” (MBM) system is used to measure the cost of living, a “bizarre” system that factors in the cost of housing, clothing, food and other staples by province and region. By this old system, it is reckoned that 3.5 per cent of Canadian seniors live in poverty, although recent tweaks to the measurement process will see this number jump to 5.6 per cent.

The intricate MBM system – unique to Canada — goes into arcane details such as “what clothes you should have, how many pairs of long underwear, what kind of food you should buy, how many grams of butter. And there’s a sort of built-in stigmatization of rural living; it’s assumed that you don’t need as much money to live in a rural area as you do to live in Toronto,” Anderson says. The opposite is often true, he points out.

LIM system a better comparator

Anderson says the rest of the world uses a different measurement, one that’s much simpler, Anderson explains. The low income measure (LIM) scale defines poverty as being “an income level that is less than 50 per cent of the median income in the country,” he says. “This gives you a very clean comparison.”

By that measure, a startling 14 per cent of Canadian seniors are living in poverty, which is more than triple that figure that MBM currently quotes. “When you think about it, it means they are making less than half of what the average Canadian earns,” he explains. “They are not earning a lot.”

Why are today’s seniors not doing so well? Anderson says there has been a decline in workplace pensions over the years. “The numbers are way down,” he says. As recently as 2005, there were 4.6 million Canadians who belonged to defined benefit plans through work. By 2018, that number had dropped to 4.2 million, “at a time when we have seen a significant increase in the population, and more seniors than ever before.”

Defined benefit plans are the kind that guarantee what your monthly payment will be. About two million Canadians belong in defined contribution plans, which are more like an RRSP – money contributed over a working person’s career is invested and grown, and then drawn down as income in retirement.

“Only 25 per cent of workers have defined benefit plans now. And only 37 per cent have any kind of registered pension plan. Most have nothing,” says Anderson. This lack of pensions in the workplace, and the tendency towards part time and “gig” work that offers no benefits, is a primary reason why senior poverty is on the upswing, he contends.

“The kinds of jobs people are in today have changed,” Anderson explains. “People are working more non-standard jobs, gig jobs, contract work. Many are not even contributing to the CPP.” They tend not to be saving much on their own with these types of jobs, so it means that “when they retire, if they work that way, they don’t get much of a pension.”

That will leave many people with nothing in retirement except Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, Anderson says. Neither the OAS or the GIS has “really kept up” with increases in living costs. The most anyone can get from these two programs is about $1,500 a month, for a single person, he says. “These major government pension plans have not yet taken a leap forward,” he says. “The government has improved the Canada Pension Plan, and people will benefit from that (in the future),” he explains, but these other two pillars should get a look too.

Looking forward

Anderson says by moving to a LIM-based measurement of poverty, governments could have a more realistic basis on which to make program improvements.

“We already have a form of universal basic income for seniors through the OAS and the GIS,” he says. “The monthly amounts these pay out need to be raised.”

The goal should be to raise income for seniors to the LIM target of 50 per cent of Canada’s median income which is $30,700 per person based on median after tax income for 2018.

He also thinks that the OAS should be an individual benefit, rather than being designed for couples or singles. “You get less per person with the couples’ benefit; people should get the same amount,” he explains.

He says seniors today face an expensive retirement, with possible time spent in costly long-term care homes. “Can I survive when I retire – this isn’t a question that our seniors should have to worry about,” he explains.

Anderson remains optimistic that the problem will be addressed. The Depression prompted governments of the day to begin offering OAS; experience during and after the Second World War led to the introduction of EI and the baby bonus. CPP benefits started following a serious period of senior poverty in the 1950s. “We have to do better, but maybe there’s a silver lining with the COVID-19 situation, and maybe government will take a closer look at this issue again,” he says.

We thank John Anderson for speaking with Save with SPP. John Anderson is the former Policy Director of the federal NDP and now a union researcher.

If you don’t have access to a workplace pension, consider becoming a member of the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. It’s an open defined contribution plan – once you’re a member, the contributions you make are invested and grown over time, and when you retire, you have the option of turning your savings into a lifetime monthly pension. Check them out today.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Pandemic crisis challenges some of our long-held financial beliefs

There’s no question about it, the COVID-19 pandemic and its disastrous impact on employment, the economy, and world markets is something we’ve not seen before.

And, writes Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick, the crisis is challenging some long-held notions about personal finance.

People used to think that, since the interest rates paid are so low, there was “no point in keeping money in a savings account,” Carrick writes. Instead, he notes, conventional pre-pandemic wisdom was to “access money when you’re in need from your home equity line of credit.”

However, now – given the sharply rising unemployment numbers – “piling on more debt to weather a layoff is a last resort, not a go-to strategy,” Carrick writes.

His next point is that up until now, most long-term saving by Canadians was for retirement, not for building an emergency fund. But retirement savings can’t be accessed – at least not without a big tax hit – for emergencies, so Carrick’s new rule of thumb suggests 75 per cent of savings go to retirement and the rest to an emergency fund.

Echoing his earlier point on the low rates paid via savings accounts and GICs, Carrick notes that those who invested their TFSA savings in fixed-income products can no longer be “mocked for their timidity and unworldliness.” They still have all their savings, while those in riskier TFSA investments have losses to deal with.

Given the high cost of housing, Carrick writes that most of us are used to “pushing (our) finances to the max to buy a house,” and dealing with “crushing” and huge mortgage payments. “But taking as much money as the bank will let you have means you have almost no ability to cope with a loss of income, particularly if you have kids and car payments,” he notes.

The other beliefs he shatters include carrying high debt – easy to do when you are working, less so otherwise – and “spending big” on your vehicles, particularly if you are getting your new truck or car through a car loan.

The takeaway points here are quite clear: paying for everything with debt is easy when jobs are plentiful, but it’s a recipe for disaster when times suddenly – and without any prior warning – get hard. Save with SPP knows more than a few people who have always “poo-poohed” savings because the interest rates are so low. Even if the interest rate was zero, having savings is a lot better than having debt when times get tough.

So perhaps Rob Carrick is right when he suggests going 75/25 on your retirement savings, with some money going to an emergency fund. Now that we’re in an emergency, some of us have that extra bit of security, while the rest must scramble. Now may not be the best time for much saving, but when better times return, let’s all remember this solid advice.

If you are looking for a good place to put away 75 cents of your savings dollar, be sure to check out the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. The SPP’s two major funds, the Balanced Fund and the Diversified Income Fund, are professionally managed, and when the markets are choppy, it’s good to know that there are experienced hands on deck, folks who know how to protect and preserve your savings for the long haul.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22