{"id":941,"date":"2020-10-30T14:02:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T18:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bellvest.ca\/family-wealth-toronto\/resources\/an-8-step-guide-to-your-financial-future-checklist\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T15:33:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:33:57","slug":"an-8-step-guide-to-your-financial-future-checklist","status":"publish","type":"resources","link":"https:\/\/www.bellvest.ca\/family-wealth-toronto\/resources\/an-8-step-guide-to-your-financial-future-checklist\/","title":{"rendered":"An 8-Step Guide To Your Financial Future [Checklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do I have enough to retire? What will my financial future look like? These are some of the most commonly asked questions in financial planning, and with all the uncertainty going on in the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become more prevalent in the past few months.<\/p>\n

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Anxiety and stress levels have increased significantly\u2014particularly concerning finances. For pre-retiree women in Canada, this question can be even more complicated.<\/p>\n

Understanding the rules<\/p>\n

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Even before COVID-19, Canadian women were at a significant financial disadvantage to their male counterparts. Women lagged men in savings.<\/p>\n

The reasons are complex, but it\u2019s partly because women live longer (79 years for men vs. 83 years for women, according to Statistics Canada), earn less (87 cents to every dollar a man makes), and experience more career disruptions (on average, working 10 years less than men).<\/p>\n

Dreams and aspirations are great, but the primary concern for most women is making sure that their money is going to last.<\/p>\n

Over the years, you may have read or heard about certain rules of thumb to follow, including some of the more popular ones like:<\/p>\n

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70% Replacement Ratio:<\/u> <\/strong>Based on the \u201creplacement ratio\u201d rule of thumb, you will need 70% of your pre-retirement income to maintain your lifestyle after retirement.<\/p>\n

4% Rule:<\/u> <\/strong>You can withdraw 4% per year from your investments and increase it every year by inflation.<\/p>\n

Age Rule:<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>You are getting older, so you should invest more conservatively based on the \u201cAge Rule.\u201d You should invest 100 minus your age in stocks.<\/p>\n

Sequence of returns:<\/u> <\/strong>You should invest conservatively because you can\u2019t afford to take a loss. You could run out of money because of the \u201csequence of returns.\u201d If you have investment losses, there is a chance the investments will not recover.<\/p>\n

Cash buffer:<\/u> <\/strong>You should keep cash on hand equal to 2 years\u2019 worth of income from your investments to draw on when your investments are down.<\/p>\n

The problem with these rules of thumb is that they have been handed down from one generation to the next and are not necessarily reflective of the world today. More importantly, they are not reflective of your personal situation.<\/p>\n

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In order to find the solution that’s right for your personal situation, Family Wealth Advisor, Christopher Jardine, CFP\u00ae<\/a>, put together this handy 8-step checklist to help you find the right answers to your financial questions.<\/p>\n

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Your 8-Step Financial Future Checklist<\/p>\n

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A good way to start is by using the following 8-step checklist to create a picture of your financial wellbeing. A spreadsheet is ideal, but a scrap piece of paper and a calculator will work too.<\/p>\n

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  1. Monthly Expenses: <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Establish current monthly expenses by creating three buckets:<\/span><\/p>\n

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    1. \n
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      1. \n