- Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
- Listen to it on Spotify.
- Listen to it on YouTube Music or YouTube
- Listen to it on Audible and Amazon Music
Links to speak to today’s guests:
Thuy Lam: buildwealthcanada.ca/plan
Alanna Abramsky: broadmoney.ca
After conducting hundreds of interviews over the past 10 years with different financial experts and those who have been able to hit their financial independence number early, one of the common themes and best practices that I’ve noticed emerge time and time again is that those who are wealthy actually track their spending.
At the end of the day, knowing what you spend every year on essential expenses versus discretionary expenses like vacations and fun activities lets you actually forecast with pretty good accuracy how much you need to become financially independent so that you can retire early if you wish.
It’s also one of the key, critical ingredients that you need to be able to know whether you can sustainably live off your portfolio, and for how long.
Now, I will admit, tracking expenses is not something that I personally find fun. It’s one more thing to do, and we’re all busy enough as it is. But literally every single financial planner that I have ever worked with over the years who knew what they were doing, and every single person that I’ve talked to who was able to retire early or reach financial independence early, had expenses as one of the key components that they managed and that they needed to know to be able to determine with accuracy when it is safe to stop working and live off your investments forever.
It really is a skill and process worth developing that you will literally be using your whole life. My wife and I have now been either fully retired or semi-retired for the past 9 years here in Canada, and I can tell you that knowing our expenses year to year has been critical in making sure that we don’t overspend and have to go back to work. And, as I’ve mentioned in the past, knowing this has also been a huge financial anxiety reducer for me personally, since you actually know how much you have and how much you need, and so you aren’t in a state of anxiety every time that the credit card bill comes in, hoping that you and your family didn’t overspend this month.
In this episode, I invited 2 highly experienced financial coaches here in Canada to discuss how we should be tracking our expenses, whether we actually need a traditional budget, the different processes that we can follow to properly manage this key component of our financial lives as efficiently as possible, and what tools we can use here in Canada to make this whole process less tedious and more automated and productive.
Our first guest is Thuy Lam. Thuy is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) with over 20 years in financial planning, financial coaching, wealth management, and business consulting experience. She enjoys working with clients who value financial advice conveyed in an easy-to-understand fashion, and especially those looking for help with cash flow planning while going through a life change, such as a new job or career, marriage, divorce, or retirement. I’ve worked with Thuy personally, and she’s been amazing at helping my wife and I plan out our finances in our early retirement.
Our second guest is Alanna Abramsky. She has been financial coaching for over 10 years and has helped more than 1,000 Canadians over this time. She has over 30 years of experience in the personal finance field, and she started Broad Money with the mission of empowering Canadians to take control of their financial futures, offering support and guidance every step of the way.
A Big Thanks to Our Sponsors:
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“Views from the Desk” Podcast
On this podcast, we often cover best practices that can not only help you now, but will also be relevant throughout your investment lifetime. But what if you also want an update on what is happening with your investments, the markets, and the economy right now?
To help me stay up-to-date on these topics, a great Canadian podcast that I listen to weekly is called “Views from the Desk” (Apple, Spotify, Direct).
They provide timely information for us Canadians on what is happening to our investments right now, as well as other key factors affecting us like changes to our interest rates, our inflation, and regulatory changes that we should know about.
The podcast is hosted by BMO ETFs. I’m a huge fan of theirs, I own a lot of BMO ETFs myself, and it’s a great free resource for both new and existing ETF investors.
I hope you check them out. All episodes are available for free in your favourite podcast player. Just search for “Views from the Desk” or click one of the links below:
ETF Market Insights and BMO ETFs
Catch the latest episodes on YouTube Here.
There are so many opinions on how to invest your money today, but it can be hard to find credible voices to rely on in the world of finance and investing.
One resource I turn to every week is the ETF Market Insights YouTube channel, led by today’s episode sponsor, BMO ETFs.
Market Insights brings in industry experts and their weekly episodes cover the hottest themes like inflation, infrastructure, healthcare, and more. Tuning in helps me stay up-to-date on what’s happening so I can be a smarter investor. You can also submit your own ETF questions, to be answered on the show.
Do yourself a favour and subscribe on YouTube to ETF Market Insights, or visit ETFMarketInsights.com so you can be notified when future episodes go live.
BMO Asset Allocation ETFs:
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Today’s sponsor, BMO ETFs, offers these innovative all-in-one solutions with the BMO All-Equity ETF (ZEQT), BMO Growth ETF (ZGRO), BMO Balanced ETF (ZBAL), BMO Conservative ETF (ZCON), and more. BMO developed these to help provide investors with ETFs that offer broad diversification and are also low-cost and simple to use.
These ETFs invest in a number of underlying index based ETFs and are rebalanced automatically back to your set asset allocation or mix of stocks and bonds. They offer a hands free approach to investing that is built on disciplined weights to provide exposure to different geographies and sectors all in one solution.
BMO actually offers eight asset allocation ETFs. Learn more at BMOETFs.com.
Questions Covered:
- Do we really need to budget? or is just tracking income and expenses enough? Why bother in the first place? How much categorization and detail do we actually need?
Your thoughts on my main metric being discretionary vs non-discretionary spending and using a budgeting tool like YNAB to not actually budget, but to track discretionary and non-discretionary spending for cash flow planning. - Tools available to Canadians that you’ve had experience with or have good good/bad things about? Ex. Quicken, YNAB, manual entry or import via CSV (doesn’t it take too long?)
- How do you personally manage your own household cashflows? What’s the process that you follow yourself on a day to day basis, but also for things like weekly/monthly/annual reviews and analysis.
- Apart from what you use, are there any other tools or processes that you find work well for a lot of people, based on your experience working with clients?
- How can the process be made less painful and time consuming?
I can use my own example with YNAB and Tiller. For example:- Constant security verification for different accounts and/or import issues
- Reconciling
- How can the process be smooth and not a nuisance?
- What are your suggestions on how we do all this with our partner?
For example:- How often do we meet? If we wait too long, we forget the older transactions, but meeting weekly seems excessive.
- Do we use separate credit cards for easier tracking?
Disclaimer:
This podcast and video is for information purposes. The information contained herein is not, and should not be construed as, investment, tax or legal advice to any party. Particular investments and/or trading strategies should be evaluated relative to the individual’s investment objectives and professional advice should be obtained with respect to any circumstance. Commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with investments in exchange traded funds. Please read the ETF Facts or simplified prospectus of the BMO ETFs before investing. Exchange traded funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. For a summary of the risks of an investment in the BMO ETFs, please see the specific risks set out in the BMO ETF’s simplified prospectus. BMO ETFs trade like stocks, fluctuate in market value and may trade at a discount to their net asset value, which may increase the risk of loss. Distributions are not guaranteed and are subject to change and/or elimination. BMO ETFs are managed by BMO Asset Management Inc., which is an investment fund manager and a portfolio manager, and a separate legal entity from Bank of Montreal. BMO Global Asset Management is a brand name under which BMO Asset Management Inc. and BMO Investments Inc. operate. “BMO” is a registered trademark of Bank of Montreal, used under licence.
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