Posts by Hannah McVean
Is it a mistake to incorporate?
Photo by Freepik You’re a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed recently licensed professional starting your own practice. You’re looking forward to helping your clients or patients, make good money, and begin taking control of your financial future. You’ve heard a lot about incorporation and have some understanding that there are some mysterious “tax and legal benefits” associated…
Read MoreOvercontributing to a TFSA
Photo by Freepik A recent article in Advisor.ca reported that TFSA overcontribution penalties collected by CRA in 2024 amounted to 166 MILLION dollars. That money is Canadians’ hard-earned savings that are being allocated to penalties rather than their financial futures. Sadly, I think most of these costs are due to simple mistakes or misunderstandings with…
Read MoreIntervivos Gifts – How to Gift When Estate Planning
What is Estate Planning? Estate planning is the process of arranging for the management and transfer of a person’s estate during their life and after their death. The “estate” is the term for everything owned by a person and is usually used to define those assets after they’re gone. This includes bank accounts, investments, business shares,…
Read More5 Financial Essentials for Women
Author’s note: Life can feel incredibly expensive. This article is written by a financial planner, so there is some bias – I’m likely to recommend strategies that apply to women in general to manage financial risk. However, it’s important to recognize that the ‘essentials’ I discuss may not be universally accessible or relevant to everyone’s…
Read MoreEstate Planning with Real Estate in Canada – A Tale of Tax Consequences
For older Canadians considering their estate planning, minimizing probate fees may be a concern. For many Canadians, their biggest asset by far is their principal residence. In some cases, it’s worth over a million dollars. For Ontario residents, whose estate administration tax (otherwise known as probate fee) is 1.5% on assets over $50,000, that probate…
Read MoreBehavioral Finance: Why Your Investing Mindset Matters Just as Much as Your Portfolio Mix
What’s a bigger driver of investment performance – asset allocation or your investing behaviour? Many people likely believe that neither of these is the biggest driver of portfolio performance, but instead that the biggest driver is security selection. There is evidence to suggest however, that security selection accounts for much less of your portfolio performance…
Read MoreUnderstanding Money Trauma: Navigating Overspending with the Window of Regulation
You could have money trauma. Like all trauma, it’s different for everyone. At the very least, you may have some emotional wounding, cognitive distortions, or negative feelings around money. I’ll explore these themes more deeply in separate articles. Suffice to say for now that there is trauma around money. Some people scoff at the idea…
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