Here are my posts for the past two weeks:
Pension Rip-off
Tangerine Credit Card Changes
The Undoing Project
Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:
Preet Banerjee reports that “car loans have quietly emerged as one of the major risks to Canadians’ household finances.” He goes on to give a practical example of how to get off the treadmill of car debt.
Kurt Rosentreter has some entertaining tough words for high-income people living it up. Apparently, he deals with a lot of boomers with big incomes who handle their money as badly as anyone else.
Finance Blog Zone has a long list of bloggers discussing how to manage debt (including yours truly). Seven of them caught my eye either because I found the ideas interesting or because I disagreed. I may write about the details next week. (The address of this article seems to cause web crawl errors for my blog but still works: http://www.financeblogzone.com/advice-for-managing-debt/).
Tom Bradley at Steadyhand tells you who your best friend is when you’re worried about the markets.
The Blunt Bean Counter explains the budget’s measures aimed at professionals who use work-in-progress deductions and use private corporations.
Canadian Couch Potato takes a look at some new mutual funds from TD that hold broadly diversified index ETFs in percentages that change based on active investment decisions. While this is interesting news, I’ll stick with indexing that includes as little human discretion as I can achieve.
Robb Engen explains why he doesn’t invest in non-registered accounts. The dominant reason most people avoid non-registered accounts is that they never use up all their TFSA and RRSP room. In some cases, people have investments that aren’t allowed in TFSAs and RRSPs. In other cases, people have income too low to bother with an RRSP, but somehow managed to fill their TFSA. A commonly used reason is the desire to take advantage of the dividend tax credit. However, in most cases, this is misguided and people would be better off using their TFSA.
Big Cajun Man applauds rule changes that make it easier to apply for the disability tax credit.
My Own Advisor interviews Sean Cooper, author of Burn Your Mortgage.
Million Dollar Journey discusses how to deal with big banks trying to sell you products you don’t need and refusing to help you index your portfolio to reduce MER costs. He observes that if his “friend can reduce his portfolio drag from 2% to 1%, it can lead to a 30% larger portfolio after 30 years.” I assume this is just using the estimate of 1% for 30 years adding up to 30%. The actual increase is 35% taking into account compounding effects.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Pension Rip-off
A friend of mine who is collecting a defined-benefit pension had a complaint I’d never heard before. He is convinced he’s being ripped off because his pension benefits only go up by inflation each year, but the plan’s assets go up faster than inflation. I know this isn’t right, but it took a while to think of a good way to explain why.
Let’s start with the analogy of a mortgage. Suppose you have a 5-year mortgage with an annual interest rate of 3%. Even though your unpaid balance is supposed to go up by 3% each year, your payments stay the same for the full 5 years. Does this mean the bank is getting ripped off? Not likely. Banks know a thing or two about coming out ahead.
The truth is that your flat monthly mortgage payments are calculated to take into account the 3% interest on the declining mortgage balance. If your payments increased by 3% each year, your starting payment would be a lot lower. But banks are smart enough to know that they shouldn’t expect you to be able to keep up with ever-rising payments.
The situation with pension benefits is similar. Suppose the value of your pension starting at age 55 is $1 million. Based on an assumed 4.1% real return, mortality tables from the Society of Actuaries, and ignoring any coordination with CPP, your CPI-indexed pension benefit would be $5363/month. However, if you wanted your benefits to rise by 4.1% above inflation each year, your starting benefits for a $1 million pension would be only $3010/month.
But why would anyone want such rising benefits? By age 95, the benefits would be worth nearly 5 times more after factoring in inflation. This makes little sense. It’s better to receive more now instead of getting ever more money into old age.
The short answer to the question of whether my friend is getting ripped off is no, he isn’t. The 4.1% real return earned by the pension assets are what allow him to get a higher starting pension amount.
Let’s start with the analogy of a mortgage. Suppose you have a 5-year mortgage with an annual interest rate of 3%. Even though your unpaid balance is supposed to go up by 3% each year, your payments stay the same for the full 5 years. Does this mean the bank is getting ripped off? Not likely. Banks know a thing or two about coming out ahead.
The truth is that your flat monthly mortgage payments are calculated to take into account the 3% interest on the declining mortgage balance. If your payments increased by 3% each year, your starting payment would be a lot lower. But banks are smart enough to know that they shouldn’t expect you to be able to keep up with ever-rising payments.
The situation with pension benefits is similar. Suppose the value of your pension starting at age 55 is $1 million. Based on an assumed 4.1% real return, mortality tables from the Society of Actuaries, and ignoring any coordination with CPP, your CPI-indexed pension benefit would be $5363/month. However, if you wanted your benefits to rise by 4.1% above inflation each year, your starting benefits for a $1 million pension would be only $3010/month.
But why would anyone want such rising benefits? By age 95, the benefits would be worth nearly 5 times more after factoring in inflation. This makes little sense. It’s better to receive more now instead of getting ever more money into old age.
The short answer to the question of whether my friend is getting ripped off is no, he isn’t. The 4.1% real return earned by the pension assets are what allow him to get a higher starting pension amount.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Tangerine Credit Card Changes
Following quickly on the heels of adding new account fees, Tangerine is now making some less than friendly changes to their credit card.
The most important change to me is that they are increasing the foreign exchange fee from 1.5% to 2.5%. So, using this credit card is going to cost me more when I travel, primarily in the U.S.
The change that’s likely to annoy more customers is reducing credit-card rewards. Currently, certain categories of transactions get 2% cash back and the rest get 1%. The rest will now get only 0.5%.
Of course, we’d all be better off if there was no such thing as credit-card rewards and retailers were charged less to accept credit card payments. But I’m not holding my breath.
A slew of other fees that affect those who handle credit poorly are going up as well.
I still find Tangerine products to be better than most of what I can get at the big banks, but future fee increases could change that.
The most important change to me is that they are increasing the foreign exchange fee from 1.5% to 2.5%. So, using this credit card is going to cost me more when I travel, primarily in the U.S.
The change that’s likely to annoy more customers is reducing credit-card rewards. Currently, certain categories of transactions get 2% cash back and the rest get 1%. The rest will now get only 0.5%.
Of course, we’d all be better off if there was no such thing as credit-card rewards and retailers were charged less to accept credit card payments. But I’m not holding my breath.
A slew of other fees that affect those who handle credit poorly are going up as well.
I still find Tangerine products to be better than most of what I can get at the big banks, but future fee increases could change that.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
The Undoing Project
People make certain systematic errors in their judgments. We’d like to think this is only true of others, but it’s true of us as well. Even brilliant people who are experts in their fields make certain types of predictable mistakes. Michael Lewis’s book The Undoing Project traces the lives and work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky whose joint work “created the field of behavioral economics.” This book gives an interesting account of the two men’s lives and a gives fascinating insight into their results.
With most examples of the types of judgment mistakes people tend to make, I had to admit that I’m susceptible to the same mistakes. I’d like to think that understanding these tendencies will help me avoid some future mistakes, but I’m not sure it will help as much as I hope. The current “powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms” is sensible.
Most of the time, the automatic judgments our brains make work very well for us. But when they don’t work well, it’s hard to stop making mistakes. It’s easier to understand this problem when it’s our eyes that make the mistake. Consider the Müller-Lyer optical illusion.
The two horizontal lines are the same length, but the bottom one looks shorter. After we measure and convince ourselves that they’re the same length, our eyes continue to tell us the bottom line is shorter. We can’t turn off the automatic wrong answer our eyes give. So it is with certain types of judgments our brains make. A key insight by Kahnemen and Tversky was that people “weren’t just making random mistakes ... they were doing something systematically wrong.”
An example of a common mistake comes from the “Linda story.”
The book also contains plenty of the humour we’ve come to expect from Michael Lewis. Tversky was once told by an English statistician that “I don’t usually like Jews but I like you.” His reply was “I usually like Englishmen, but I don’t like you.”
Another example came from the way Tversky didn’t worry about the many demands for his time: “The nice thing about things that are urgent is that if you wait long enough they aren’t urgent anymore.”
In an odd definition of “winning,” Tversky’s wife once had to take her eldest son to an emergency room because “He had won a contest with his brother to see who could stick a cucumber farther up his own nose.”
Asked “if their work fit into the new and growing field of artificial intelligence,” Tversky replied “We study natural stupidity instead of artificial intelligence.”
Kahneman and Tversky faced a lot of opposition from economists. One economist’s paper opened with “The agent of economic theory is rational, selfish, and his tastes do not change.” That may make it easier to build theory, but it doesn’t sound much like actual people. But economists clung to this view that people were rational even in the face of mounting evidence from Kahneman and Tversky.
In this battle over whether people are rational, Kahneman and Tversky even reached back to a paper written in 1738 by Daniel Bernoulli (English translation here). Bernoulli offered a model of financial decision-making that we now call utility theory. He believed that people should treat a doubling of one’s net worth as just as good as halving it is bad, even though the dollar amounts won and lost are different.
Tversky wrote that “Bernoulli sought to account a bit better than simple calculations of expected value for how people actually behaved.” I’ve read the translation and I see no evidence this is true. My reading of Bernoulli’s paper was that he sought to model rational choices, not the irrational choices people actually make. I went into more detail on this subject a few years ago.
In explaining Bernoulli’s theory, Lewis writes “The marginal value of the dollars you give up to buy fire insurance on your house is less than the marginal value of the dollars you lose if your house burns down—which is why even though insurance is, strictly speaking, a stupid bet, you buy it.”
Just because fire insurance on a house has a negative expectation, it isn’t a “stupid bet.” I don’t know if this misunderstanding is just Lewis’ or if it is Kahneman and Tversky’s as well. It is irrational to accept a 50/50 bet to either double your net worth plus a dollar or lose everything, even though it has a positive expectation of 50 cents. Bernoulli’s theory isn’t a perfect model of rational decision-making, but it is far better than simple expectation.
All that said, Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory is an excellent model of how people actually make decisions, which is clearly different from a purely rational method.
Overall, I found this book up to Lewis’ usual high standard. It gives very accessible insight into Kahneman and Tversky’s work and gives interesting accounts of their lives and collaboration. Anyone who enjoys this book should consider reading Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.
With most examples of the types of judgment mistakes people tend to make, I had to admit that I’m susceptible to the same mistakes. I’d like to think that understanding these tendencies will help me avoid some future mistakes, but I’m not sure it will help as much as I hope. The current “powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms” is sensible.
Most of the time, the automatic judgments our brains make work very well for us. But when they don’t work well, it’s hard to stop making mistakes. It’s easier to understand this problem when it’s our eyes that make the mistake. Consider the Müller-Lyer optical illusion.
The two horizontal lines are the same length, but the bottom one looks shorter. After we measure and convince ourselves that they’re the same length, our eyes continue to tell us the bottom line is shorter. We can’t turn off the automatic wrong answer our eyes give. So it is with certain types of judgments our brains make. A key insight by Kahnemen and Tversky was that people “weren’t just making random mistakes ... they were doing something systematically wrong.”
An example of a common mistake comes from the “Linda story.”
“Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.”The question Kahneman and Tversky asked was “which of the following alternatives is more probable?”
“Linda is a bank teller.85% of subjects chose the second option, even though logic dictates that it can’t be more likely than the first option because the second is a subset of the first. Even when they changed the question to make it clear that the first option doesn’t mean that Linda is “NOT active in the feminist movement,” subjects still favoured the second option. Graduate students with training in logic and statistics made this mistake. Even doctors made this type of mistake.
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.”
The book also contains plenty of the humour we’ve come to expect from Michael Lewis. Tversky was once told by an English statistician that “I don’t usually like Jews but I like you.” His reply was “I usually like Englishmen, but I don’t like you.”
Another example came from the way Tversky didn’t worry about the many demands for his time: “The nice thing about things that are urgent is that if you wait long enough they aren’t urgent anymore.”
In an odd definition of “winning,” Tversky’s wife once had to take her eldest son to an emergency room because “He had won a contest with his brother to see who could stick a cucumber farther up his own nose.”
Asked “if their work fit into the new and growing field of artificial intelligence,” Tversky replied “We study natural stupidity instead of artificial intelligence.”
Kahneman and Tversky faced a lot of opposition from economists. One economist’s paper opened with “The agent of economic theory is rational, selfish, and his tastes do not change.” That may make it easier to build theory, but it doesn’t sound much like actual people. But economists clung to this view that people were rational even in the face of mounting evidence from Kahneman and Tversky.
In this battle over whether people are rational, Kahneman and Tversky even reached back to a paper written in 1738 by Daniel Bernoulli (English translation here). Bernoulli offered a model of financial decision-making that we now call utility theory. He believed that people should treat a doubling of one’s net worth as just as good as halving it is bad, even though the dollar amounts won and lost are different.
Tversky wrote that “Bernoulli sought to account a bit better than simple calculations of expected value for how people actually behaved.” I’ve read the translation and I see no evidence this is true. My reading of Bernoulli’s paper was that he sought to model rational choices, not the irrational choices people actually make. I went into more detail on this subject a few years ago.
In explaining Bernoulli’s theory, Lewis writes “The marginal value of the dollars you give up to buy fire insurance on your house is less than the marginal value of the dollars you lose if your house burns down—which is why even though insurance is, strictly speaking, a stupid bet, you buy it.”
Just because fire insurance on a house has a negative expectation, it isn’t a “stupid bet.” I don’t know if this misunderstanding is just Lewis’ or if it is Kahneman and Tversky’s as well. It is irrational to accept a 50/50 bet to either double your net worth plus a dollar or lose everything, even though it has a positive expectation of 50 cents. Bernoulli’s theory isn’t a perfect model of rational decision-making, but it is far better than simple expectation.
All that said, Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory is an excellent model of how people actually make decisions, which is clearly different from a purely rational method.
Overall, I found this book up to Lewis’ usual high standard. It gives very accessible insight into Kahneman and Tversky’s work and gives interesting accounts of their lives and collaboration. Anyone who enjoys this book should consider reading Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Short Takes: Honest Fund Disclosure, Juicing Returns, and more
Here are my posts for the past two weeks:
Recognition Points Update
Tangerine Adds Some New Fees
Retirement Spending Plan Question
Balance Transfer Offer
The Case for Delaying CPP and OAS to Age 70
Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:
Jason Zweig brings us the best mutual fund disclosure ever. Brutal honesty can be hilarious.
Larry Swedroe explains how mutual fund families use IPOs to juice the returns of new funds. He also shows how they shift returns from one fund to another with front-running: “A large fund family with a small-cap fund has the small-cap fund buy shares of stocks with a low market cap and limited liquidity. Other funds in the same family then pile in, buying more shares. The limited supply of stock allows the large fund family to drive up prices with relatively small purchases by each fund. The returns of the new fund then look great.” (Web crawlers don't seem to like this address of this article, but it still works: https://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/swedroe-ipos-used-suck-investors?nopaging=1).
Canadian Couch Potato uses his latest podcast to explain why active share have little predictive power for fund returns and takes a shot at Gordon Pape’s poor investment advice.
The Reformed Broker points out that U.S. household wealth grew by a staggering $40 trillion during Obama’s presidency. That’s quite a jump considering how his political enemies have had some success painting his financial impact as a negative. Of course, presidents have only a limited impact on the growth of wealth, even if they tend to get the credit or blame.
Retire Happy has a very clear explanation of the difference between a TFSA beneficiary and a TFSA successor holder. It pays to understand this difference.
Tim Cestnick describes an interesting trick to decide after the federal budget is announced whether to realize capital gains at the 50% inclusion rate that existed before the budget.
Squawkfox reports that 39% of Canadians don’t understand the benefits of paying more than the minimum credit card payment. She uses her engaging style to explain the benefits of paying more than the minimum.
Big Cajun Man has some tax tips including the fact that CRA offers auto-fill now. I was skeptical at first, but I’ve heard from others that it works well.
Boomer and Echo explain why a 4-minute portfolio is tough to beat.
My Own Advisor updates his progress on his 2017 financial goals. I really like his first goal: “Do not to incur any new debt.” He says this goal goes without saying, but it’s an important reminder for his readers. It only goes without saying for those who’ve already figured out how bad debt can be. More naive readers might find this goal enlightening.
The Blunt Bean Counter explains the tax consequences of borrowing from or lending to your small business.
Million Dollar Journey updates us on Frugal Trader’s progress to building enough portfolio income to make his family financially independent.
Recognition Points Update
Tangerine Adds Some New Fees
Retirement Spending Plan Question
Balance Transfer Offer
The Case for Delaying CPP and OAS to Age 70
Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:
Jason Zweig brings us the best mutual fund disclosure ever. Brutal honesty can be hilarious.
Larry Swedroe explains how mutual fund families use IPOs to juice the returns of new funds. He also shows how they shift returns from one fund to another with front-running: “A large fund family with a small-cap fund has the small-cap fund buy shares of stocks with a low market cap and limited liquidity. Other funds in the same family then pile in, buying more shares. The limited supply of stock allows the large fund family to drive up prices with relatively small purchases by each fund. The returns of the new fund then look great.” (Web crawlers don't seem to like this address of this article, but it still works: https://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/swedroe-ipos-used-suck-investors?nopaging=1).
Canadian Couch Potato uses his latest podcast to explain why active share have little predictive power for fund returns and takes a shot at Gordon Pape’s poor investment advice.
The Reformed Broker points out that U.S. household wealth grew by a staggering $40 trillion during Obama’s presidency. That’s quite a jump considering how his political enemies have had some success painting his financial impact as a negative. Of course, presidents have only a limited impact on the growth of wealth, even if they tend to get the credit or blame.
Retire Happy has a very clear explanation of the difference between a TFSA beneficiary and a TFSA successor holder. It pays to understand this difference.
Tim Cestnick describes an interesting trick to decide after the federal budget is announced whether to realize capital gains at the 50% inclusion rate that existed before the budget.
Squawkfox reports that 39% of Canadians don’t understand the benefits of paying more than the minimum credit card payment. She uses her engaging style to explain the benefits of paying more than the minimum.
Big Cajun Man has some tax tips including the fact that CRA offers auto-fill now. I was skeptical at first, but I’ve heard from others that it works well.
Boomer and Echo explain why a 4-minute portfolio is tough to beat.
My Own Advisor updates his progress on his 2017 financial goals. I really like his first goal: “Do not to incur any new debt.” He says this goal goes without saying, but it’s an important reminder for his readers. It only goes without saying for those who’ve already figured out how bad debt can be. More naive readers might find this goal enlightening.
The Blunt Bean Counter explains the tax consequences of borrowing from or lending to your small business.
Million Dollar Journey updates us on Frugal Trader’s progress to building enough portfolio income to make his family financially independent.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
The Case for Delaying CPP and OAS to Age 70
There are good reasons why some people start collecting CPP and OAS benefits as early as possible. However, many people start collecting CPP and OAS early for emotional reasons that don’t hold up under scrutiny. The main reason to delay benefits until age 70 is simple enough: most of us need to plan for the possibility of a long life.
Let’s start with some basics about CPP and OAS payments. Old Age Security (OAS) can start anywhere from age 65 to 70. Most Canadians at age 65 are eligible for the maximum pension (currently $578.53/month and rising with inflation). However, waiting until age 70 gives the payments a 36% boost (0.6% for each month of delay). A 70-year old just starting OAS today would get $786.80/month.
Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits are more complex to calculate. Doug Runchey has a great description of how to calculate your CPP pension. The biggest CPP retirement pension a 65-year old can collect today is $1114.17/month, rising with inflation. However, the average is $644.35/month. Whatever amount you’re entitled to, you’re allowed to start payments as early as age 60 or as late as age 70. The penalty for starting at age 60 is a 36% reduction, and the benefit for waiting from 65 to 70 is a 42% boost. So, the maximum payment at age 60 is $713.07/month, and the maximum starting at age 70 is $1582.12/month. That’s quite a big difference.
One technicality about CPP is that delaying benefits from age 60 to 65 can reduce your calculated pension a little if you’re not working past age 60 because you’ll have more years with no CPP contributions. (There is a special “dropout” that allows you to not count the years from 65 to 70.) So, depending on your exact circumstances, the dramatic difference between CPP at age 60 and at age 70 can be a little smaller than I showed, but it doesn’t affect the rest of the discussion much.
There are some good reasons to start collecting CPP and OAS as soon as possible. If you have much lower than normal life expectancy for any reason, it makes sense to collect some money while you’re still alive. If you have no savings and you plan to live only on just the total of your pensions (including the lower CPP and OAS payments that come from taking them early), then it makes no sense to delay CPP and OAS.
Suppose you have a normal life expectancy and have at least enough savings to be able to make it to age 70 without collecting CPP or OAS. This means that if you calculate the boosted payments you’ll get from CPP and OAS at age 70, your savings will cover withdrawals of at least this amount for the years from when you retire until you’re 70. So, you have a real choice: take CPP and OAS sooner or later?
There are some strong emotional reasons to take CPP and OAS sooner. One is that we discount the future too much. Another is that we sometimes use the fact that CPP is available at age 60 to justify retiring at 60, whether we have enough savings or not. Yet another is that it’s psychologically hard to spend down one’s savings, and as Frederick Vettese explained, you’ll have to do that faster if you delay CPP and OAS.
I’ve heard people try to justify taking CPP at age 60 saying that they want to have some money to spend while they’re still young enough to enjoy it. However, they could just spend more from their savings to achieve this. If delaying CPP and OAS to age 70 has a net benefit, then doing so will allow you to spend a little more during your early years of retirement than if you took CPP and OAS as early as possible.
We only need to consider one dominant fact to see that delaying CPP and OAS is a big win: you might live a long life. The scenario that puts the most strain on your finances is living a long time. If your financial plan works for a long life, then you won’t have financial trouble if you don’t live so long.
If you do live a long time, you’ll get the most value from CPP and OAS if you wait until age 70 to get larger payments. Knowing that you’ll be better covered after age 85 with big CPP and OAS payments makes it possible to spend more early on. The problem with longevity risk is that we are forced to plan for living to 95 even if we expect to only live to 85. The great thing about large CPP and OAS payments is that they keep growing with inflation as long as you live. This eliminates part of your longevity risk.
If you live a long life, the math overwhelmingly supports taking CPP and OAS at age 70. Doing so makes it possible to spend more in your 60s than you could do safely if you take CPP and OAS early. But what if you don’t live long? You’re still better off delaying CPP and OAS. You don’t know in advance that you won’t live long, so you’re still forced to plan for the possibility of a long life.
You may see some analyses with detailed calculations to decide when to take CPP and OAS. These often use normal life expectancy to make the choice. These analyses just aren’t relevant to most of us because we have to plan for the possibility of a long life. An exception is if you’re wealthy enough that you plan to under-spend your assets and longevity risk matters little.
In many financial decisions, the truth is in the numbers, but only when you get all the facts right. If you get a fact wrong, such as not planning for the possibility of a long life, the math gives you an answer that is exactly wrong. It pays to think clearly about the gift of high CPP and OAS payments you can get by waiting until you’re 70 to collect.
Let’s start with some basics about CPP and OAS payments. Old Age Security (OAS) can start anywhere from age 65 to 70. Most Canadians at age 65 are eligible for the maximum pension (currently $578.53/month and rising with inflation). However, waiting until age 70 gives the payments a 36% boost (0.6% for each month of delay). A 70-year old just starting OAS today would get $786.80/month.
Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits are more complex to calculate. Doug Runchey has a great description of how to calculate your CPP pension. The biggest CPP retirement pension a 65-year old can collect today is $1114.17/month, rising with inflation. However, the average is $644.35/month. Whatever amount you’re entitled to, you’re allowed to start payments as early as age 60 or as late as age 70. The penalty for starting at age 60 is a 36% reduction, and the benefit for waiting from 65 to 70 is a 42% boost. So, the maximum payment at age 60 is $713.07/month, and the maximum starting at age 70 is $1582.12/month. That’s quite a big difference.
One technicality about CPP is that delaying benefits from age 60 to 65 can reduce your calculated pension a little if you’re not working past age 60 because you’ll have more years with no CPP contributions. (There is a special “dropout” that allows you to not count the years from 65 to 70.) So, depending on your exact circumstances, the dramatic difference between CPP at age 60 and at age 70 can be a little smaller than I showed, but it doesn’t affect the rest of the discussion much.
There are some good reasons to start collecting CPP and OAS as soon as possible. If you have much lower than normal life expectancy for any reason, it makes sense to collect some money while you’re still alive. If you have no savings and you plan to live only on just the total of your pensions (including the lower CPP and OAS payments that come from taking them early), then it makes no sense to delay CPP and OAS.
Suppose you have a normal life expectancy and have at least enough savings to be able to make it to age 70 without collecting CPP or OAS. This means that if you calculate the boosted payments you’ll get from CPP and OAS at age 70, your savings will cover withdrawals of at least this amount for the years from when you retire until you’re 70. So, you have a real choice: take CPP and OAS sooner or later?
There are some strong emotional reasons to take CPP and OAS sooner. One is that we discount the future too much. Another is that we sometimes use the fact that CPP is available at age 60 to justify retiring at 60, whether we have enough savings or not. Yet another is that it’s psychologically hard to spend down one’s savings, and as Frederick Vettese explained, you’ll have to do that faster if you delay CPP and OAS.
I’ve heard people try to justify taking CPP at age 60 saying that they want to have some money to spend while they’re still young enough to enjoy it. However, they could just spend more from their savings to achieve this. If delaying CPP and OAS to age 70 has a net benefit, then doing so will allow you to spend a little more during your early years of retirement than if you took CPP and OAS as early as possible.
We only need to consider one dominant fact to see that delaying CPP and OAS is a big win: you might live a long life. The scenario that puts the most strain on your finances is living a long time. If your financial plan works for a long life, then you won’t have financial trouble if you don’t live so long.
If you do live a long time, you’ll get the most value from CPP and OAS if you wait until age 70 to get larger payments. Knowing that you’ll be better covered after age 85 with big CPP and OAS payments makes it possible to spend more early on. The problem with longevity risk is that we are forced to plan for living to 95 even if we expect to only live to 85. The great thing about large CPP and OAS payments is that they keep growing with inflation as long as you live. This eliminates part of your longevity risk.
If you live a long life, the math overwhelmingly supports taking CPP and OAS at age 70. Doing so makes it possible to spend more in your 60s than you could do safely if you take CPP and OAS early. But what if you don’t live long? You’re still better off delaying CPP and OAS. You don’t know in advance that you won’t live long, so you’re still forced to plan for the possibility of a long life.
You may see some analyses with detailed calculations to decide when to take CPP and OAS. These often use normal life expectancy to make the choice. These analyses just aren’t relevant to most of us because we have to plan for the possibility of a long life. An exception is if you’re wealthy enough that you plan to under-spend your assets and longevity risk matters little.
In many financial decisions, the truth is in the numbers, but only when you get all the facts right. If you get a fact wrong, such as not planning for the possibility of a long life, the math gives you an answer that is exactly wrong. It pays to think clearly about the gift of high CPP and OAS payments you can get by waiting until you’re 70 to collect.
Monday, March 13, 2017
Balance Transfer Offer
I have a credit card that I don’t use much any more because I get more cash back on another card. I recently got an offer related to my little-used card by paper mail:
I normally just throw away junk like this, but I decided to scan the page. Toward the bottom, my eye caught the following line:
Just how dumb are they hoping I am? This looks like at least 3.99% interest annually to me. More likely, they’re hoping to reach the inattentive and desperate.
I decided to read the 25 lines of fine print on the back. In addition to the usual stuff about how they’d jack up my interest rate if miss my payments, I saw the following:
There just has to be a story behind something this cagey. After reading more than just the sections referenced, I think I have the story. After I make a balance transfer from another credit card, suppose I make a normal purchase on this credit card. It turns out that the balance transfer is treated like a cash advance. If I make a payment, the payment goes against interest first, then the balance transfer, and new purchases last. So, until I pay off the entire balance transfer, interest at a high rate accumulates on any new purchases.
So, if you choose to make a balance transfer, be sure to put your credit card in a cool, dry place and don’t use it until the balance transfer is completely paid off.
No matter how bad your financial situation gets, there’s always someone there to profit from dragging you down further.
“Save on interest - pay only 0.99% on balance transfers” “for up to 12 months”
I normally just throw away junk like this, but I decided to scan the page. Toward the bottom, my eye caught the following line:
“A fee of 3% of the balance amount you are transferring applies.”
Just how dumb are they hoping I am? This looks like at least 3.99% interest annually to me. More likely, they’re hoping to reach the inattentive and desperate.
I decided to read the 25 lines of fine print on the back. In addition to the usual stuff about how they’d jack up my interest rate if miss my payments, I saw the following:
“Please refer to sections 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 in your Cardholder Agreement for details on calculation of interest and the application of payments.”
There just has to be a story behind something this cagey. After reading more than just the sections referenced, I think I have the story. After I make a balance transfer from another credit card, suppose I make a normal purchase on this credit card. It turns out that the balance transfer is treated like a cash advance. If I make a payment, the payment goes against interest first, then the balance transfer, and new purchases last. So, until I pay off the entire balance transfer, interest at a high rate accumulates on any new purchases.
So, if you choose to make a balance transfer, be sure to put your credit card in a cool, dry place and don’t use it until the balance transfer is completely paid off.
No matter how bad your financial situation gets, there’s always someone there to profit from dragging you down further.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Retirement Spending Plan Question
Reader P.H. asked me a challenging question about drawing down TFSAs, RRSPs, and non-registered accounts during retirement. Here is a lightly-edited version of the question:
First off, I’m glad you enjoy the blog.
I’ve thought a lot about this type of question, and I don’t claim to have a definitive answer that covers all situations. I’m not even completely sure about my own situation yet.
In all the simulations I’ve done, going with the order non-registered, RRSP/RRIF, and finally TFSA has been either optimal or not too far off optimal. But I don’t claim to have looked at all possible financial situations people find themselves in during retirement.
There are so many variables involved, including the amounts you have in each type of account, other income you have, your year-to-year cash flow needs, and whether you are married. Other important factors that you can’t know are how long you and your spouse will live and what future changes the government will make to the tax system.
A change that seems likely at some point is to take into account TFSAs when giving out government benefits. I don’t think Canadians would be too pleased to see people with massive TFSAs collect GIS and other government money intended for low-income seniors.
A strategy I’ve read in a few places is to “top up” your current tax bracket. For example, in Ontario, the marginal tax rate on income below $42,201 is 20.05%. If your income is a little below this level, this strategy would have you withdraw enough from your RRSP/RRIF to top up this bracket. If you’re going to withdraw early from your RRSP/RRIF, then this makes some sense, but it doesn’t answer the question of whether you should be making such withdrawals early at all.
The father and father-in-law in P.H.’s question both focus on the large tax bill from their RRSP/RRIFs when they die. This is understandable, but may not give the correct conclusion. It’s often the case that you can withdraw RRSP/RRIF funds at a lower tax rate today than you’ll pay later on with a huge withdrawal at death.
But comparing tax rates isn’t the only thing you should consider. There is value in deferring taxes on investment gains as long as possible. Let’s consider an example to illustrate this point.
John is 65 and is currently in a 30% marginal tax bracket. He is considering withdrawing $5000 from his RRSP, even though he doesn’t need the money today. His TFSA contribution room is fully used, and so the $3500 remaining after tax would be invested in a non-registered account.
Suppose that John will live to age 90 and earn pre-tax investment returns of 7% per year. If the money stayed in his RRSP, it would grow to $27,137. Assuming John lives in Ontario and would be pushed into the top marginal rate at death, his heirs would get $12,610 resulting from the original $5000.
In the non-registered account option, suppose that yearly taxes would reduce the growth rate to about 6% per year. Further, he would pay capital gains taxes at death. The final amount going to John’s heirs works out to $11,938. In this example, John was slightly better off leaving the money in the RRSP.
In reality, the calculation would be more complex than this because a higher RRSP balance would actually lead to larger RRIF withdrawals each year. So, the $5000 would not actually stay in the account until John dies. Also, if John had any TFSA room available to hold part of an RRSP withdrawal, the comparison changes.
As for P.H.’s split conclusion about one strategy being better for the retiree and the other better for the heirs, I suspect this just because heirs benefit when retirees spend less. A true comparison comes when we hold retiree spending constant. Keep in mind that forced RRIF withdrawals do not have to be spent; they can be saved in either a TFSA or non-registered account. So, spending the RRSP/RRIF last doesn’t mean the higher forced RRIF withdrawals must be spent.
This whole area can get quite complex. For myself, I’m going with the idea that I don’t have to get the best answer, just a good one. My core plan is to spend non-registered money first, RRSPs second, and TFSAs last unless I get new information. However, I can see the logic of making early RRSP withdrawals if I can get the money out close to tax-free in a year where my income is very low, particularly if I have TFSA room to hold some of the withdrawal.
Over the RRSP season I had the same conversation with both my father and father in law about RRSP withdrawals. It was over which account they should tap first, their RRSP or non-registered (everyone agreed to leave TFSA until they end and to max it out forever.)
I understood that non-registered accounts should be used up first and then RRSP so that you pay less in investment taxes over time. They think they should draw out RRSP money first or even draw extra money they don’t need immediately and invest it in non-registered account so they pay less income tax over time. I tried to explain that they would have more money if they waited, but both were concerned about the 50% income tax their estate/heirs would have to pay when they died.
After some back of the envelope calculations I think we are both right. I think they would have more money for themselves to use if they did RRSP last, but they could leave a larger inheritance if they took out extra withdrawals and invested it in a non-registered account.
So, my conclusion to them was that if they wanted to make the most out of their money for their own use then leave it in the RRSP, but if they plan to leave an inheritance then they can take extra out earlier.
Does this make sense?
Love the blog.
First off, I’m glad you enjoy the blog.
I’ve thought a lot about this type of question, and I don’t claim to have a definitive answer that covers all situations. I’m not even completely sure about my own situation yet.
In all the simulations I’ve done, going with the order non-registered, RRSP/RRIF, and finally TFSA has been either optimal or not too far off optimal. But I don’t claim to have looked at all possible financial situations people find themselves in during retirement.
There are so many variables involved, including the amounts you have in each type of account, other income you have, your year-to-year cash flow needs, and whether you are married. Other important factors that you can’t know are how long you and your spouse will live and what future changes the government will make to the tax system.
A change that seems likely at some point is to take into account TFSAs when giving out government benefits. I don’t think Canadians would be too pleased to see people with massive TFSAs collect GIS and other government money intended for low-income seniors.
A strategy I’ve read in a few places is to “top up” your current tax bracket. For example, in Ontario, the marginal tax rate on income below $42,201 is 20.05%. If your income is a little below this level, this strategy would have you withdraw enough from your RRSP/RRIF to top up this bracket. If you’re going to withdraw early from your RRSP/RRIF, then this makes some sense, but it doesn’t answer the question of whether you should be making such withdrawals early at all.
The father and father-in-law in P.H.’s question both focus on the large tax bill from their RRSP/RRIFs when they die. This is understandable, but may not give the correct conclusion. It’s often the case that you can withdraw RRSP/RRIF funds at a lower tax rate today than you’ll pay later on with a huge withdrawal at death.
But comparing tax rates isn’t the only thing you should consider. There is value in deferring taxes on investment gains as long as possible. Let’s consider an example to illustrate this point.
John is 65 and is currently in a 30% marginal tax bracket. He is considering withdrawing $5000 from his RRSP, even though he doesn’t need the money today. His TFSA contribution room is fully used, and so the $3500 remaining after tax would be invested in a non-registered account.
Suppose that John will live to age 90 and earn pre-tax investment returns of 7% per year. If the money stayed in his RRSP, it would grow to $27,137. Assuming John lives in Ontario and would be pushed into the top marginal rate at death, his heirs would get $12,610 resulting from the original $5000.
In the non-registered account option, suppose that yearly taxes would reduce the growth rate to about 6% per year. Further, he would pay capital gains taxes at death. The final amount going to John’s heirs works out to $11,938. In this example, John was slightly better off leaving the money in the RRSP.
In reality, the calculation would be more complex than this because a higher RRSP balance would actually lead to larger RRIF withdrawals each year. So, the $5000 would not actually stay in the account until John dies. Also, if John had any TFSA room available to hold part of an RRSP withdrawal, the comparison changes.
As for P.H.’s split conclusion about one strategy being better for the retiree and the other better for the heirs, I suspect this just because heirs benefit when retirees spend less. A true comparison comes when we hold retiree spending constant. Keep in mind that forced RRIF withdrawals do not have to be spent; they can be saved in either a TFSA or non-registered account. So, spending the RRSP/RRIF last doesn’t mean the higher forced RRIF withdrawals must be spent.
This whole area can get quite complex. For myself, I’m going with the idea that I don’t have to get the best answer, just a good one. My core plan is to spend non-registered money first, RRSPs second, and TFSAs last unless I get new information. However, I can see the logic of making early RRSP withdrawals if I can get the money out close to tax-free in a year where my income is very low, particularly if I have TFSA room to hold some of the withdrawal.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Tangerine Adds Some New Fees
Tangerine is adding some new fees starting 2017 April 29.
Chequing and non-registered savings accounts will pay $10 for a year of inactivity and an additional $40 for 10 years of inactivity.
Returned items now cost $4 each.
After your first chequebook, subsequent books of 50 cheques now cost $20 instead of $12.50.
NSF charges go from $25 from $40.
These changes seem painless enough depending on how they define “inactivity,” but it pays to remain vigilant. Fortunately, more online banking options keep popping up. I’m optimistic that wary Canadians will be able to keep their banking fees low if they’re willing to move to a new online bank as necessary.
Chequing and non-registered savings accounts will pay $10 for a year of inactivity and an additional $40 for 10 years of inactivity.
Returned items now cost $4 each.
After your first chequebook, subsequent books of 50 cheques now cost $20 instead of $12.50.
NSF charges go from $25 from $40.
These changes seem painless enough depending on how they define “inactivity,” but it pays to remain vigilant. Fortunately, more online banking options keep popping up. I’m optimistic that wary Canadians will be able to keep their banking fees low if they’re willing to move to a new online bank as necessary.
Recognition Points Update
A while back I wrote about the recognition points system my employer started using to give employees rewards for good work. I had thought the system was simple enough, but now that I have my T4, I see a few interesting (and disturbing) wrinkles.
Back in December, I thought the taxable benefit kicked in only when we redeem points. If this were the case, I would control when I got hit with extra taxes. But our finance department has since found out that CRA considers the points themselves to be valuable, so I get hit with extra taxes as soon I’m awarded points.
Fortunately, I found something worthwhile for me in the rewards catalog: gift cards for a retailer I use often enough. So, at least I can get some value back to offset my reduced pay due to higher tax withholdings.
Some more good news is that my employer has decided to give us all some extra pay to offset the taxes we pay on the recognition points. Unfortunately, they treat us all as though we’re in a 30% marginal tax bracket (Ontario income from $46k to $74k). This means higher income earners must pay some income taxes for their points.
A friend of mine works in finance at another company where the employees are treated as though they’re in a 26% tax bracket. So, I guess my company is a little better.
The most surprising news after I examined my T4 is that the company values the points 40% to 50% higher than their actual value. For the particular gift card that interests me, my initial award of 2000 points is worth $113.38, but is valued at $166.16 when calculating my taxes.
At my marginal tax rate, after the extra pay my employer gives me to offset the taxes, I pay $56.12 for my 2000 points. So, I pay about half the cost of the gift cards I get. Compared to what my employer says these points are worth, their value to me is about one-third.
In the end, I’m glad this new points system at least has positive value for me. I know the dollar amounts at stake are modest. But if it had worked out that the points cost me more in taxes than I could get back in gift cards, it would have made it hard for me to accept more reward points graciously.
Back in December, I thought the taxable benefit kicked in only when we redeem points. If this were the case, I would control when I got hit with extra taxes. But our finance department has since found out that CRA considers the points themselves to be valuable, so I get hit with extra taxes as soon I’m awarded points.
Fortunately, I found something worthwhile for me in the rewards catalog: gift cards for a retailer I use often enough. So, at least I can get some value back to offset my reduced pay due to higher tax withholdings.
Some more good news is that my employer has decided to give us all some extra pay to offset the taxes we pay on the recognition points. Unfortunately, they treat us all as though we’re in a 30% marginal tax bracket (Ontario income from $46k to $74k). This means higher income earners must pay some income taxes for their points.
A friend of mine works in finance at another company where the employees are treated as though they’re in a 26% tax bracket. So, I guess my company is a little better.
The most surprising news after I examined my T4 is that the company values the points 40% to 50% higher than their actual value. For the particular gift card that interests me, my initial award of 2000 points is worth $113.38, but is valued at $166.16 when calculating my taxes.
At my marginal tax rate, after the extra pay my employer gives me to offset the taxes, I pay $56.12 for my 2000 points. So, I pay about half the cost of the gift cards I get. Compared to what my employer says these points are worth, their value to me is about one-third.
In the end, I’m glad this new points system at least has positive value for me. I know the dollar amounts at stake are modest. But if it had worked out that the points cost me more in taxes than I could get back in gift cards, it would have made it hard for me to accept more reward points graciously.
Friday, March 3, 2017
Short Takes: Irrationality Benefits, Trader Feedback, and more
My only post during my last two weeks of vacation was:
The Limits of Retirement Simulators
Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds is a fascinating article explaining why acting irrationally in certain ways was a beneficial adaptation.
The Reformed Broker reports on an interesting experiment where a brokerage reported to account holders whether their trading produced any value.
Larry Swedroe reports on some interesting insights into investors’ preference for dividends. (Web crawlers don't seem to like the address to this article, but it still works: http://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/swedroe-investors-odd-affection-dividends).
Boomer and Echo explains the main problems with most of Canada’s mutual fund industry: closet indexing and high fees.
Big Cajun Man says the RRSP should really be called the Tax Deferral Savings Plan. He makes a good point that people shouldn’t look at their RRSP balances and think of it as all their money
Million Dollar Journey has a good primer on asset allocation. Near the beginning are two sets of returns illustrating the effect of bonds on long-term returns. The first set is based on returns for the past 30 years and the second is based on the last 90 years. It’s not hard to see that the last 30 years have given us an amazing bull market in bonds. It will be interesting to see if we get a bear market in bonds in the coming decade or so.
My Own Advisor explains the downside of income tax refunds.
The Limits of Retirement Simulators
Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds is a fascinating article explaining why acting irrationally in certain ways was a beneficial adaptation.
The Reformed Broker reports on an interesting experiment where a brokerage reported to account holders whether their trading produced any value.
Larry Swedroe reports on some interesting insights into investors’ preference for dividends. (Web crawlers don't seem to like the address to this article, but it still works: http://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/swedroe-investors-odd-affection-dividends).
Boomer and Echo explains the main problems with most of Canada’s mutual fund industry: closet indexing and high fees.
Big Cajun Man says the RRSP should really be called the Tax Deferral Savings Plan. He makes a good point that people shouldn’t look at their RRSP balances and think of it as all their money
Million Dollar Journey has a good primer on asset allocation. Near the beginning are two sets of returns illustrating the effect of bonds on long-term returns. The first set is based on returns for the past 30 years and the second is based on the last 90 years. It’s not hard to see that the last 30 years have given us an amazing bull market in bonds. It will be interesting to see if we get a bear market in bonds in the coming decade or so.
My Own Advisor explains the downside of income tax refunds.
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