Should this 60-year-old sell her condo or keep it as an investment property? Plus, why the ‘death binder’ is becoming an essential part of estate planningWhen her mother fell ill last year, Melissa, 60, flew from her Toronto-area home to British Columbia to help care for her elderly parent. Fortunately, Melissa is able to work remotely at her $120,000-a-year managerial job.
“Condo investment is a bit tricky because condo fees increase yearly,” Melissa writes in an e-mail. “At some point the fees will outweigh the property’s appreciation.” That could happen in four or five years. “Does it make financial sense to sell at that point?” she asks. Or should she keep it to diversify her investments?
The summer I turned 18, I got my first real job as a kind of lifeguard/pool attendant/arts-and-crafts organizer with the City of Winnipeg. I’d heard about the job earlier in the school year. This was 1984 or 85, so I had to get a form and fill it out and mail it in. Maybe I even rode over on my bike and delivered it by hand. That sounds like something I’d do.
But if the pool was busy, I could have 30 kids splashing around. On other days, there’d be one kid, and I’d be more of a babysitter. I had a certain amount of arts-and-crafts materials to last for the summer, so we could do finger painting with pudding or something to stay busy. That would be a great day for that kid’s mom, because I took the gig very seriously.
Matthew Kempton, portfolio manager at Verecan Capital Management Inc. in Halifax, calls these binders a natural progression of an estate plan. More clients are including a letter of wishes in their binder, which explains why they made specific decisions in the will, Mr. Burnie notes. The aim is to avoid family squabbles. A letter provides the opportunity to explain the rationale for the decision.
Brakeman anticipated that drumming would be physically demanding, but had no idea the levels of co-ordination required. For someone who was never good at sports or dance or even walking, this would be a challenge.Some people say they take CPP sooner versus later so that they don’t have their OAS clawed back when other sources of income are factored in.