Plan Your Financial Future with TD Bank’s TD Your Story, Your Future Seminars

While we often talk only of food, travel and fun on the Good Life Vancouver, one can’t live very much of a good life without a thought towards finances. I partnered up with TD Wealth to help shine some light on this more serious topic and attended a seminar recently.

When it comes to finances, are you prepared for the future? Do you have a financial plan and have specific goals set out? Many people don’t and it’s difficult to know where to start and for women this is particularly troubling as stats show they control 70% of household spending and influence 1.3 trillion of the total Canadian investable assets. Furthermore only 12% of Canadian women feel successful with their personal finances, and I am not currently one of these.

But, after the presentation and discussion, I am more focused and am reworking my financial plan. These presentations take place frequently and can even be arranged at your own location of choice. The theme is “TD Your Story, Your Future” – a unique conversation for women about goal setting and investment considerations, and there was even wine!

TD Investment Advisors, Jillian Bryan and Tracey Lundell held this particular seminar downtown at TD’s newly renovated flagship branch, and while it is always a little painful to think about money, I came out thinking about it in a far smarter way. I once worked as a financial planner, but when it comes to my own finances, I often fail to plan. It’s easier just to live the good life, after all.

In the seminar we went over the top three goals for our future. I own my own home, am child free and self-employed so right now the most important things for me are completing this year’s taxes and paying them, planning my wedding and saving for retirement. Or so I thought until I thought about the fact that not having a car is driving me nuts, and not having steady income is driving me nuts so there are a few more things for me to remedy, as I am not happy taking the bus EVERYWHERE as you can see! For others their goals might be saving for a home, travel, estate planning or perhaps thinking about planning for your children’s education.

The next steps involved reviewing what would get in the way of these goals and then actions to take to start making my goals reality. These advisors were great communicators and there was room for discussion and interesting stats peppered in along the way. Did you know that 4 out of 5 new businesses in Canada are started by women and the one third of married Canadian women out-earn their husbands? I did not.

Onto the next steps toward a financial plan we reviewed the questions that you would be asked when you met with an advisor, which is the next step along the journey.

Do you have a monthly budget? Are there any expenses coming up? How sophisticated is your investment knowledge and what level of risk can you live with?

Creating a net worth statement of asset and liabilities and preparing some questions are also considerations before seeing a new advisor or meeting one for the first time.

Canadian women tend to retire around age 60 and their life expectancy is 83 years, so somehow we’ve got to come up with 25 years of retirement savings, yet only 3 in 10 have a financial plan.

I’d encourage you to attend a seminar and get some inspiration for yourself. I know I’ve got some number crunching ahead of me and I am going to need some further advice soon.

For further information:

Please contact Jillian Bryan or Tracey Lundell and learn more at www.tdcanadatrust.com