New 4 Percent Retirement Withdrawal Idea & Free Financial Planning Software

How Much You Can Spend in Retirement?

First Published Date: June 6, 2015

A retired financial planner in California, Bill Bengen, researched and came up with his 4 percent retirement rule. The New York Times recently published a detailed article on this, as his retirement 4 percent concept has attracted criticism both accepting and rejecting it.

Based on the assumption of that the retirees’ portfolio is made of stocks and bonds half half, Mr. Bengen’s 4 percent withdrawal concept survived every thirty year period from 1926.

However, there are other complex methods created by retirement analysts that call to withdraw from 2.85 percent to 4.95 percent, as the article points out.

Critics argues that Mr. Bengen’s method does not take account into various factors such as investment fees, tax rates, locations, etc. and should not apply to all retirees.

If you search online for various methods of retirement withdrawals, you will be astonished to see how many are there. The best course of action is not to go by any single idea you stumble into. As everyone’s situation is unique, it’s best to seek help and sit down with a qualified financial professional who can assess your own situation and create a plan that will suit your needs and lifestyle.

Free Financial Planning Software

Developed by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, ESPlannerBASIC Canada is free financial software that can calculate how much you can spend and save to sustain your living standard in retirement life. The planning tool takes consideration into other factors such as changing jobs, moving, having kids, pensions, etc. can affect your financial future. You can access this free tool here:

Vietnam Relaxes Foreign Property Rules

Vietnam Foreign Real Estate Rules

First Published Date: June 9, 2015

As Vietnam reaches its 40th anniversary from foreign retreat, it celebrates the historic moment by allowing foreign property ownership and further divulging into capitalism. Starting July 1st, foreigners with a valid residential visa and foreign companies are allowed to buy real estate in Vietnam.

In the past, foreigners married to Vietnamese citizens and foreign companies with special permission were able to buy real estate after going through a complicated government process. Although Vietnam has enjoyed steady economic growth between 5 to 10 percent in the past two decades, its foreign property ownership restriction has frustrated foreign businesses that wanted to acquire properties to expand. The new rules will bring fresh perspectives into the property market and accelerate foreign investments.

Under the new rules, foreigners will be allowed to own 30 percent of condos and 250 independent houses in a ward – an administrative area that can contain thousands of properties leased for 50 years. Many other Asian countries follow similar property rules, as more and more countries are opening up to foreigners and relaxing foreign property rules.

It is expected that there will be a surge of foreign property investors due to the new rules. Ho Chi Minh City and Dan Nang are two major areas of interest due to expat populations and availability of high-end condos and houses.

However, challenges still remain in Vietnam for foreigners to own property, like many other Asian countries. The requirement to have a valid visa and the local bureaucratic procedural cobwebs will still make many foreign investors reluctant to try the waters.

Boring is the new Sexy

Canada Will Emerge From Global Crisis First

First Published Date: April 25, 2009

For a long time now Canada has had to put up with jibes about being a boring country. This is something that Canadians have come to live with in a sense. Being called boring isn’t nice, exactly, but there comes a point where you cease to care what people think about you based on your nationality. Equally, ask an Irish person if it bothers them to be called “stupid”. This clichéd image of friendly, but drunken and unintelligent Irish, people was common currency for years. That Ireland had turned out Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and W.B. Yeats was ignored. Now Irish people are happy for someone to underestimate them – as it means the advantage is with them.

Equally, while Canada was carrying on being “boring”, other more “exciting” nations were mortgaging their futures on the wave of credit that never seemed to slow at all. While the banks were taking on customers in their millions, and those customers were buying expensive goods, houses and cars, there may well have been many people who looked at Canada from the outside and considered its financial caution to be boring and pedestrian. But looking at Canada’s financial position, which has attracted somewhat envious compliments from US President Barack Obama, who would swap places with the “exciting” countries now?

Yes, there is a recession in Canada, and it will not be here today, gone tomorrow. There are hurdles to clear, and right now it is a little more difficult to get a home loan than it was a few years ago. But with the government’s financial policies having stipulated caution while all around were deregulating and hiding behind credit – very shaky credit at that – the Canadian banks have not required bailouts like in the US, Britain, Germany and elsewhere. This means that while those countries are still recovering from the battering that their economies took, and looking at a tax burden that could persist for some time, Canada will emerge in a better position.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has recently expressed an opinion that will probably write a thousand headlines between now and the end of the global crisis. Speaking to a seminar in Chicago on financial literacy he gave the opinion that “boring is the new sexy”. There are very few countries in the world that would not love to be where Canada is right now, and fewer still who wouldn’t like to be where Canada is going. Having succumbed last to the crisis, Canada is due to escape it first – and then, the possibilities are intriguing.

Sure, nothing is guaranteed in this climate, and even if there are positive signs, it would not be a typically “Canadian” attitude to crow about the relative strength of our position. But if the current global situation shows us anything, it is that being “boring” while everyone else is counting on the goose to continue laying golden eggs can be a very wise decision. Just watch the other global economies once they are back on their feet. They’re likely to be a lot more “boring” than before. Especially now that they know how sexy it is.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Apr 25, 2009.

Ryugyong Hotel – The Ugliest Building on Earth

Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang – The Hotel of Doom

First Published Date: June 14, 2015

The Republic of North Korea is simultaneously one of the most interesting and most impenetrable nations in the world. There are many places on this earth that provide major talking points with their seeming lack of openness, but as time has gone by there has continually been a temptation for each to accept the benefits of capitalism (or at least commercialism, which may not be the same thing but has many of the same effects) and open their doors, slowly at first but eventually deciding that they have more to gain from opening up to let the world in than from staying isolated. China was once seen in the way North Korea is today, but a move to free market capitalism is all but complete there and a real estate economy is developing. In North Korea, the same cannot be said – but whispers are emerging that it is beginning to dip its toe in the water.

The winds of change do not blow visibly in North Korea, due to the capricious nature of its President Kim Jong-Il, whose idiosyncratic style of leadership can best be described as “individual”. North Korea is a highly militarized state, and resists any effort to involve it in globalization. However, in Pyongyang there is a building which stands half-completed more than 20 years after ground was broken on its construction. Claims are that it will finally be completed in 2012, a quarter of a century after it began, and marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the former leader, and Kim Jong-Il’s father, Kim Il-Sung. Extensive information on the hotel is hard to come by, however, so we are left with second-guessing and often cynical predictions on what shape the construction activity might take.

North Korea has a total foreign media blackout, and limits overseas visitors quite sternly, so it is not possible for international organizations to get a close look at what is taking place on the site of the Ryugong Hotel. Five years after construction began, it is known that it had to be stalled due to a lack of funds to complete the project, so what exists of the hotel is a concrete skeleton. Lately, one side of the pyramid-structured hotel has been seen to be covered in glass (although even that has been attributed in some circles to Photoshop), and the upper floors (due to house restaurants) seem to have been completed. A lot more, however, remains to be done. Even the Egyptian construction group Orascom – involved in the recent building – has admitted that the extent of the confirmed work is more to give the facade a more attractive look.

Whether the 2012 completion date for the Ryugong hotel is mere fancy or not, the fact that construction has recommenced after all this time does make for interesting speculation. Will the Pyongyang authorities see work completed on the building, and permit the promised “Western” freedom within the walls of the hotel? Will we know if it happens or not, given the silence from North Korea on almost all issues? We could yet be surprised – and those who call the building the “Worst Construction In the World” may yet have cause to eat their words. And, of course, maybe not.

Canadian Banking – World’s Soundest Banking System

Canadian Banking System Gets A+

First Published Date: January 4, 2009

Good news if you do your banking in Canada – you are storing your money in what is accepted to be the safest banking system in the world, ahead, even of banking paradise Switzerland. This means that even in the current global financial crisis, there is no cause to worry about the safety of your banking deposits, and that putting your money into a Canadian bank is as close as you can get to a guarantee that it will be handled in the most efficient way imaginable. After the annual study by the World Economic Forum polled bankers worldwide, Canada came out on top – well ahead of near neighbours the United States, which came in 40th.

The World Economic Forum polls its members every year, asking them to award marks out of seven for the soundness of a countries banking system. Canada polled a remarkable 6.8 out of seven, ahead of the previous leader as well as other notables such as Sweden, Luxembourg and Denmark, all of which are known for unshakeable fiscal probity.

This is news worth shouting about, as banks in many other countries have had to rely on government bailouts while others have gone to the wall. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is a man with plenty of reasons to smile. As his counterparts in supposedly more prestigious economies flounder against a seemingly unstoppable wave of financial doom, Flaherty is presiding over a competitive economy with a lessening level of debt. As other governments borrow to escape the meltdown, Canada’s surefootedness is likely to reassure banking customers.

Canada has a progressive banking system too. It is a lot less stressful to try and get hold of your money here, with more Automated Bank Telling Machines per capita than any country in the world. Anybody who has ever spent time in a city or town with a dearth of ABMs can tell you that it’s a frustrating experience trying to withdraw money that you know you have. Sometimes it’s like they don’t WANT you to spend your money.

Electronic banking plays its own part in this most efficient bank system. Canada has the highest penetration levels worldwide of debit cards (enabling you to make use of your account even if you can’t find one of the country’s many branches or cash points), Internet banking (so if your bank doesn’t have one of the many branches nearby you can still conduct any transaction you care to name) and telephone banking. It’s a quite impressive story overall, to be honest. Knowing that your money is safe and that you face the fewest restrictions imaginable should you wish to make use of it means Canada should be in a position to ride out the crisis and come out the other side ready to compete.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Jan 4, 2009.