Podcast - June 1, 2023
Continuing with the Canadiana references (yes, there’s a difference between 100K & a cool mil – but still), what should you do? What would you do? Josh & Colin have some thoughts, none involving expensive Ketchup or tree forts, in this week’s episode of Barenaked Money.
Speaker 1:
You’re about to get lucky with the Barenaked Money Podcast, the show that gives you the naked truth about personal finance with your hosts, Josh Sheluk, Portfolio Manager with WLWP Wealth Planners, iA Private Wealth, and Colin White, Portfolio Manager with Verecan Capital Management Inc.
Colin White:
Welcome everybody to the next edition of Barenaked Money. Josh and Colin here, having a conversation, taking some feedback from the audience, and we’re going to tear into a… What would you call this, Josh? You call this a nice question to have? Would that be a polite way of describing it?
Josh Sheluk:
From the perspective of the individual with the money? Yeah, I guess so. That’s what you’re aiming about, I think.
Colin White:
Yeah. So we had a longtime fan of the podcast who’s fed us some ideas as to questions and stuff, and every once in a while he says something, kind of resonates and I go, “Yeah, that’s a question we get from time to time that really befuddles people.” So the question is, what happens? I just got $100,000. What should I do? That’s the question. So this can come from a gift from a family member, this can come from some kind of windfall, from some form of a payment, an inheritance, a pre inheritance. But more often than the one might imagine it’s, “Hey, I just got an extra 50,000, I got an extra $100,000. What should I do?”
So Josh, bring ring, bring ring. The phone just rang. I’m your client. Josh, I just got $100,000. What should I do?
Josh Sheluk:
So I’m just going to set the stage here by saying, this question is not to be confused with five ideas, where to invest a $100,000 right now. Because that’s something I hear about all the time, and when you brought this question up to me, that was what I was thinking about. And when I say I hear about that all the time, this is in the news all the time, or on TikTok or Instagram or wherever it is that you’re getting your social media feed from. Could be Reddit, could be something like that. So not to be confused. Two completely different conversations. So bring, bring, bring, bring. So I pick up the phone.
Colin White:
Yeah, exactly. You’re right. This is not the first three things you need to do. This is an actual… No, no. This is a portrayal of what this conversation could be. I just got $100,000, Josh, what should I do?
Josh Sheluk:
So my first instinct is to start asking questions. What is the money for? Biggest question. Right off the bat.
Colin White:
You mean where did it come from? Or are you asking the Andy money laundering question where we have to know the source of funds? Is that where you’re going first, to make sure that it’s not drug money?
Josh Sheluk:
Okay. Let’s assume we’ve got all of our compliance requirements taken care of.
Colin White:
Oh, okay.
Josh Sheluk:
Actually, where did it come from is actually a good question. So that’s not where my head went at first, it was more so to ask the client or the individual that’s coming into the money, what do you want to use the money for? What is it intended for? What do you want to do with it? Do you want to buy a house? Do you want to buy a jet ski? Do you want to save it for the next 50 years? Do you want to pass it on to your kids? Somewhere in between a little bit of all this stuff. What is it for? What do you want the money for? Because that informs a lot of what we can or should be doing with it.
Colin White:
Wow. So you’re telling me that the first thing you’re going to do when somebody asks you what to do with $100,000 is you’re going to ask them what they want to do with it?
Josh Sheluk:
Crazy idea.
Colin White:
Isn’t it rude to answer a question with a question? Isn’t that a bad thing?
Josh Sheluk:
I guess it depends what profession you’re in.
Colin White:
I suppose. No, it’s all about priorities now. And I think that that’s what you’re getting at. So I think the goal is to revisit previous planning. For me, it’s about going back to, it’s like, okay, well what were your spending priorities before you got this $100,000? Before this was a thing, what was the number one priority for you? What’s the number two priority? What’s important to you at this point in time? And start going through that checklist to see if having money sometimes changes those priorities. Your reality is a certain way and all of a sudden you’re in a new reality. Now again, we’ve picked 100,000 as a bit of a round number. It could be 10,000, it could be 500,000. But it also depends on how material that is to your situation.
If you’ve got $5 million invested and somebody gives you $10,000, that’s probably not a phone call to us or a phone call to your advisor. But when you get into the $100,000 range, then that could change your priorities, for sure. So for me, the first thing is to understand is this enough money that it changes priorities? Because if all of your goals totaled up to $20,000 and you just got 100,000, you’re going to need more goals. You’re going to need something else beyond that. So this is going to change, or at least add onto or fast track, your plans a little bit. How material is this to your world?
Josh Sheluk:
Well the last thing you said there, fast track, I think that is a pretty big deal because it might not change your priorities. It probably doesn’t change your priorities, really. It really shouldn’t, in my view. But it might change the time horizon for actually realizing those priorities, and that’s super important. Maybe even more so than changing the priorities.
Colin White:
Yeah. Well, what comes to mind, and one conversation I had with a client was, “Well, I was going to get a new car in a couple of years time, so maybe I’ll just do it now.” And it’s like, “Well, is there something wrong with your existing car?” “No.” “You were perfectly happy with it.” “Yeah.” “So is it really worthwhile? Would it be that exciting to you to fast track that goal? Does that really put you in a hugely better spot, or should you just let that one unfold?” So having the conversation about marginal utility, would be the way the economist would refer to it. What kind of marginal utility would you get from that compared to other things?
Josh Sheluk:
Yeah, well, buying a new car or a new truck, usually not really a value add from a financial perspective. It might make you have more fun in your life, but that’s not usually something that we’re going to be recommending moving up or accelerating that goal. But where I find this comes to play a lot today, in these times, is gift from parents, gift from grandparents, now the reality of owning a home has just totally changed for you.
Colin White:
Yeah, and that can be very problematic as well because if you were on the cusp of making a decision and you feel that this gift puts you into the game of actually purchasing a house or making a major commitment, that’s going to… Sometimes hurrying that decision doesn’t allow for the proper kind of thought and you may end up hurrying yourself into something that you really weren’t ready for on other levels as well. So that’s something to be cautious of. Again, the whole buying your first house thing, I think we’ve podded on that in the past. There’s a lot that goes into that decision. But sometimes a gift like this is what’s intended to push you over the edge, because there can also be expectations there.
As your mind went to an interesting spot too, Josh. The source of funds can matter. If you’re really close to your grandmother and she passes away and she gifts you a $100,000, there’s the emotional side of that. Some people say, “I want to do something meaningful with this.” Great, let’s explore that. What’s meaningful to you? Those are deeply personal conversations and personal opinions. And that’s the role of an advisor. It’s not, “Hey, you have $100,000. Okay, so we’re going to maximize your TFSA, we’re going to maximize your RSP, and then we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.” If that’s the advice you’re getting, you’re talking to the wrong person. That’s not how to proceed with this.
So I guess in order of importance, number one, we have to make sure that it’s not drug money. Number two, we have to understand, is there an emotional attachment to this money? That’s the second thing that would inform a conversation about the money. And number three, I guess, is this transcendent? Is this going to propel you into a whole new stratosphere of planning and thinking, or is this just going to buttress your existing plan? To me, that’s the hierarchy that you would go through. Oh my God, I just gave a list, Josh. Are you going to kick me off the podcast? I think I gave a list of the four things to consider when you get a lump sum of money.
Josh Sheluk:
It’s different.
Colin White:
Oh, okay.
Josh Sheluk:
Yeah. Well, coming back to one of the things you took from my initial comments there is like where did the money come from? So it is a reasonable question to ask as well, because the things that we’re talking about, inheritance gifts, things like that, not going to be taxable. But there are situations where you come into a lump sum of money and there is going to be a taxable event for you. So having, again, for us trying to understand what is the money, not only how does it change your goals, but what is it needed for? If you need to pay a tax bill nine months from now, well, we probably don’t want to go buy Bitcoin with it, because that might be problematic.
Colin White:
Is there a situation where we do want to go buy Bitcoin with anything, Josh? You threw that out there, but it assumes that there would be a scenario where somebody would walk in and you’d say, “You should buy Bitcoin.”
Josh Sheluk:
No, I’m just kidding. That’s not a piece of advice. So when you asked this question to me initially, Colin, my thought process immediately went to the investment side is like, okay, what do I with it? So those goals, why is the question about goals so important as the starting point? Aside from, obviously, we need to deliver on what the individual is looking for.
Colin White:
Well, that comes back to the role of money and wealth in somebody’s life. You’re writing your own movie, so this is about what you think is important. And our job, as I see it, is to help you make the most out of the resources you have to accomplish those goals in the best way possible. Again, you could treat this just as an investment decision. It’s like, “Oh my god, money just came in. Great. What’s the list of accounts I should consider?” You could treat it like that, but I think that that’s doing it at a disservice because if you stick it in a long-term investment, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking, “Great, I get to buy that boat this summer.” Well, you may have made the right financial decision when you got the money, but you made the wrong risk management decision when time came to execute on your plan. So the individual priorities, our job is to figure out, hey, what makes your socks roll up and down? Maybe this is a charitable donation. Maybe you can make a big donation to something near and dear to your heart, and maybe that’s important to you right now, and that has tax to it as well. But all these things should be considered.
Josh Sheluk:
Well, the next step for us, once we understand what the individual wants to accomplish with the money, is to then provide the right advice. What can we do from a financial perspective to make that a reality? So that boat that you need to buy in six months, that’s one type of investment decision and a very different investment decision than, “Yeah, I’m just going to stash this away so I can retire five years early or 30 years from now.” That’s a very different investment decision, and we need to understand what those time horizons are, what those timelines are, so we can advise prudently on the investment side of things.
Colin White:
But Josh, the world’s such a scary place now. There’s Russia and the Ukraine and all this inflation and interest rates. Now’s not a good time to be investing money for the long term, is it?
Josh Sheluk:
It’s always a good time to invest the money for the long term. This sounds like such a sales tactic, doesn’t it? Always a good time to invest money for the long term, but it’s so true.
Colin White:
Well, yeah, exact, and it does sound salesy, for sure. But again, people ask me what my confidence level is. Over the next five years, all kinds of confidence. Next six months, I have none. And that’s honest. We could go to efforts to build. I just spent a couple of days attending a couple of seminars, hearing the latest and greatest reasons why now is the perfect time to invest in X, Y, Z. Again, those stories are compelling, they have lots of charts and graphs, lot of historical context. But again, the short story is nobody knows. And that’s not exciting, so I guess that makes us less salesy. But I don’t know if I ever say it’s always a good time to invest for the long term, because you’re right, that’s a really salesy way to put it, Josh.
Josh Sheluk:
Yeah. So let’s assume that we’ve now decided that it is a long-term investment. What are we recommending for people? What ideas are we coming up with to put that money to work?
Colin White:
Well, for me, I go through the list and say, “Okay, do you owe any money? What are the interest rates in which you owe? And do you have any unused RSP room? What’s your taxable income? Do you have any unused tax-free savings account room? Where are we with meeting the education goals for kids, if that’s on your list?” So for me, it’s a checklist to go through, because at the end of the day, you’re talking about a balance sheet entry. You’re talking about something, you’ve got cash, which is an asset. Now, do I want to take this cash? Do I want to use it to reduce my liabilities or increase my assets towards a particular goal or a particular timeframe? And I think all of that should be put on the table. But are we ever really entirely sure 100% that all the money should go to one thing, Josh?
Josh Sheluk:
Well, this is what I’m getting to because a lot of people come into their offices, a lot of our existing clients, and say, “You know what? I had this windfall,” for whatever reason it is. “If I gave you $100,000 to invest, what types of investments are you going to buy with it?” And I find it to be such an interesting question because it seems like everybody always wants to come up with the new idea. And this is going back to what I was joking about at the outset, the media is always trying to push, “Here’s five new ideas for you,” but I already have the best ideas in your portfolio. We’ve already invested in all the best things for you, so I’m sorry, it’s not a very exciting answer, but I’m just going to buy more of the same stuff that we already have. I’m not going to go try to come up with my next five best ideas because my top 15 best ideas are already there, so I don’t need to go to ideas 16 to 20.
Colin White:
No, absolutely. But people are looking for the excitement, they’re looking for the story, they’re looking for the motivation, like now is the great time. Again, I was talking about on our PM call today, there’s a lot of talk about this commodity supercycle. I wrote a supercycle back when I was in high school. It wasn’t all that special. But there’s always these themes, these ideas, this hottest, the greatest, the newest, latest. And sometimes people come and say, “Well, what is the hottest and latest?” And our answer is always, “Nope, that’s just not a thing.” So if it’s long-term money, we’ll do long-term things with it. But once we nail down that it’s a long-term thing, then there is some tax planning, short-term or long-term, to take a look at. What’s the current tax burden like? What’s the tax burden likely to be in the future? Is there anything we can fudge with that over deferring taxation or incurring taxation now? There’s all those kinds of things.
But it’s a nuanced conversation around client priorities and client risk profile and client risk appetite. But what I was getting to earlier was oftentimes if you don’t know what horse is going to win, bet on a couple of horses. If you really can’t make up your mind between sticking it in your TFSA and paying down your mortgage with a higher interest rate, do a 50/50. No harm in that. You’re at least half right, and you’re never going to be all wrong, and that’s not a terrible way to do it. Now you can get a little bit funny with it and try to split it 17 ways, maybe that’s too much. But if you get down to, “I’d like to pay down my debt, but I’d also like to make an RSP contribution,” find a way to split it.
And what I always encourage people to do is to have, in their mind, a percentage, like, “At any point in time, if I have an extra thousand bucks, someone to 60% of it’s going to pay down debt and 40% of it’s going to be long-term investing.” Give yourself a heuristic. Give yourself a little shortcut in your head so that you’re not in the moment trying to do all the math and all the gazintas and say. That’s more for self-employed people who might get paid in a lumpy fashion or people who get bonuses quarterly or annually. Just have a formula in your head, then that way at any moment in time, it’s just really, “I’m going to use my formula,” whatever it is, and split it up accordingly. Because if you let emotion get into, “Oh, I’m really confident in the markets right now, so I’m going to allocate all this to my investments,” that’s not good. If you’re overconfident or if you’re scared, then that’s going to influence your long-term asset allocation, then that can be very destructive.
Josh Sheluk:
Yeah, I think it comes back to something we say a lot is emotion destroys wealth and you want to try to stay on a glide path, as opposed to jumping all over the place, depending on how you’re feeling every given month or given year.
Colin White:
Well, yeah, somebody’s talking to me now, was like, “Well, I’m sure interest rates are going to go higher.” Wow, okay. I’m glad you’re sure. I’m not going to use that to make any kind of decisions because I’m not sure, and I haven’t had anybody that I truly respect who is sure when it comes to interest rates. So if you hear yourself saying those words like, “I’m sure this is going to happen,” back off, take at least 50% of that off the table and go and bet against yourself, because being sure of something is when you can really cause yourself some problems.
Josh Sheluk:
Yeah, for sure. I’m sure about that. There you go.
Colin White:
Look at you.
Josh Sheluk:
So with a lump sum like this, Colin, do you think that people should be approaching it differently or need to approach it differently than their regular savings plan? Let’s say I’m saving a thousand bucks a month and all of a sudden I come into $100,000. Should I be approaching the $100,000 differently than a $1000 a month?
Colin White:
I think there’s some efficacy in actually considering whether or not it changes anything. I’m not sure it does, but I think at that stage does. Because again, that could completely eliminate a debt payment or two, so it could have a lot of knock on effects. So yeah, I do think that it requires certainly a phone call to your advisor and have a conversation and go through things, because it may change priorities. And also, feeling more wealthy may change how you’re looking at things. Now, that’s a very real thing as well. Now, the other thing I’ll point out, there’s been numerous studies done that talk about amount of money given a generation is inversely proportional to the amount of money accumulated by a generation, because again, it can make you feel rich, and pretty soon you take that $100,000 and you put a pool in, or half a pool, but now you’re stuck with the ongoing upkeep costs of having a pool, so you’re actually poorer after you spent the $100,000. So you got to be mindful of those kinds of decisions that have knock on effects too.
Josh Sheluk:
Yeah. Well, there’s a lot of ways that you can spend. $100,000 is not that hard to spend these days, so you can easily dig yourself a hole if it feels like it’s found wealth, and you don’t contribute to anything that’s value creating for you over the long term.
Colin White:
Yeah, you’d have to be cautious. Again, if you buy a boat, well, oh shoot, you need a trailer for the boat. Oh, truck’s not big enough to pull the boat. Oh, we got to put gas in the boat. Oh, I got to put maintenance in. So if you blow the wad of money on something, and then the rest of your income has to pick up all the costs, you’re not putting yourself in a better spot there, for sure. But I think it’s important, we try to get people to look at their financial situation periodically, rationally. So once a year, once every six months, once every two years, whatever it is for the client, let’s put all the cards on the table, let’s take a look at all the numbers and have a rational conversation, set up a plan, and then stop thinking about it.
Because trying to stop thinking about it and letting emotion creep into it is key to making progress. And when you pick it up again in a year or two, or whatever timeframe you pick it up again, take a look at the progress you just made, and then make some more rational decisions like, okay, I’m going to continue this to save X percent of my take-home pay. I’m going to continue to do this percentage and that percentage, and then just stop thinking about it. But a lump sum can be one of those times where you should reconsider everything. Like I said, take it and pay off a car loan, so let’s just free up 600 bucks a month that we’re no longer paying on a car loan. Great, so what do you want to do with that? I want to take half of that to lifestyle. Perfect. Take half to lifestyle, let’s take the other half and do something long term with it. Because again, it’s all about scratching your rich and meeting the client expectations.
That’s the difference between getting advice and being sold something. If you ask somebody what to do $100,000 and they talk about the latest mutual fund or they talk about the right type of account to put it in, and they don’t ask any follow-up questions, you are talking to a salesperson, and that’s not what’s going to be in your best interest.
Josh Sheluk:
It’s interesting. We started this and we started with the question, what do you do with $100,000? And the idea of actually investing or making an investment decision was way down the list. It was one of the last things we actually talked about, which makes sense. It makes sense that that would be the last thing that you decide upon because you have so many things, so many steps, so many priorities to set or goals to set, before you actually get to the investment decision. The investment decision is just a means to an end. It’s not the end in itself.
Colin White:
Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, again, in our world, the investment decision is the simple part, because, again, it’s just a long-term thing. If we were saying, “Hey, this is the time that we need some US dollar denominated assets. We need to get really long term on a duration and we need this,” and we start spinning an investment story and try to build that urgency to make an investment decision, that may or may not line up with what you’re trying to do in your life. That may or may not bring you the most value out of that money. It could be like, “Hey, tell you what, let’s pay the mortgage off two years early,” free up that mortgage payment, make you feel super good about yourself, and take part of that payment and put it towards other future goals.
I had a client do that this week. They got a lump sum of money and it basically wiped out a line of credit that had been bugging them. That’s made them disproportionately happy. That’s one of those things that you think is going to be sitting there for another five or 10 years, and all of a sudden it disappears. And yeah, there’s real joy in that. There’s some real happiness that came out of doing that. And from a balance sheet perspective, that’s not terrible, that’s certainly not the worst thing you could do.
What is the worst thing you could do with $100,000, Josh?
Josh Sheluk:
Buy Bitcoin. You could burn it, I guess that’s a pretty bad idea.
Colin White:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. No, it’s important that you understand yourself and that’s difficult for you to be self-aware enough to say, “Okay, here are my true priorities, here’s what I see happening, and this is what’s going to bring me the most joy and make the most progress.” My job is sit in the cheap seats and do some math and try to make it as impactful as we can towards whatever priorities that you set for yourselves.
So there you go. Everything you need to know about, if I had $100,000. Well, maybe not everything. Maybe it’s just a bunch of questions, but it’s certainly… Well, it’s not the top three things to invest $100,000 in today. That’s what we didn’t want it to be. I think we’re successful in accomplishing that goal. Right, Josh?
Josh Sheluk:
Tune in next week where we’ll talk about the best five ideas for investing $100,000 right now.
Colin White:
There we go.
Speaker 4:
Based on observation, it seems that the time an investor is most likely to move his or her portfolio to a new advisor is when the old advisor dies. Let us go on record as saying that having a pulse is not a great reason to trust someone with your entire financial future. Stop putting your life in the hands of stillbreathingwealthplanners.com and call us.
Speaker 1:
Verecan Capital Management Inc. is a registered portfolio manager in Nova Scotia, British Columbia, and Ontario. Nothing in this podcast should be considered as a solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell a particular security. Statements made by the portfolio managers are intended to illustrate their approach and are meant for information and entertainment purposes only. Opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the portfolio manager only and do not necessarily reflect those of iA Private Wealth Inc. iA Private Wealth Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. iA Private Wealth is a trademark and business name under which iA Private Wealth Inc. operates.
Speaker 5:
This should not be construed as legal tax or accounting advice. This podcast has been prepared for information purposes only. The tax information provided in this podcast is general in nature, and each client should consult with their own tax advisor, accountant, and lawyer before pursuing any strategy described here, as each client’s individual circumstances are unique. We’ve endeavored to ensure the accuracy of the information provided at the time that it was written. However, should the information in this podcast be incorrect or incomplete, or should the law or its interpretation change after the date of this document, the advice provided may be incorrect or inappropriate. There should be no expectation that the information will be updated, supplemented, or revised, whether as a result of new information, changing circumstances, future events, or otherwise. We are not responsible for errors contained in this podcast or to anyone who relies on the information contained during this podcast. Please consult your own legal and tax advisor.
