Financial Independence Activities as of Late

Well hello. Here are some things I’ve done lately to help propel myself to financial independence. I hope something inspires you!

1. Updated my financial plan with my advisor. According to the new plan, he wants to go a bit more conservative due to inflation, resulting in a later retirement date. Am I kicky about waiting longer to retire? No. Am I kicky about being a bit conservative for inflation unknowns? Yeah, I guess so. We had a good chat and it was determined that if I want to be safe to retire earlier, I need to increase my savings rate as much as possible starting now-ish. FINE. So that’s a work in progress.
2. As a result of the discussion referenced in #1, I have started using a retirement fund “Gross-Up” strategy as of taxation year 2022 (For Canadians only, although there may be a similar equivelant strategy in your country). This is where you borrow money to put EXTRA! in your tax sheltered retirement fund (for us it’s the RRSP – Registered Retired Savings Plan) before the tax deadline for the year. Borrowing the money doesn’t necessarily mean taking out a loan. It could also mean borrowing from your savings (which is what I did). The benefit of this strategy is you end up putting in more money than you normally would have, and earlier than normal.  Then, you get a larger refund to immediately pay back your borrowed amount. Or almost immediately…you need to do your taxes quickly in order to get your refund. Oh, and the CRA cannot go on strike. So yeah, account for these things if you decide to borrow the money from the bank…then Ka-zam! This strategy was inspired by this article I read from a Financial Advisor I subscribe to. I’ll try to do this each year until I max out my RRSP contributions!
3. I joined a ladies financial “club” where we talk about our financial goals, share ideas, and generally be more accountable to getting shit done. So far we have only met once, but I already feel more energized about the things I want to accomplish! So, that’s cool. I’ve never done anything like this before with real, actual people. It has been great to meet like-minded people from across the country, even if it is only virtually.

Well, that’s about all I can think of for now. I am sure there are other things that I’ve done to improve my financial independence situation since I last posted back in January 2023…somehow it’s almost April and I don’t know how that happened. What have you been up to in the past 3 months? Tell me all about it in the comments!