Scantlebury Wealth Management

If you spend any amount of time listening to Canadians, it becomes clear that our health care system  does a good job at treating critical illnesses like cancer, heart attacks and strokes. However, it has  some severe limitations. One of those limitations is imposing a large amount of costs on individual patients. Last year, CBC talked about a Calgary man who was facing cancer treatment delays because the specialized therapy he needs is offered in Edmonton, but is not yet offered in Calgary. With that being said, there are also recent reports that many women in Saskatchewan are having trouble getting urgent breast cancer biopsies; and there are two reasons for that. Firstly, the care is not offered in their home province of Saskatchewan. They have to travel to Alberta, specifically Calgary, to get the care that the government of Saskatchewan will pay for. However, this is where the second problem comes to the fore: even with partial reimbursement from the Government of Saskatc...

Some might ask why a financial professional would talk about shredding. Shredding after all has nothing to do with Life or Accident & Sickness Insurance. Shredding has nothing to do with exempt market investments, mutual funds, segregated funds or GICs. Reducing the level of “paper” - either the digital or physical version - has nothing to do with reducing debt or taking out a credit card. So why is a financial professional talking about shredding? Well, that is all true. There is not a direct link between shredding and the numbers that come along with a financial plan. Or put differently, while putting more money into an RRSP will bring someone closer to retirement, there is no corollary which says that putting more documents into shredder will do the same.  With that being said, if one shreds their financial documents properly, it does mean that that same person will increase their level of privacy. Shredding more reduces the ability of hackers, thieves, criminals and/or othe...

When buying a house, many people have a list of professionals that they go and see. They find a realtor and a real estate lawyer. They find a mortgage broker or a banker to secure the mortgage. From that point, there is a search for a home inspector, a property insurer and sometimes a designer or architect. Buying a house is an important and time consuming endeavour. In all of that confusion, it is understandable that many new homeowners forget to phone their life insurance agent. For when their banking officer or mortgage broker asks them one question - "Would you like to have mortgage life insurance?" – they often say yes. It is another box ticked and something else has been removed from their plate. However, with over ten years in the financial industry, I know that that decision can be a costly one. I first read about the costs of Creditor Insurance or bank-provided Mortgage Life Insurance from Bob Aaron. He is a Toronto area lawyer. In an article in the Toronto Star, dat...

At the beginning of a new year, many of us make resolutions. We resolve that we will lose weight, exercise more, read more, clean or declutter our homes. The idea of making a resolution is simple: we want to make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of our previous year. Thus, these resolutions are a symbol of what we want to be or become. So, if resolutions are symbols, their power is in their belief and use. Many people start with a resolution to be better at managing their money. Some people will start to catch up on their taxes or put their receipts away. Others will start to look at their investments or call their financial advisor/ planner in January. However, by about now, March, many of them have given up. They may not have made the large RRSP deposit they wanted to make, or have not recovered from Christmas - as they had hoped. Accordingly, they have given up. Well, I am here to say that there is hope. We can start today to improve our finances. Today can be January or March...