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...

What is your most valuable asset? You might say it is your car, an antique piece of furniture or a piece of jewellery. I would say that you are mistaken. Let’s start with jewellery. The most expensive piece of jewellery for most people would most likely be an engagement or a wedding ring. While some engagement rings can cost as much as $30,000; one comparison website ( RateSupermarket.ca ) pegged the average cost of one at about $4,000.  Now, a car is more expensive than an engagement ring. If we use DesRosiers Automotive Consultants or autoTrader as our source, both have indicated that the average passenger vehicle in 2019 was just over $40,000: $40, 941 and 40,900, respectively. However, we can do better than that. As an example, think of a person’s house. Given that the average house price in Calgary is between $448,000 and $457,000, one could argue that that is the most expensive or valuable asset. For, it is more costly and beneficial than anything previously mentioned. How...

So almost a decade ago, I was handed a file. I was asked to work with a person who had recently moved from Quebec to Calgary. She had some assets with the firm I was working for and she was really in a horrible state.  Having moved from Quebec to Calgary - to leave an abusive relationship - she had very few assets. At that point, she was just a single mother trying to make ends meet and she had very few ends. One of the assets she had was a RRIF. I found this curious because the lady was only a few years older than me. At the time, I was in my late thirties and she was in her early to mid 40s.  For those who don’t know, a RRIF is a Registered Retirement Income Fund. It is not normally the financial structure that anyone under the age of 60 uses, let alone someone who is still employed. Given my confusion, I asked her a question: Why did she have a RRIF? Her answer was simple: she needed the money to make ends meet. Another advisor, at my same firm, had recommended the action a...

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...