Over the years of running our respective sites, Joe as the founder of Million Dollar Journey and with Mark and his continued labour of love called My Own Advisor, we have (and continue to receive) many requests about our current respective portfolios – how we manage our money – our investment approaches as we age, and other related personal finance matters like managing insurance, taxation, debt, what we do with our own corporations and more.
We first published this post in 2024.
We updated it in early 2025.
Here we are, updating it again, in spring 2026!
With the world changing around us at a lightning fast pace and now that Mark has fully retired from the workforce (!), we figured it would be a good time to update this post.
Read on: How We Manage Our Money.
We hope this updated post will more light on our investing and future spending approaches in retirement.
We continue to pay it forward with FREE content here and in support all Canadian DIY investors with our low-cost retirement income projections reports you can find here!
Read on: How We Manage Our Money
Really now, why not DIY Investing?
You already know from our site and based on what Mark frequently writes about on My Own Advisor that we both continue to believe:
“Ultimately nobody cares more about your money than you do.”
This makes us HUGE fans of DIY investing so we support other investors seeking take more control over their personal finances.
We continue to help and support all Canadian DIY investors as much as we can!
There is never any cost for any blog post content or reply to a comment on this site.
We answer every reader email on our own time.
You are welcome to agree or disagree with us on anything – we remain open to all opinions and approaches and we embrace the diverse voices that comment on this site or send us emails.
We believe there is no one right way to invest – just the way that meets your goals.
We also happen to believe that to gain proficiency in personal finance and investing, the following are likely to apply and these are the same principles we’ve used to become financially independent before age 50:
- You have the desire to learn and improve.
- You want to gain more knowledge in the subject matter.
- You embrace the fact that change happens, your perspectives may change over time.
- You practice humility. You live, you learn and you adapt when things go wrong to improve.
Instead, follow our quick, free e-book below:
- Book introduction: Spend less than you make.
- Book Chapter 1: Save and invest the difference. Invest in mostly low-cost products. Consider diversifying your investments.
- Book Chapter 2: Avoid active trading. Celebrate falling stock prices – buy more when stocks fall in price.
- Book Chapter 3: Disaster-proof your life with insurance, where needed.
- Book Chapter 4: Rinse and repeat, then retire early when you have enough.
- Book Chapter 5: Learn about tax-efficient drawdown methods and tax-efficient final estates.
That’s our free e-book and to be honest, that’s what we both did! 🙂
That’s the basics within 80,000+ personal finance books in just six, simple bullets.
How We Manage Our Money – Financial plans have many elements
Many DIY readers have been fans of this site because they already know what goes into managing their own money – and they want to engage with others or early retirees like us who do the same.
Ultimately, all successful DIY investors we know are able to answer these questions such as:
What is most important to you?
Why are you investing?
What is your money really for?
They fully understand the elements of a good financial plan – a plan that is more than just investing that requires periodic reviews and updates related to:
- Goal setting (near-term and longer-term).
- Paying down debt obligations (if they still have some debt).
- Insurance needs (including life, home, auto, other).
- Cashflow and portfolio management:
- *Tax management strategies
- *Retirement planning/investing
- *Estate planning (*via formal reports or financial projections)
We’ve branded our site Cashflows & Portfolios because we believe understanding and managing your cash flow is arguably the most important part of a financial plan pretty much no matter what your circumstances are.
“Once you understand your cashflow needs, you can design your retirement income plan around that. ” – Cashflows & Portfolios.
This means, knowing exactly where your money is going and to whom.
Cashflow management principles are necessary to master up to and during retirement to ensure:
- You are spending money on things that you value.
- You are killing debt or using debt effectively.
- You have designed a process to ensure what you can reasonably spend to avoid creating a massive estate or you can build a big estate…if that’s your plan!
As George Foreman said:
“The question is not at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income.”
How true.
For each major theme in a financial plan, we thought we’d share a personal update to explain How We Manage Our Money.
See you in the comments section.
In no particular order of importance related to how we manage our money as of spring 2026.
How We Manage Our Money – On Debt:
Mark:
- Mark doesn’t have any debt in early retirement – that was always his plan.
- Actually, Mark has this recent post from January 2025 on this very subject: the benefits of being debt free.
- Mark continues to believe debt can be leveraged to build assets (i.e., grow a leveraged stock portfolio) but it takes a particular temperament and long-term discipline to do so such as using The Smith Manoeuvre – a Canadian tax strategy to convert your debts into good tax-deductible debt. Joe is an expert on that in fact. :)
Joe:
- Joe continues to believe in getting rid of bad debt as quickly as possible. However, Joe also believes that having some “good” debt, if managed correctly and conservatively, can accelerate wealth over the longer term. What is good debt? It’s essentially debt that is tax-deductible, which means it’s debt that is used to buy income-producing assets such as rental properties, stocks, a business etc. This is called leveraged investing and should only be a consideration for investors with higher risk tolerance and a long-term view. As mentioned earlier, leveraged investing can magnify your wealth over the long term, but it can also do the opposite if not careful.
- Having said that, Joe was aggressive in paying off his mortgage within a few years of building his house, but then borrowed against the equity of his home to buy blue chip stocks – essentially, this is called the Smith Manoeuvre. The interest on the HELOC is tax-deductible, and the debt balance remains conservative and manageable. The dividends produced are used to pay down the debt slowely over time.
- Joe plans to maintain his Smith Manoeuvre / leveraged account of blue-chip stocks for the coming years. So far, so good since starting this strategy in 2008, the portfolio value has grown to a healthy multiple of the debt.
How We Manage Our Money – On An Emergency Fund:
Mark:
- Mark continues to maintain a small emergency fund account for over 10-years now. Sure, it’s a small opportunity cost but it’s a sleep-at-night factor for him as well.
- That small emergency fund balance is about $10,000 give or take and is maintained at all times.
- Beyond this emergency fund balance – he has a cash wedge in place – something he has written about extensively on his site to enter retirement with – now those days are here. Here is a graphic from his site:
You can download this simple 1-pager for your reference too!
This cash wedge is an ideal way for navigating sequence of returns risks.
We shared what we learned from our own members on asset decumulation best practices here.
Joe:
- Joe also believes in having some cash around as a cushion.
- Like Mark, Joe usually keeps the cash for his family’s needs in a high-interest savings account, money market fund, and/or a cash-based ETF (e.g., like CBIL or others) which has been great over the last couple of years even with interest rates now lower.
- Keeping near-term spending needs via cash-on-hand has allowed Joe to readily withdraw cash from his corporation to supplement his family’s annual living expenses while keeping his mix of stocks and ETFs growing.
- Withdrawing available cash/cash equivalents inside the corporation first also leaves other equities Joe and his wife own inside RRSPs, TFSAs to compound away.
- Very worst case, Joe also carries a line of credit at a few banks just in case a major amount of money is needed (he hasn’t used them yet – knock on wood)!
How We Manage Our Money – On Life Insurance:
Mark:
- Now that Mark is retired – he lost his disability and life insurance benefits as part of his total workplace compensation package in April 2026 – he and his wife have decided to largely self-insure in the coming decade.
- After their existing term-life insurance policy expires in a few years, given they have no debt and some assets, there is really no need for life insurance. They are not insuring against lost income or wages nor to pay off debt in retirement.
- Mark and his wife will continue to grow their existing emergency fund should it ever be needed.
Joe:
- Joe continues to pay for private disability and term life insurance at this time. In terms of the amount of life insurance to maintain, Joe is similar to Mark with the goal to self-insure eventually in the coming years – but Joe is going to maintain his life insurance for now given he has a growing family with kids that depend on him – kids that won’t be out of the house for a few years. (At least he hopes it’s only a few years!!)
How We Manage Our Money – On Saving for Retirement:
Mark:
- Simply put, Mark is no longer saving for retirement. You can read more about Mark’s journey to becoming Financially Independent, his pursuit of Work On Own Terms here.
- Mark has been financially independent since 2024.
Joe:
- Joe’s part-time work is over and Joe’s family can largely live off existing assets moving forward starting with his corporation withdrawals.
- Work is totally optional for Joe moving forward – a great position to be in and fully aligned with Mark’s approach all along as well.
How We Manage Our Money – Saving or Investing inside a Corporation:
Mark:
- Now that Mark is in retirement, he continues to use his corporation like a larger emergency fund – holding cash/cash equivalents.
- Withdrawals will happen from Mark’s corporation this year in 2026 to cover some living expenses. It is a model that Mark has learned from Joe!
Joe:
- Since starting an online business in 2007, instead of reinvesting the earnings in more online assets, Joe built an income-producing portfolio inside his corporation.
- He is now withdrawing cash from his corporation every year to supplement his family’s living expenses.
- Since portfolios inside corporations can face double taxation upon passing, Joe plans to continue slowly dissolving the corporation assets over time with annual withdrawals before he taps his RRSP and long-before his taps his TFSA. You will read more about how this is aligned to an efficient drawdown approach below!
Related to Goal Setting:
Mark:
- As referenced above, Mark has realized his financial independence dreams sooner than most. He just retired from the workforce this spring and to be honest – he is just starting a new and important phase in his life!
- New goals are likely to be set later this year…but one still includes managing and support all DIY investors here via Cashflows & Portfolios. :)
Joe:
- Since achieving financial freedom, Joe’s focus has been to grow the Cashflows & Portfolios audience with Mark and to provide an affordable, low-cost DIY retirement income planning-related service to all would-be retirees, who simply don’t want to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for other fee-based planning. In fact, we just had a reader who received a quote of $6,000 for a financial plan from another company. That seems absurd to us, as we are happy to do them for a fraction of the cost.
- Joe will continue to offer low-cost, high-value Cashfllows & Portfolios services for all Canadian DIY investors with discounts too – just ask away!
How We Manage Our Money – Our Retirement Drawdown Orders:
Mark:
- Mark intends to “live off dividends” a bit (although not forever) and as mentioned above, he has a cash wedge in place to cover at least all remaining 2026 expenses – his cash is saved up for all their basic expenses/needs and spending wants including international travel later this year.
- Given his taxable dividend income is not enough to retire on, Mark will make RRSP/RRIF withdrawals thoughout his 50s and 60s. His wife will do the same from her accounts.
- Once Mark gets into his mid-70s in age, while all RRSP/RRIF assets might be spent and gone, they will still have both TFSAs AND government benefits (CPP and OAS) to live from.
- His reasoning is very simple – watch out for major RRSP and RRIF taxation as you age!
Joe:
- Joe’s drawdown order is a bit different than a typical family, mostly due to the corporation.
- As referenced above, Joe’s corporation will be drawn down first, then it will be a mix of RRSP/RRIF and non-registered withdrawals for the coming years. He will leave all TFSA assets like Mark until later in life.
- Like Mark, Joe’s plan is to keep TFSAs intact for tax-efficient estate planning for his family.
- Related to this bullet above, there are many investing principles we believe in – keeping the TFSA around “until the end” for estate planning is one of them!
Finally, of note, you should know that most professional financial planning solutions on the market focus on the following drawdown order as a default:
- Non-reg assets (N), then,
- RRSPs/RRIFs (R), then,
- TFSAs (T)
This is “NRT” for short.
That said, everyone is different and because of that, financial projections including knowing the tax implications of your retirement spending needs and wants is critical to get right.
We can help of course. Many of the projections we have completed show that often a mix of N and R drawdown provides the best results. Everyone’s situation is unique!
How We Manage Our Money Summary
For us, getting to retirement was always a strive for life-work balance.
Now that we’re both fully retired, it’s all about balancing everything life has to offer.
We also continue to believe that financial literacy is a critical life-skill. Part of that skillset is understanding the potential cashflow from your portfolio for retirement to ensure you spend what you want, you keep what you need, and you ultimately enjoy the money you’ve invested for whatever life has to offer you and your family.
Need any support with some low-cost retirement income projections? We can help!
As passionate DIY investors, we offer up our time and expertise to help other DIY investors planning for retirement or in retirement – to optimize the cashflow from their portfolio.
We know we can help you out too at a low-cost compared to the services charged in the thousands and thousands of dollars by others!
If you are interested in obtaining private projections for your personal financial scenario, read more about our retirement projections services.
Thanks to all readers and members of this site, whether you are striving for retirement or are in early retirement like us.
It’s a pleasure to engage with you and support you.
Joe and Mark
Additional Reading:
Learn more about how Mark invests here. He updates this post every year to summarize his changes!
I’m a long time reader and this has been one of the MOST helpful articles ever! I’ve been semi retired for three years and will fully retire this fall. I’ve wondered how to draw down assets and had developed a roadmap. This article confirmed my thoughts and it is such a relief to know I’m heading in a direction that is sensible and not just “crazy idea” I dreamed up.
Thanks to you both for your insight and time.
Awesome, Marty! Thanks for the kind words. We believe drawdown plans are very personal but we do believe in largely leaving the TFSAs “until the end” and figuring out the mix of accounts to drawdown before that one. :)
Keep us posted on your plans…happy to continue the dialogue.
CAP
I’m interested in getting clarification on Joe’s 2X tax hit for his corporation upon passing. Can you explain what he means by that? I’ve been looking into this and I always thought it would be similar to an RRSP – still a huge tax hit but not necessarily double. Thanks!
Hi Sandra!
Joe here – I have a corp that holds both the online business in addition to stock market equities. In the case that I outlive my spouse and pass away, my corp would be taxed on the capital gains within the corp (assuming liquidated upon death), the dividends, but also the value of the corp itself. However, some of the tax can be covered through a mechanism called the refundable dividend tax on hand (RDTOH).
Does this help or confuse the issue further? :)
OK so I understand the potential tax hit on the corp. I’m in the same boat. If everything is liquidated upon my death, then there’s the capital gains hit for the corp tax. Then all of the value would be allocated to my last personal taxes, which would likely be zinged at the highest tax rate. Not much we can do about it, other than use it up and get it out over time before collecting CPP/OAS. That is what I plan to do but I also have a sizeable RRSP, so no matter which way I do it, I’m paying a lot of tax: if I delay RRSP or delay Corp, then the one that’s left starts to get drained at 70 when CPP/OAS kick in and basically OAS is clawed back. First world problem I guess!
Hi Sandra,
Correct. Unless there is a plan to pass the business onto the family, etc. we believe (not advice) that it could be wise to winddown corporation assets/investments inside the corporation over time because of the cap. gains hit on taxation at death.
So, we see many folks that don’t / won’t pass on the business slowly winddown assets, before collecting and/or turning on many other income streams like CPP, OAS, etc.
Not tax advice, but the ability to 1. smooth out taxation while 2. meeting income needs and also 3. simplifying the number of accounts you own over time can be very important.
CAP
Understand it isn’t advice, every situation is different. My biggest challenge is having both the business and RRSP without the ability to share with my husband. It wasn’t poor planning, just the way things worked out given our situation. As an early retiree, I can use these funds first before CPP/OAS but it’s turning on spend mode that’s difficult especially when seeing the hefty tax bill. In the long term, it’s a savings but it certainly doesn’t “feel” that way right now!
Ya, without provding advice, we see benefits of deferring CPP and OAS where you can and spending corporation and/or RRSP/RRIF assets sooner than later.
A reminder the default order for most professional financial planning software is NRT = Non-Reg. first, then RRSPs/RRIFs/LIFs, then TFSAs.
Your corporation is essentially a taxable / non-reg. account.
Food for your thought!
A reminder you can split income with your husband, via opening a RRSP > RIF at age 65.
All said, most struggle, a bit, with turning on the spending taps after a few decades of saving for retirement. It’s very normal.
CAP
Funny that’s the default order – if I didn’t have a corp, I’d been draining my RRSP first because the only hit from my personal non reg would be dividends which are taxed lower (Canadian stocks). Definitely delaying CPP/OAS is my only option, otherwise I think OAS would be clawed back anyhow. It’s worth waiting it out and hope we both live long enough to collect. :)
I’m aware of the splitting at age 65…we still have almost a decade before we can enjoy this perk!
Thanks for responding to my comments
Ya, but be mindful this is the default order because of that corporation liability, if that exists and to force some withdrawals from taxable accounts, first to avoid too much ongoing taxation, then use up the tax liability that is RRSPs/RRIFs, leaving tax-free money via TFSAs “until the end” for estate planning as government benefits from CPP and OAS are sustained.
It seems you have done well with your business and we hope you get OAS clawbacks, kidding aside, a great problem to have. :)
CAP
I was in a similar situation re: sharing with a spouse from my corporation. My spouse was given some Class B shares in my corporation (I even had an EPSP that the govt changed rules on so stopped using) and this allows the ability to declare and issue a (non-eligible) dividend to them on the Class B whenever I chose (as well as to myself, different amounts/times on my Class A’s). Not sure if you can just issue shares to your spouse now (even if there would be a sizable buy-in $ amount based on an assessed corp valuation, but that $ just goes back into the corp); I did it at the beginning when share values were negligible. My corp isn’t that large and mostly retained earnings cash. Don’t know about other tax implications but maybe a consideration. (?). (not advice, haha)
Thanks for this comment.
We recall different a few types of rights associated with shares:
1. the right to vote,
2. the right to receive dividends, and
3. the right to receive the remaining property of the corporation upon dissolution.
You can of course have different classes.
Where there is only one class of shares, the rights of all shareholders are equal= easier.
Where there are more classes of shares, each class may have different rights, privileges, restrictions and conditions. The number of shares of each class is unlimited, unless there is a maximum specified in the Articles (of Incorporation).
Corporations are a tax liabilty. Full stop. :)
CAP
I also see the corp as an ongoing aggravation I don’t want to manage when I’m old – corporate taxes, T4/T5s etc. RRSP/RIFs are easier to manage. The goal is to leave the TFSAs as part of the estate, or only spend in an emergency to not go over a tax threshold (eg. if we need a car, could pull some TFSA out, add back in over a couple years from non-reg so we don’t trigger the next tax bracket).
Well we are very frugal and worked very hard to save without having financial advisors doing the best thing for growth – the banks made a lot over the years with their high MF MERs and fees. I finally got fed up and had enough time to manage myself. Not perfect but at least better.
The challenge is selling shares in a volatile environment to get the money out! I haven’t found a lot on “when” to sell, or a strategy of selling other than to keep the asset mix intact. That doesn’t help when there are more than a dozen Canadian stocks to choose from. LOL! Maybe another blog idea…
We have time to comment today too. :) HA.
Joe is more advanced with his corporation than I am….but….we talk about the same things.
1. Corporations are a tax liability. It’s different for everyone, but, as you age it’s more complex as other income source come online and there more/compounding tax implications as you age as well.
2. The ability to 1. meet your income needs + 2. smooth out taxation is always key.
3. Corporations are challenging for even advanced CPFs, Accountants, etc. to manage over time with clients, let alone the business owner of the corporation, so the sooner the complexities are lower, the better.
4. Given RRSPs/RRIFs are also a tax liability, so “less is more” inside these accounts as folks age into their 80s and 90s.
Consistently, like 9 out of 10 times, with almost all clients we see huge estate and tax planning benefits with TFSAs “near the end”.
“I finally got fed up and had enough time to manage myself. Not perfect but at least better.”
Amen there.
We can consider that for a blogpost: “when” and “what” to sell.
Joe and I have some approaches and we can share those again a bit on the site – all good!
Cheers!
CAP
Great Post as Usual
Retired for just a few months now – still trying to figure all things out. The family financial review performed by CP gave my wife and I a pleasant sense of confidence that we can retire at our leisure. Thx so much for that.
Wondering if you guys can provide any info on the strategy’s to purchase private health and dental insurance for long term healthcare peace of mind.
Many thx
Amazing!
Only happy to help. You’re in great financial shape.
I (Mark here) wrote about some early retirement health considerations for insurance here:
https://www.myownadvisor.ca/healthcare-insurance-benefits-for-retirees-in-canada/
I would recommend an insurance broker (works for you, free) to dig a bit based on your needs and then go from there. For the most part, I think my wife and I will self-insure but we have to figure that out after semi-retirement work is potentially done in 2025/this year.
Let me know your thoughts after you read the article. We have some life insurance but only until 2030, then it’s gone and likely never to have life insurance again without any debt and plenty of assets.
Cheers!
CAP