Time | Business Minded

What is a Tax Free Savings Account? (TFSA)

A tax free savings account (TFSA) is one of the best tax-advantaged accounts that you can take advantage of. Introduced in 2009, this account offers tax-free earnings on any monies invested through it.

What is a TFSA?

A TFSA, or Tax Free Savings Account, is an investment account open to Canadian residents. Despite the misleading name of the TFSA investment account, there are many types of financial activities that can be conducted within the tax-sheltered confines of your TFSA. These “qualifying investments” include:

Cash (Savings Account)
Bonds
Mutual funds
Publically available stocks from a listed stock exchange
Investment certificates
Small business corporation shares**

** There are limits on the small business corporation shares that can be sheltered in a TFSA. A tax professional should be consulted before investing these shares in a TFSA.

As you can see, there are a wide variety of options with which to choose from when investing in your TFSA. Indeed, this account is so much more than a simple savings account.

Who Can Invest?

Use of the account depends on two factors:

Being a Canadian resident
Age minimum of 18

How Does it Work?

Each year you can invest money up to a certain lifetime maximum into your TFSA. All of your contributions will be made on an after-tax basis, meaning you’ve already paid the taxes on every dollar you invest. Now this is where the magic happens. All investment growth on the monies that you invest can be withdrawn in the future tax free.

You can make contributions up to a lifetime maximum, determined by the factors listed above. Here’s where it gets complicated though, the lifetime maximum is affected by any withdrawals you make in the year. Any withdrawals made in this year are then added to the amount you can contribute back into the TFSA the following year. When making withdrawals, it is possible to crystalize any investment losses incurred in the account, which would decrease the amount eligible to contribute in the future. Let’s look at the formula, then run through a couple examples to show how this works.

Formula for Lifetime Contributions:

Unused Lifetime Contribution room + Withdrawals made during the year + Next Year’s contribution room = Total Contribution room at the beginning of next year.

Scenario 1: Frank turns 18 in 2008, and invests $ 5,000.00 on Jan 1, 2009.

By the end of the year, the money invested has fallen in value to $ 2,500.00.

Frank withdraws all his money before December 31st, 2009.

How much can Frank contribute in 2010?

Answer to Scenario 1:

Using the above formula, Frank can contribute:

Unused Contribution ($ 0.00) + Withdrawals ($ 2,500.00) + Contribution

Room for following year (year 2010) ($ 5,000.00) = $ 7,500.00

As you can see, the losses incurred by Frank have been crystallized, meaning when withdrawing money from the TFSA that had decreased in value, that investment contribution room is considered used already, and thereby lost. Let’s look at another scenario with similar timelines:

Scenario 2: Annie also turns 18 in 2008, and invests $ 5,000.00 on Jan 1, 2009.

By the end of the year, the money invested has increased in value to $ 10,000.00.

Annie withdraws all her money before December 31st, 2009.

How much can Annie contribute in 2010?

Answer to Scenario 2:

Using the above formula, Annie can contribute:

Unused Contribution ($ 0.00) + Withdrawals ($ 10,000.00) + Contribution

Room for following year (year 2010) ($ 5,000.00) = $ 15,000.00

This scenario showcases the true magic of the TFSA account. Annie has invested and done quite well in her account, and the $ 5,000 ( $10,000 account value, less $ 5,000.00 contributed) she earned in 2009 was tax free! And, these earnings do not go against future contributions. Annie can now earn more money, tax free through the TFSA, on the $ 15,000.00, which through gains in the account is higher than the lifetime contribution amount.

Okay, I’m with you so far. Now, How Much Can I Contribute?

There is a lifetime maximum amount that can be contributed to the TFSA, an amount that increases each year. Since the inception in 2009, the maximum contribution amount increased annually as follows:

Year	Amount
2009	$ 5,000.00
2010	5,000.00
2011	5,000.00
2012	5,000.00
2013	5,500.00
2014	5,500.00
2015	10,000.00
2016	5,500.00
2017	5,500.00
2018	5,500.00
2019	6,000.00

In 2019, if you have been a Canadian resident and older than 18 since 2009, your contribution limit is $ 63,500.00. The additional amount added each year is indexed to inflation, and rounded up or down to the nearest $500.00.

This sounds Amazing! Where can I get one?

Now you’re talking! A TFSA will be available at all major financial institutions, mutual fund, and investment companies.

Why use a TFSA?

A TFSA is used to save taxes on investment growth. At the end of the day, saving money on taxes means more money in your pocket.

Using the right tools, at the right time, will make your journey to Financial Freedom much easier. And now, you're equipped with the knowledge to make better investment decisions, opening you up for the best Return on Investment possible!

When should I use a TFSA?

In case you haven't read our comparison between RRSP and TFSA investment vehicles, you should do that here first.

How to Set Goals SMARTly

We’ve talked about goal setting as essential for success. Those 5-year goals, defining what success means to you. These are your plans for the future. These grand goals you set for yourself years from now can often be broken down further, into milestone goals, and ultimately behaviors. But before we can get granular with our goal setting endeavors, we need to ensure our goals are well formed. Without well formed goals, we run the risk of misalignment of our actions, and ending up off-course.

So what does it take to set well-formed goals? The most popular framework that is used in goal setting is the SMART framework. By using the SMART framework outlined below, you can ensure that your goals, when executed upon, will lead you to your envisioned future.

Let’s look at the framework:

Specific: Each goal needs to be as clearly defined as possible, so that you will know when you have achieved the desired result. You should be focusing on the What, Where, and When questions. For example: Running isn’t sufficient. Running the Boston marathon next year provides a specific element so that you will know when you have succeeded.

Measurable: Determining the specifics of the goal should have provided a unit of measurement so that you will know when you have fulfilled your goal. In the above example, Boston marathon is the unit of measure that, once reached, will spell out success for your goal. For many of us, success is more than a finish line though, and having a measurable benchmark is more appropriate. These maintenance goals are just as important, and might involve staying a certain body size/weight, attending X social outings in Y time frame, or maintaining a base level of financial wealth.

Attainable: Here is your action plan, as well as an honest look as to how realistic the goal is. It is important when setting personal goals to only include aspects that you can directly control. The other aspect of Attainable, is answering How you plan to reach your goal.

Example: Your goal might be to learn valuable skills to pursue a career in Nursing in 2 years time. Your how in this case might be attending a local school to educate yourself in the various subjects and studies required by nurses. It is important to note that the goal is to set yourself up for a job, not obtain one, as you cannot exert full control over the hiring process.

Relevant: now is the time to relate this back to your life mission. Will accomplishing this goal help you on your journey? There are so many competing demands for our time and energy, it is important that you do things that drive success in your life, however you have defined that.

Time-bound: To hold yourself accountable, all goals need to have a deadline. It is much easier to work towards an end target. Having an end target in mind frames the efforts that will be required, such as our 5-year goal setting. Or, as in the case of the above examples, the marathon is set for next year, or pursuing a career in two years. These timelines help you work backwards to determine the steps needed now, and also provide a definitive target in mind so the initial steps are actually taken now.

There it is, the SMART way to set goals. This is the What, Where, When, Why, and How of your goals. It is important to note that adding a Who component when planning your own success is risky, as any goal that isn’t completely in your control requires an extra level of accountability. Whenever possible, refine your goal to ensure that it is something you can accomplish without someone else’s direct influence.

The Who element will definitely come into play when you are acting as a leader, and helping a team succeed. Whether the team is a family, business, or relationship.

Once you have your 5-year goals, or whatever future time frame you are using to envision your ideal future, you can begin the process of breaking those goals down further into more short-term goals. These shorter term goals will act as mile markers on the way to your grander success. Mile markers that you can use to gauge and adjust progress along the journey.

Success lies just down the road you’ve started on. You’ve drawn your road map. You know what needs to be done. Now go, take the first steps towards the future of your dreams.

How to Achieve Financial Freedom

Success platitudes aside, we need to look into the practical methods of achieving success. As we live in a commercialized world, this involves setting our finances up to provide us the financial freedom required to pursue our life's goals. The key to financial freedom is to make one choice, once, and let the numbers do the rest.

What does this mean? It means automating where your money goes, and ensuring part of that automation involves putting some aside for your future. These future funds should be invested in some capacity, as Jim Rohn puts it,

“The key is to engage in commerce, even if only on a part-time basis."

Jim Rohn

How to Achieve Financial Freedom Calculations

By investing money, either in your own commercial activities, or by allowing others to use the funds to grow businesses (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc), your returns increase. Year over year, these funds can build into quite the foundation for financial freedom over the course of your life.

Of course, the question often arises: how much should I save? Unfortunately, the correct answer to this is almost always “more”. And with that disheartening statement, often times people put off the investment decision until sometime in the future when their financial circumstances are better. But a dollar invested now is worth more than a dollar in the future.

Let’s look at two friends aged 25, Francis and Jenny. Francis decides to put away $500 / month right now. He is afraid he can’t afford it, but as a Business Minded reader, also knows he cannot afford not to invest in his future. Jenny, on the other hand, says money is just too tight right now, and she’ll make up for it in the future. Starting when she is 35, she needs to invest $ 1,157.45 every month to have the same amount at age 60.

By the time they plan to retire with their million dollars, Jenny will have had to invest $137,235 more than Francis. That is 165% more over the course of their lives. If the salaries of the two friends stayed the same throughout their lives, Francis would have had a far higher quality of life. Think of the extra vacations with his family, the extra date nights with his wife, the additional experiences he would have had with extra money to spend throughout his entire life to arrive at the same place financially at the age of 60.

Financial Freedom is attainable for you, for everyone. And the cost is lowest when you start now, today.

The trick to Financial Freedom is to start putting aside money. Think of the maximum amount you could afford to invest. Then increase that amount slightly. Invest that. You might feel the pinch that first month, but by the second month you will have adjusted slightly to accommodate to your new means of living.

I gave this advice to one young mother recently. She assured me that there was no way that she could afford to put money aside for the future. I then presented her a situation, her child needed a couple hundred a month for a recurring doctors bill. How would she be able to afford that? She simply replied (rather indignantly), “easily, I just won’t go out for lunch as often. He’s my son, of course I’m going to provide for him.” Needless to say, we are all capable of living off just a little less, and saving just a little more for that future we dream of.

So do this today, open a (low fee) investment account, and start putting a little aside every month. Your future self will be really glad you did. And that future self? That isn’t you at 60. That’s you every year until then, when you can spoil yourself a little knowing that your future is taken care of, by you. That is what it means to achieve financial freedom.

What is Success?

Remember those tests at school? Not the sitting down in those cold hard plastic chairs, sharpened HB pencils, and writing examinations. No, those dreaded memories always were followed up with the joyous bragging or crestfallen sheepish jokes about the grades we all received. 50’s, 70’s 90’s, A’s, B’s, or even F’s. Allocations designed to grade us against our fellows. And therein lies the problem. Pass or fail were set criteria. But set by someone else.

Achieving a passing grade was commonplace, even the “average” grade was a comparison against other people. People of different interests, different skills, different intellects. We spend the first 20 years of our life chasing after someone else’s definition of success.

And then suddenly we are thrust out into the world. And if grade point averages meant next to nothing before, they mean even less now.

"I had failed, because I failed to define success."

I can remember those hours of studying I never did. I remember buying the text books I never opened, the classes never attended. All because I defined “success” by someone else’s standard. Looking back now, all I did was fail. Sure, I took that passing grade, but that wasn’t enough. I had failed, because I failed to define success.

Define success by what that means to you. If that is in an academic setting, perhaps that means success is achieving X% above, or below a pre-assigned “acceptable” level. What did that look like for me? I was disinterested in some of the mandatory language courses, so success for me was achieving a 70% or above. But math on the other hand, I could only consider myself successful if I achieved 83% or above. That was my definition of success.

Financially that could mean making enough to support a family, own a property, take a vacation, dine at upscale restaurants. Physically this could be a certain weight or body fat percentage, a certain time on the track, the number of plates on the rack. In your career maybe it’s reaching a certain level, earning $ X amount, or having an impact in your field. No matter the category, this is your measure.

So I implore you to sit down and reflect. Think about what is important to you. Set your own limits, decide what success and failure looks like to you. And then work like hell to make sure you achieve your successes.

5 Year Road Map for Success

What is your 5-year Success Road Map?

Congratulations, You have arrived! This is as true now as it will be 5 years from now. Or 10 years from now.

But wait, where are we?

The choices you make will determine where that destination is. We cannot change where we are right now, but deciding where you want to be in 5 years will help you align your goals and your efforts to take you in the right direction. We cannot speed up the passage of time, if you have a 5 year vision of your future, that future will come towards you. The only change you can make is the direction you face, so that when 5 years passes you will be standing where you envision it today.

I’m not sure about the devil, but certainly the recipe for success lies in the details. Planning and mapping out your ideal future is essential for achievement. That is why all our courses start with a structured planning phase. When you map out the ideal future, you are able to make the small, incremental changes to your direction that lead you to a new path.

Failing to plan for that target in the future will leave you walking down the same path. A slight course correction can easily change your future trajectory for your future self. What does this look like?

Financially, you could automate some savings. Over time that automatic investment in your future brings you closer to your financial goals, closer to financial freedom. For your health, something as small as taking the stairs each day, or an evening stroll around the block. This moderate amount of movement can help you keep off those extra few pounds (kilo’s). And it could improve your heart health, allowing you to take an extra hike with your family and friends, enjoying those moments with growing children without gasping for air. A small health change today leads to laughter and memories 5 years from now, or 10 years from now, or for the rest of your life.

In your career, this could be the extra few phone calls or meeting networking prospects, leading to new opportunities, more challenging and fulfilling work. Or a daily meditation or journal that helps keep your stress levels down in the rough times, and helps you more fully enjoy the blessed times. A small change will set you on a better path with your friendships, and most importantly your loving relationships.

While it may not be doom and gloom if you fail to plan today, you certainly won’t be living your best, richest life without a plan and a dream to work towards.

___________________________

In the overwhelm of our busy, bustling lives, it’s easy to push this dreaming and planning off for another day. But we must ask ourselves, what is the cost of doing nothing? To that I must answer, the cost is high.

You can still achieve success. You can still reach your ideal destination.

But the road to reach your destination is so much harder if you wait. Postponing the “difficult” planning for your future only makes the road much, much steeper. And that extra effort on the steep road? That’s only the fraction of the cost that you experience as you make radical changes later on.

The real cost is the extra effort that you need to exert to make radical changes later on, plus the cost of missed opportunities throughout the delayed time. How much is an extra year of financial freedom worth? How about years of stronger relationships with friends, family, and loved ones? A stronger mind? Extra years of youthful vigor? More fulfilment from your career?

Do you have a 5-year plan?

If so, what are your goals and aspirations? If not, take out a piece of paper, think about the important areas of your life and plan out where you would like to be in 5 years. The cost of inaction is too high to wait!

I want to pass along a dare I was once challenged to.

The Dare to Dream.

___________________________

Share with us in the comments below, what is your Dream?

Return on Investment, Your Investment

Return on Investment, or ROI, is a fairly common term used when investing. Simply put, you desire a positive growth on monies invested over time. This could be interest income on a loan you made, your house increasing in value, or the stock market paying dividends and increasing in value.

Now we’ll look at the other aspect of ROI, the ways we don’t commonly associate the term. I’m talking about the decisions that you make every day. The decisions that involve some level of financial, time, or energy commitment from you. These are all finite resources in everyone’s life, and while financial elements receive more attention, your time and your energy are even more scarce. And unlike money, when they run out, you can’t get more at the local store. It is this scarcity that drives the need for each decision you make to bring you a positive Return on Investment.

Sounds great, right? But how does this actually look in yours and my daily lives? It’s heading to the gym when you’d rather skip today. It’s saying no to that extra beer or two to make sure you can get out of bed tomorrow without holding your head. It’s flicking the TV off a half hour early so you can read and improve your knowledge and communication. Or not putting yourself in the position to make an impulse purchase that you’ll regret later. It's checking in with the important things in your life to make sure you’re building on a strong foundation.

It is these little successes every day that build into a long-term positive Return on Investment, your investment in you, your life. So go on, make the choices today that leave you wealthier, happier, and healthier tomorrow.