If I told you that Calgary and Alberta are key drivers of the Canadian economy you’d probably ask me to tell you something you didn’t know.” But what if I told you that Alberta out-paced the rest of Canada in terms of economic growth over the last year? What if I also told you that Alberta is projected to continue to at least keep pace with or out-pace the rest of Canada in terms of economic growth moving forward?
It’s no secret that Calgary is far from “booming” but I’m going to take a contrarian perspective and suggest that maybe Calgary isn’t as bad as some might say, rather, we may have simply entered the reality that the rest of the Canadian provinces have lived in for a while now. If this is the case and this is our new reality (at least for the time being) we need to be sure that we are ready – but what does that mean... To start, let’s ask a few questions:
What does your financial future look like if you can’t count on participating in your employer’s generous savings matching plans or pension plan through until retirement?
What does your financial future look like if you have a one, two or even three year break in employment? Forget financial future, what do your next one, two or three years look like if there is a break in your employment?
What does your financial plan look like if you become ill AND THEN have a one two or even three year break in your employment?
In the past in Calgary you could skate by without putting too much thought or work into your financial plan and you would likely be fine, however, this is no longer the case. As it stands, employment can be hard to come by and if you are one of those lucky employed individuals, many of the perks have been clawed back or removed all together. Due to this change in environment it is now more important than ever to ensure that you have a full financial plan in place that encompasses breaks in employment, changes in pension plans, becoming ill during your working years, etc. To wrap up, if you don’t have a full personal financial plan I would suggest you are taking on unneeded risk that could be avoided.
This series is going to be about readying ourselves for the “new” Calgary and, with this in mind, you can think of this post as step one: start with a plan.