Plan, or else

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   By Guest Blogger Ryan Lewenza

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Retirement is one of life’s most significant milestones and achieving it successfully requires careful planning and preparation.

A cornerstone of a successful retirement is completing a comprehensive financial plan, which is a long-term roadmap for managing your money and ensuring you meet your short and long-term goals.

A comprehensive financial plan covers a number of critical components including a current assessment of your financial picture (e.g., income, expenses, debt and assets), identifying key financial goals like paying off a mortgage or funding the kids’ education, a projection of cash flows, tax and estate planning and a retirement plan to estimate how much you need in retirement and how to save for it.

Our financial planners work with clients to develop these plans so they can visualize and plan for their retirement. On the investment side there’s really two key parts of the plan – how much to save to achieve their retirement goals, then, in retirement, how do we draw down on the portfolio to meet their retirement spending needs.

There are some key benefits from having a detailed financial plan.

First, is improving tax efficiency. Whether you’re in the wealth accumulation phase or the wealth drawdown retirement phase, how best to structure your financial assets is discussed during the financial planning process. The conversation starts with the typical contributions to your registered accounts that we all know about, and can go more in depth into other areas like borrowing to invest and writing off interest, or spousal loan strategies etc. Then in retirement, it’s all about putting a client’s income situation on paper so we can provide them with the amount they require to cover retirement expenses, keep their income taxes low, minimize the clawback of government pensions like OAS, and ensure they don’t outlive their retirement funds.

Second, find opportunities and planning beyond the client portfolio. Financial planning naturally pulls together a client’s personal life goals with their financial situation, so a planner can find opportunities within each situation. For example, a client with a complex family background could benefit from estate planning strategies, and a client running a business could benefit from insurance strategies. Planners are equipped to handle all these different areas.

Finally, the peace of mind a financial plan provides. By going through the planning process, clients stand to gain peace of mind that they are doing the right things as it relates to their finances. It ensures a degree of security and confidence, and establishes predictability in one’s financial situation.

This piece of mind from completing a financial plan can be seen in the table below. This comes from Fidelity’s annual retirement report, and they surveyed 2,000 Canadians on various retirement issues. They found that 81% of pre retirees who have a financial plan feel ‘financial prepared’ versus just 39% of those surveyed who didn’t have a plan. For retirees 96% said they feel financially prepared if they have a financial plan versus 71% without a plan.

These survey results confirm everything we hear from clients after they complete the plan. It’s very common for individuals on the cusp of retirement to feel some trepidation and anxiety around transitioning into retirement. But we find once our clients meet with our planners and go through the planning process, that they feel a lot better and more confident about making this big step into retirement. It’s one of the key reasons why we believe so strongly in financial planning and why it’s a key aspect of our work.

And it’s why we employ three highly knowledgeable and experienced financial planners on our team. As we always say, we’re not just managing your investment portfolio, but we try to address all the financial needs of our clients, with financial planning being a key component.

We believe in it so strongly that we’re in fact looking to add a fourth member to our financial planning team. So, for those individuals who are CFP licensed, have past work experience in completing plans and working with clients, live in the GTA area, and want to work on a high paced and exciting team, then please email me directly at ryan.lewenza@raymondjames.ca.

As outlined today, developing and sticking to a financial plan is key to achieving your short and long-term goals, providing peace of mind and allowing you to better visualize what your retirement will look like. If you want to join our team to help our clients achieve their financial goals, then email us and we’ll get back to you.

The clear benefits of having a financial plan

Source: 2025 Fidelity Retirement Report

Ryan Lewenza, CFA, CMT is a Partner and Portfolio Manager with Turner Investments, and a Senior Investment Advisor, Private Client Group, of Raymond James Ltd.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2025/11/29/plan-or-else/