Financial Goals and How We’re Working Towards Freedom

Feb 5, 2021

4 min read

As we embark on our savings journey with Servus Credit Union we started meeting regularly with our financial advisor Brock.

In our first meeting, we talked about our life and Brock really took the time to get to know us as a family. He wanted to know what we do, what we’d like to do and where we’d like to go. With this overall sense of who we are as people, we then dove into our finances.

As I talked about in our last post we were a bit apprehensive about this. But ultimately, Brock gave us a thumbs up that we were more or less on the right track. That being said, there were definitely some things we could tweak to maximize our accounts and really make our money start working for us.

Our Financial Goals

Our ultimate goal is to retire as soon as possible, but let me clarify.

When I say retire, I don’t mean playing cards with the old folks at the local Legion. What retirement means for us is freedom.

Right now we HAVE to work. We have no choice in that matter. While I enjoy what I do and Jane enjoys what she does, our only real choice is working these jobs or working another job, or going homeless.

For our family, retirement means having enough investments where we could quit our jobs if we wanted to. Maybe we don’t want to, maybe we want to keep working, but it would, at this point, be a choice.

As you saw from our finances in the last blog post, we’re only really saving about 10% of our total income. If you have read blogs like Mr. Money Mustache or have read anything about the FIRE movement then you know they would shame us for our lack of savings and our cushy lifestyles with “high” expenses. But the things we spend money on outside of a home and a vehicle are things we spend a lot of time discussing and agonizing over. Working with Brock to understand how we can make small but meaningful improvements to the overall picture means we can work towards increasing this savings rate.

This brings me to our retirement savings goal. Ultimately the goal of freedom means the goal of paying off debt and increasing savings. Based on various interest rates we either invest or pay off debt as it makes sense to do so. For instance, if you are paying 14% interest on credit card debt and investing that money would earn a conservative 7% you pay off the credit card debt like your hairs on fire. However, if investing that money would earn a conservative 7% and your line of credit has an interest rate of 2.5% then paying the minimum payments and investing might be more worth it.

Photo by: Angus McKenzie Photography

How A Servus Financial Advisor Can Help With Your Financial Goals

Jane – bless her heart – keeps good track of these things and changes our strategy as it needs to change. However, not everyone needs to be watching interest rates daily. Financial advisors at Servus have great tools at their disposal to show how much of a difference those choices can make. Seeing the hard data of choosing one type of investment, savings, or debt reduction strategy over another presented in graphs and pie charts can really help motivate meaningful change in your financial picture, which ultimately, helps you to reach those goals much faster.

Additionally, Servus’s digital tools help you efficiently manage your savings/investments anytime. Within their online portal you can create accounts, set financial goals and automate your savings contributions.

So with all of these goals in mind, Brock took a look at our finances and presented us with a spreadsheet on what it would look like for us to do what we want to.

If nothing changes for us, if we never move and never get a raise and never increase our investments, we would still be on track to retire before 65, but you know what would REALLY help us retire early?

One. Million. Dollars.

Servus Big Share™ Contest

So that’s why we’ve decided to open an account at Servus and save some money. Planning for retirement starts with understanding your retirement goals. Servus advisors work with you to develop personalized savings/investments strategies to achieve them and while winning a million dollars would certainly help our path to freedom, if that doesn’t happen a Servus advisor can still help us set up a constant savings strategy, enroll in group RRSP plans and set up contributions. Plus the savings you put towards an RRSP get you an entry into the Servus Big Share™ Contest!

It also just so happens that the major bank I’m with just sent me a letter telling me why all of my fees were going up by almost 20%. Apparently, COVID has been hard on the major banks – so we need to pay for it.

A million dollars, profit share and lower fees? Those are all great reasons to change banks for me!

And here’s the cool thing whether you need an individual account OR you’re a business and need an account or two, you can be entered to win in the Servus Big Share™ Contest.

Individuals or businesses can save in any eligible product/account (demands, TFSA, RRSP, GIC, Investments, etc) to earn entries. You can earn entries and increase your chances to win by saving money, every $500 increase to your savings is one entry!

The Servus Big Share Contest is a great way to incorporate healthy savings habits into your life and ultimately feel good about your money.