16 — Wednesday, April 22, 1998 — North Shore News

nerth shore news

__ BUSINESS

Dumping debt
Saves money

TOM. Stier could
afford to take a 27%
cut in pay because for
years he and his wife
had chosen to pay off
debt rather than save
for retirement.

Asa result, he has now
doubled his income.

(So if you haven’: been
making your maximum
RRSP contributions perhaps
there’s still hope.)

“Lam debt-aversive so
we paid off vircually all
our debts at the expense
of retirement saving,” said
Stirr, 46, who has worked
as a manager in sales,
marketing and advertising
for several companies over
the past 20 years and has
written his first book,
Miller’s Bolt, A Modern
Business Parable (Addison-
Wesley, $16.50). a

“Perhaps if we had niax’d’

our: RRSPs earlier and
. slowed down the debt
" Fepaymient, we might
have had mere nioney ~
put away:
Bur oui low ‘debt
load enabled me to take
more: “risks with my career.”
” At one point, Stirr left
his job as a director of
> newspaper advertising to
an entry-level job in
corporate communications.
“Over the vears, 1 was
able to embrace change and:
the risks I took with my
career moves have boosted
my inconie stream to double
what it used to be.” Stirr
. considers that one of his
best strategies.
‘Another best money
move was turning to a
financial adviser in 1994. “I
thought we were doing well
with our debt under con-
trol,” Stirr said.

“But I knew we had to
do some catchup with our
retirement planning because
~T rarely stayed long enough
with an employer ro get any
“pension benefits. And we
“don’t have the expertise
' about-which i investments to
choose.”

( Present rules allow -you

money
matiers

to catch up missed RRSP
contributions. }

Stirr said the adviser
“took an almost unattain-
able final number — the
moncy we'd need at reure-
ment — and translated it
into a discipline of saving an
attainable amount cach
month.

He also broke down
financial planning into big
and little chunks: insurance,
education funding for our -
three children, the invest-
“ments.”

Persona} financisi plan-
ning often uses business
strategies, said Stirr. “You
need to have a plan to
reach your objective, shaw-
ing ‘irom where to where
by when’,” he said. ‘

“You need to visualize
your goal so you can focus
on saving for something
special when some other
spending temptation comes
along.”

Surr said his wife
Rosemary, 44, a former see-
retary, is excellent at keep-
ing, track of the day-to-day

- financial derails while he

looks ar the big picture and
produces spreadsheets “to
use in our monthly meetings
to make sure we are on
track.”

Copyright 1998 Mike
Grenby

—Mike Grenby ts a
columnist and independent
personal financial adviser;
hell answer questions in this
column as space allows but
cannot reply personally.
Contact him at P.O. Box
50029, South Slope R.P.O.,
Burnaby, BC. VS] 5G3; e-
mail mike@grenhy.com sad
see previous columns at
Mike’s website,
wwwgrenby.cont

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