Your Retirement Planning Simplified

By Joseph Curry, CFP Professional, CEPA

Welcome to the Retirement Planning Simplified Podcast.

Join Joseph Curry, CFP Professional, Certified Exit Planning Advisor and retirement planning specialist, to learn how to simplify your retirement... more

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How many episodes does Your Retirement Planning Simplified have?

The podcast currently has 242 episodes available.

Best of Your Retirement Planning Simplified

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

Number 1: EP # 207 | Five Pre-Retirement Moves the Standard Checklist Skips
Most retirement checklists cover the big pieces: your income plan, when to take CPP and OAS, stress testing, consolidating your accounts. But today Joe talks about a different set of moves - the ones the standard lists tend to skip. They all have one thing in common: they either get harder once your paycheque stops, or you cannot undo them later if you get them wrong. The real cost of missing any one of these five moves is not just the move itself. It is that a big unexpected expense quietly forces a sacrifice somewhere else in your life that you never intended to make - your travel budget, your plan to help the kids, your sense of security. Joe walks through five practical steps to take while you are still earning, each one designed to protect one retirement goal from silently eating another. In This Episode Set up a home equity line of credit (HELOC) while you are still working, not to use it, just to have it. Employment income makes qualifying straightforward. Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS), and Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) withdrawals do not work the same way with lenders. The HELOC sits there as a backstop for speed, for spreading out a tax hit, or for avoiding forced investment sales during a market drop. Finish your big renovation or home project while you still have income coming in to absorb a cost overrun. These projects run over budget, and once the paycheque stops, there is no extra income to cover the gap. The number in your plan and the number you will actually pay are rarely the same. Clear your high interest consumer debt before you retire, and put your mortgage plan in writing. If the consumer debt will not clear on your current income while you are working, that is a readiness signal, not just a to-do item. The mortgage does not have to be gone before you retire, but how you will carry and handle it needs to be written into the plan on purpose. If you plan to help your kids financially - a down payment, a wedding gift, anything - set that money aside outside your core retirement funds before you retire. Because it is a generous and emotional moment, it often does not get run through the plan first, and the money quietly comes out of the same pool you need to live on for the next 30 years. Build a real home maintenance line into your budget, starting at a minimum of 1% of your home's value each year. It is never the same expense twice, but something is almost always coming. Without a line item for it, the cost does not disappear, it just comes out of somewhere else, usually the fun money. About: Your Retirement Planning Simplified is a weekly Canadian retirement planning podcast hosted by Joe Curry, CFP, CEPA, of Matthews and Associates, an independent wealth management firm. Each week, Joe breaks down retirement income, tax, and estate decisions in plain language for Canadians who are near or in retirement. Next Steps: Want tips like this in your inbox? Sign up for the Retirement Planning Simplified Newsletter and get updates plus our popular 60-Second Retirement Tip: https://bit.ly/RPSNewsletter Ready to take the next step in your retirement planning? Watch a short overview of our True Wealth Roadmap and see if our process is a fit for you: https://www.matthewsandassociates.ca/vsl Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of Joseph Curry, a registrant of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI), and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. This podcast is for informational purposes only and not intended to be personalized investment advice. The views expressed are opinions of Joseph Curry and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. Content is prepared for general circulation and information contained does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment fund, security or other product or service.
August 20, 202612min
Number 2: EP # 209 | The Retirement Fear That Has Nothing to Do With Money
More than half of Canadians say they are afraid of making the wrong financial decision, and half say they have lost sleep over money. Your first instinct is probably that this is about people who do not have enough. But some of the most financially stressed people Joe sits down with have more than enough, and they still lie awake. This episode is for them. A big account balance is not the same thing as a clear plan. For people with healthy savings, financial stress in retirement almost never comes from scarcity. It comes from uncertainty. And the instinct that made them such good savers - the discipline to hold back, not touch the pile, worry about spending too much - is the exact muscle that now works against them. Joe walks through why this happens, what it actually costs, and what a real plan can show you that willpower alone never will. In This Episode Money is still the number one source of stress for Canadians by a wide margin, more than twice as much as health, relationships, or work, according to the FP Canada 2026 Financial Stress Ind,. And that stress does not switch off at a certain account balance. For people with healthy savings, the stress almost never comes from not having enough. It comes from not being sure. And your brain treats uncertainty as a threat regardless of what the account statement says. The best savers often have the hardest time spending in retirement, and that is not a flaw. The instinct to hold back and not touch the pile kept them safe for decades. You cannot ask someone to switch that off on the day they retire. It takes a real plan, not willpower, to move past it. A couple Joe recently worked with thought they could safely draw between $1,500 and $2,000 a month from their portfolio. Once their pension, government benefits, accounts, and tax picture were all mapped together, the sustainable monthly withdrawal was closer to $8,000 - rising with inflation, throughout retirement. Gaining that awareness of the gap between what they thought was safe and what was actually possible is the whole point. A good plan does not just confirm your fears. Sometimes it tells you to pull back. But just as often, it gives you permission to live - to take the trip, to help your kids now instead of leaving it all behind, to actually enjoy the money you were disciplined enough to save. About: Your Retirement Planning Simplified is a weekly Canadian retirement planning podcast hosted by Joe Curry, CFP, CEPA, of Matthews and Associates, an independent wealth management firm. Each week, Joe breaks down retirement income, tax, and estate decisions in plain language for Canadians who are near or in retirement. Next Steps: Want tips like this in your inbox? Sign up for the Retirement Planning Simplified Newsletter and get updates plus our popular 60-Second Retirement Tip: https://bit.ly/RPSNewsletter Ready to take the next step in your retirement planning? Watch a short overview of our True Wealth Roadmap and see if our process is a fit for you: https://www.matthewsandassociates.ca/vsl Resources FP Canada 2026 Financial Stress Index (current as of 2026): https://fpcanada.ca/findaplanner/financial-stress-index Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of Joseph Curry, a registrant of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI), and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. This podcast is for informational purposes only and not intended to be personalized investment advice. The views expressed are opinions of Joseph Curry and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. Content is prepared for general circulation and information contained does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment fund, security or other product or see.
September 03, 20269min
Number 3: EP # 206 | Am I Ready to Retire? Why the Hardest Part Isn't Financial
In almost every episode of this series, the money was actually fine. The math worked. So what held people back? In this wrap-up episode, Joe names the thing that sits underneath the numbers, and explains why the final decision to retire is rarely just a financial one. The plan comes first, always. But here is what happens for a lot of people: the math says yes, and they still do not move. At that point, the real question was never whether they could afford to retire. It was whether they were allowed to stop, and who they would be when they did. Joe wraps up this unofficial series by walking through the emotional work that has to happen alongside the financial work, with real client examples that show just how many different paths there are to finally making the move. In This Episode When the numbers work but you still will not pull the trigger, it is worth being honest about why. The one more year crowd, the business owner worried about clients and staff, the person who does not know what they would do with themselves - these are emotional questions, not financial ones, and they deserve the same serious attention as the spreadsheet. A useful framework: you can only have three true priorities at any one time. If work has been one of yours and suddenly it is gone, you have an empty slot. Part of getting ready to retire is deciding on purpose what fills it - before you get there, not after. There is no single right path. One client keeps working because the work genuinely fits his life. Another needed a succession plan in place before she could let go. Another just needed to see the numbers to give herself permission to even imagine what else was possible. Plenty land somewhere in between, doing part-time consulting that funds the bigger trips without touching the core plan. The question worth sitting with is not just what you are retiring from, but what you are retiring to. A plan can hand you the financial freedom, but only you can decide what you do with it. The order matters: get the plan right first so you know the numbers work, then do the second piece of work with equal seriousness. Get honest about whether you like what you are doing. Figure out your new priorities. And give the emotional preparation the same attention you gave the saving. About: Your Retirement Planning Simplified is a weekly Canadian retirement planning podcast hosted by Joe Curry, CFP, CEPA, of Matthews and Associates, an independent wealth management firm. Each week, Joe breaks down retirement income, tax, and estate decisions in plain language for Canadians who are near or in retirement. Next Steps: Want tips like this in your inbox? Sign up for the Retirement Planning Simplified Newsletter and get updates plus our popular 60-Second Retirement Tip: https://bit.ly/RPSNewsletter Ready to take the next step in your retirement planning? Watch a short overview of our True Wealth Roadmap and see if our process is a fit for you: https://www.matthewsandassociates.ca/vsl Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of Joseph Curry, a registrant of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI), and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. This podcast is for informational purposes only and not intended to be personalized investment advice. The views expressed are opinions of Joseph Curry and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. Content is prepared for general circulation and information contained does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment fund, security or other product or service.
August 13, 202614min
Number 4: EP # 210 | Equal Versus Fair: Dividing Your Estate Between Children
You sign your will, feel a wave of relief, and put it in the drawer. Done, handled, the kids are taken care of. But a will mostly records what you decided. It does not explain why. And if your children have never heard your reasoning while you are still here to explain it, you can leave them with a division of assets and very little context. That gap is often where grief turns into conflict. Episode Summary Equal and fair are often the same thing - but not always. And the places where they come apart are usually where families run into trouble. Joe walks through two detailed real-world examples, a cottage with a quiet tax problem and a family business handled the right way, to show how good intentions can go sideways when the planning is done in silos and never revisited. The lesson underneath all of it is the same: the family conversation you should have, before the document has to speak for you, is just as important as the document itself. In This Episode A will records what you decided, not why. If your children find out for the first time at the worst possible moment - while grieving, reading a legal document - they are left to piece together your reasoning on their own. That is where misunderstanding and resentment take hold. Equal does not always finish fair. A real example: a $100,000 life insurance policy set up decades ago to equalize a cottage inheritance made perfect sense at the time. By the time both parents had passed, the cottage had grown to over a million dollars in value, the capital gain ran with the estate, and the sibling who never received any part of the cottage ended up funding a third of the tax bill on an asset that was not theirs. Fair does not always mean equal on paper, and that can work - but only when everyone understands why. A family business handled well involved one child inheriting the business, taking on the associated tax liability, and receiving life insurance to cover it, while the other child inherited liquid assets worth less on paper but carrying no business risk. Both children were in the room when the plan was explained. Nobody was blindsided. Early gifts quietly become fairness data points. The down payment you helped one child with, the wedding gift, the seed money for a business - in the moment, that was just parenting. But the other kids remember. Whatever you decided at the time, write down whether it was a gift, a loan, or an advance on inheritance, while everyone remembers it clearly. A lot of this comes down not to a better document but to a conversation - ideally one you have on purpose while you are still here to explain yourself. You do not have to cover every dollar. Naming the why behind the big decisions, who the executor is and why, where the cottage is going and why, who the powers of attorney are and why, is often enough to prevent the problems that show up later. About: Your Retirement Planning Simplified is a weekly Canadian retirement planning podcast hosted by Joe Curry, CFP, CEPA, of Matthews and Associates, an independent wealth management firm. Each week, Joe breaks down retirement income, tax, and estate decisions in plain language for Canadians who are near or in retirement. Next Steps: Want tips like this in your inbox? Sign up for the Retirement Planning Simplified Newsletter and get updates plus our popular 60-Second Retirement Tip: https://bit.ly/RPSNewsletter Ready to take the next step in your retirement planning? Watch a short overview of our True Wealth Roadmap and see if our process is a fit for you: https://www.matthewsandassociates.ca/vsl Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of Joseph Curry, a registrant of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI), and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. This podcast is for informational purposes only and not intended to be personalized investment advice. The views expressed are opinions of Joseph Curry and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. Content is prepared for general circulation and information contained does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment fund, security or other product or service.
September 10, 202622min
Number 5: EP # 208 | The Beneficiary Audit Most People Skip
If something happened to you tomorrow, do you know who would actually receive each of your accounts? Not who you think it is - but who is actually named on the paperwork right now. For a lot of people, the honest answer is they set it up years ago and have not looked at it since. That is exactly the situation this episode addresses. Beneficiary designations drift in two ways: things change, or mistakes happen. A designation that was perfectly right at 45 can be quietly wrong at 65. Joe walks through why a regular beneficiary audit matters, what to look for when you do one, which assets flow directly to named beneficiaries versus through your estate, and why the last step - making sure everything lines up with your will - is the one most people skip entirely. In This Episode Life changes silently turn good designations into the wrong ones. Kids grow up and no longer need trust arrangements. Beneficiaries pass away. People remarry or separate. The form does not update itself, and none of this shows up as a problem until it is too late to fix. Sometimes naming your estate as the beneficiary of a registered account - your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) or Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) - is actually the right move. It ensures there is money available to cover the tax bill before assets are distributed. But that setup can also become the wrong one over time, which is why the audit needs to happen on a regular schedule. When you audit, pay close attention to anything that would look unusual to an outsider. If only one of three children is named on an account, and there is a good reason for it, write that reason down. A simple note explaining your thinking can prevent a great deal of hurt and conflict among the people you leave behind. Registered accounts, Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), and segregated funds can all name a beneficiary directly, and that money flows straight to the person, outside your estate and your will. Most non-registered accounts, real estate, and other everyday assets flow through the estate and are handled by the will. Confirming the beneficiary designations on your accounts is not the finish line. The last step is making sure every designation lines up with your will. If the beneficiary forms say one thing and the will says another, that contradiction is what creates confusion, delay, and in the worst cases, a legal challenge after you are gone. About: Your Retirement Planning Simplified is a weekly Canadian retirement planning podcast hosted by Joe Curry, CFP, CEPA, of Matthews and Associates, an independent wealth management firm. Each week, Joe breaks down retirement income, tax, and estate decisions in plain language for Canadians who are near or in retirement. Next Steps: Want tips like this in your inbox? Sign up for the Retirement Planning Simplified Newsletter and get updates plus our popular 60-Second Retirement Tip: https://bit.ly/RPSNewsletter Ready to take the next step in your retirement planning? Watch a short overview of our True Wealth Roadmap and see if our process is a fit for you: https://www.matthewsandassociates.ca/vsl Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of Joseph Curry, a registrant of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI), and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. This podcast is for informational purposes only and not intended to be personalized investment advice. The views expressed are opinions of Joseph Curry and may not necessarily be those of ACPI. Content is prepared for general circulation and information contained does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment fund, security or other product or service.
August 27, 202613min