Our Managing Director Holly Graff is a Bowen Islander of over 20 years, and knows Bowen life inside and out. She wants to help fellow islanders thrive with the tools they need to take steps in their financial futures, no matter where they’re at.
Holly would love to chat – email her at holly@allanfinancial.com or call her at 604.688.9151 to start a conversation.
And check out some of our online resources for financial literacy here!
For a lot of us, the words “financial planning” conjures up a vision of someone who has all their financial ducks all in a row. Or maybe someone who has more money than they know what to do with. (Now wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have? 😉)
But you don’t need to be either of those in order to start in a small way. In fact, the first step is just finding out where you could begin. You don’t know what you don’t know!
If you want to get started on a financial planning journey, just get in touch, and we’re happy to help you begin.
Find out how you can “Enjoy your Life.”
You can always email me at danielle@allanfinancial.com or call me at 604.688.9151 to start a conversation.
Okay, so while we’re not offering you a cool million, asking yourself this question helps to really hone in on some of your priorities. From there, the next question is how to get there.
Here’s what our community said they’d do:
We hear these aspirations all the time, almost always tinged with a sense of how difficult they are to achieve. If you want to get started on a financial planning or a life insurance journey, just get in touch!
We want to help you “Enjoy your Life.”
You can always email me at danielle@allanfinancial.com or call me at 604.688.9151 to start a conversation.
I’m really looking forward to this next chapter – both for myself and for Allan Financial. We’ve always been innovators and now I get to shape the next evolution of this company, and what life insurance and financial literacy can mean for generations to come.
~ Danielle
Even fifty years ago, we would have had much more exposure to the dead and dying and from those experiences known the next steps to take.
We discussed what you should know in advance so that when the inevitable occurs to a loved one, you can spend your time doing the meaningful things to honour and memorialize that person. And setting some of this in place for yourself can be a huge gift to those you leave behind. Knowledge is power!
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers, and this shouldn’t be taken as legal advice. And remember that we’re usually referring to how things are in BC, Canada, so things might be different where you are.
Feel free to click through the individual topics to learn more. The full recording is also below.
We talked through issues ranging from a sudden but temporary incapacitation (car accident) to a diagnosis with a terminal outcome (late-stage cancer). And why taking the wide range of scenarios into account is important. Advance Care Planning is not just having “I’d like a natural death” in writing. We mention the available tools, questions to ask yourself, and tips for having the important discussions with those who will have a say in your medical decision making.
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers, and this shouldn’t be taken as legal advice. And remember that we’re usually referring to how things are in BC, Canada, so things might be different where you are.
Feel free to click through the individual topics to learn more. The full recording is also below.
Online guides mentioned as part of your overall planning in the event of incapacitation, unexpected injury, or serious illness.
Online wills, powers of attorney, and representation agreements, including discount codes.
For something with a 100% likelihood, most of us don’t do a great job of planning for death.
We’re running this series to explore life transitions, death, and how to plan for the inevitable.
I’m Dead, Now What features Christa Ovenell, aka Death’s Apprentice. Christa is a licensed funeral director and a certified Elder Planning Counsellor, specializing in end-of-life education and planning. You can catch her monthly on CBC’s North by Northwest.
Our first event focused on the legal basics – the what and why of:
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers, and this shouldn’t be taken as legal advice. We know some great lawyers (recommendations below) if you want to follow up with them and get specific direction. And remember that we’re usually referring to how things are in BC, Canada, so things might be different where you are.
Feel free to click through the individual topics to learn more. The full recording is also below.
Online wills, powers of attorney, and representation agreements, including discount codes for you! (Simple, legal, and under $250, so no excuse not to do it.)
Local lawyers who specialize in simple estate plans and price accordingly –
Meet Casey and Rich, a couple who have created a plan for retirement and are building an investment inside their life insurance policy.
Life insurance is something that’s usually only thought of as a payout after you die. We want to ensure that you can benefit from your life insurance right now. And we have so many stories of clients who are able to do just that.
Kiva just turned 15 and featured the AF Kiva Project as one of their stories of impact from around the world! We’re so grateful to Kiva, their field partners, and of course all our generous lenders. Thanks to you, we’re on track to hit $1 MILLION in loans by the end of 2020! Watch Danielle’s interview below, and check out Kiva’s page for more.
Now that we’re back in the office, please join us in welcoming our newest team member, Jessie Mejia!
Jessie joined us in early March as our Senior Executive Assistant (you can thank her for keeping Ross in line). Onboarding remotely at the onset of a pandemic was no easy feat, and Jessie took it in stride. She came to us highly recommended as a seasoned pro with over a decade of experience in high-level administration.
We love Jessie for her gentle and empathetic presence in the office, and her sharp organizational skills. Coming from the public health world, her expertise in client care and confidentiality are a huge asset to our team.
If you haven’t met her yet, Jessie is the first friendly face you’ll see when you walk in to AF. We can’t wait for you to meet!
Dear friends:
Prior to the onset of the pandemic, we updated our technology to give our team the capability to work remotely. We didn’t know we’d need it so soon, and have a few small pieces still to implement. This should all be completed by early next week, but in the meantime, our team is taking advantage of our new capabilities.
With that in mind, we continue to be available to provide you with service regarding your existing insurance, to continue working through the design and implementation of new insurance currently under way, and to start any new planning and insurance reviews. We can easily arrange any meetings using screen sharing and teleconferencing to avoid the need for face to face meetings.
A number of our core values are being put to good use at this time – leading with heart, being thoughtfully driven to do more, and stretching to change.
This is an unprecedented situation for all of us, but rest assured that your needs continue to be our priority.
Your Allan Financial Family
We have some exciting things to announce at the top of this new decade. Firstly, we’ve now loaned over $850,000 to women in the Global South through our Kiva project. Secondly, we launched a new component of the program in 2019 that we’d like to tell you about: Kiva 250.
To integrate social giving further into the fibre of our business, we now automatically loan $250 for every insurance policy we sell. In 2019, we settled over 230 new policies, which means we added almost $60,000 to the total lent last year, thanks to clients like you!
75% of you have also chosen to keep your money in the lending pot, rather than accepting repayment at the end of the loan year. This means we’re able to re-loan the money to new entrepreneurs, exponentially grow the program and do a whole lot of good.
Thanks to your generosity, we’re hoping to hit one million dollars lent in 2020. Can you believe it?! We can’t!
It’ll be a close call, but with your help, we can celebrate this milestone. It’s beyond what we ever dreamed for this project.
That’s what we’re doing on the global level. At the local level, we’ve also decided to donate an additional $250 for every policy bought by Bowen Island clients to the Foxglove Fund, our endowed fund through the Bowen Island Community Foundation that provides bursaries for the Bowen Children’s Centre.
More information about the Foxglove Fund and the Kiva Project can be found here.
We were excited to finish off our series with financial planner Julia Chung, who workshopped how to set financial goals based on our own unique values and priorities.
We discussed things like:
More photos from the event are below!
Julia taught us that budgets are usually fear-based: we create them when we feel we don’t have enough. This can lead to an unsustainable or unrealistic allocation of our financial resources.
She advises to start your financial planning by filling out your ‘wheel of life.’ From there, prioritize areas you’d most like to improve, figure out what the gaps are between where you are now and where you’d like to be, and then set specific goals. This approach aligns your finances with your values, and this synergy is motivating!
We also learned that “should” is a swear word. If you’re saving for something because you think you should, you won’t be motivated.
Take the time to outline the specifics of your financial goals. “I save enough to take a vacation somewhere warm next year” isn’t as exciting as “I learn to surf in Sámara, Costa Rica in Winter 2020.” Experts recommend that at least 20% of your after-tax income be spent on lifestyle and entertainment, allowing you to enjoy your life.
Keeping focused on your financial goals is difficult – our culture promotes mindless consumption and it’s hard to work against this system. Goal-setting and being a thoughtful consumer are two tools we can use in response.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to finances. There isn’t one way to invest, one set percentage to put aside for retirement. The answer starts with you putting in the work to determine what your values and goals are.
This month, Kiva celebrated hitting 1 billion dollars in micro-loans to women across the Global South. And we at AF are celebrating that over $800,000 of that billion was lent by our community! Thanks to the generosity of our lenders, we’re looking forward to hitting the 1 million mark in the coming months! This is beyond what we ever thought was possible.
We couldn’t agree more with Kiva when they say: “Lenders like you continue to prove that fueling her future means fueling our future. Investing in women is one of the strongest levers we can use to advance global development for everyone. When we uplift women, we uplift entire communities.”
Investing kept coming up as something people wanted to know more about. So, we brought back financial advisor Dave Sweeney to help us sort through all the noise.
We discussed things like:
As a bonus you’ll find photos from the event below!
“The three most important things when it comes to investing – time, money and rate of return. The only one of these that we can’t make more of is time. Being Gen Y is an advantage because we have more of that elusive time! There’s no cheaper time to start saving than today.”
“Don’t fear the talk of a possible recession! At our age, we can take advantage of the longer time period we have to invest. A recession is also a good time to consider investing aggressively.”
“Between a RRSP and a TFSA, don’t use either for actual living expenses. But for long-term goals, the RRSP is better, and for short-term goals, the TFSA is the way to go.”
“Don’t make investment decisions based on emotions.”
“Yes, diversify your investment plan. Really.”
“Don’t count on an inheritance. Folks are living much longer now and eating up their savings in the last few years.”
“Have the long-term “financial chat” with your parents. Don’t leave any ambiguity. It will help all of you.”
A tip from his earlier talk that was just so good, it bears repeating – “To have enough to live on in retirement, when you’re under the age of 35, put away 10% of your gross income every month, before 45, put away 20%, and over 45, it needs to be 30%.”
Our community of Bowen Island comes together at the end of every summer to put on the annual community festival, aptly named “Bowfest.” We have participated for more than a decade now, by sponsoring and volunteering to man the rides. This year, we were responsible for the inflatable Bungee Run that had kids straining to race against one another.
Giving out our signature Enjoy Your Life t-shirts celebrating each years event, and spotting these around the lower Mainland throughout the year has become a tradition for a generation of Bowen Islander, big and small. We would LOVE to get tagged if you see one of these t-shirts out and about. On facebook we are @allanfinancial and on instagram we are @enjoyyourlife.af
If you were there you know all about it, but if not, you can tell from the photos that we had a blast catching up with friends and clients all day long!
Change is inevitable, but certain things will always stay the same. One of those constants in *our* world is Kal Sangha who just celebrated 25 years with Allan Financial. She’s seen our business and our family grow, but one thing is the same – she’s always here for our clients.
We are thrilled to announce that Rachel Rogers is a Licensed Life Insurance broker at Allan Financial. Rachel joined the company six years ago and has advanced through progressively more responsible positions in Client Service and Product Design to her current role as Director of Client Service.
Rachel brings her wealth of experience to this new role providing services to individuals seeking life insurance and tax-advantaged investment strategies. We are pleased that she will now advise clients on these issues at Allan Financial.
Please join us in congratulating Rachel on this exciting next step in her career!
As Rachel says here, “Having good people in your corner is key to helping you make the right choices.” We couldn’t have said it any better.
This month I’ve been reflecting on the importance of language. We rely so heavily on words – they’re the building blocks of everything. And yet there’s so much potential for miscommunication based on the different connotations we all have with certain words. Language can determine whether an environment is exclusive or welcoming, uncomfortable or respectful, volatile or productive. And, since our speech is so ingrained and habitual, it’s also a clear revealer of our unconscious biases.
Our team recently had a discussion about the kind of language that bothers us as female professionals. Much of what came up was what this article (a great resource!) refers to as “benevolent sexism.” These are words, such as terms of endearment, that “may seem polite or harmless, but […] undermine authority and impact perceptions about women’s competence.” As a team of all women, we often get called “girls,” and terms like “sweetie” are pretty commonplace.
I find this language belittling, particularly from men I don’t have a personal relationship with. And while it’s not (usually) intended this way, intent is not the same as impact. Gendered words that get used in the workplace don’t exist in a vacuum – they reinforce sexist attitudes and structural power imbalances that affect women’s livelihoods.
Another thing I’ve also noticed is the discrepancy between the words used to describe male and female leaders in our industry (similar to what’s described in this article). This may seem trivial, but when you think about how it correlates with the low percentage of women in the industry, particularly in leadership positions, it takes on a deeper significance.
Language is one of the easiest ways we can show respect, yet there is often a feeling of resistance when a person or group of people asks us to change the words we use. Some of you may have even felt resistant or defensive reading this post. Trust me, I get it! I feel the same way when I learn that words I use are causing harm.
Language feels like a difficult thing for all of us to change, but we really can re-train ourselves. It’s about having the humility to admit when we’re wrong, the vulnerability to ask, and the empathy to make the effort.
We had such good feedback on the Managing your Money session last summer that we decided to bring back Financial Coach Liz Schieck from the New School of Finance. This time she discussed the dreaded “D” word: debt.
We discussed things like:
Some good general tips to help with your debt right off the bat:
Before you can build a successful plan, you’ve got to unpack your debt, understand why you have it in the first place, and learn how to sidestep it in the future. Strategies and tips are ultimately useless until you deal with the emotional stuff, the root causes of your spending behaviour.
Most debt advice skips this crucial step. Many jump right into the super-exciting math parts, but there is so much that needs to happen before that in order to make sustainable permanent changes to your finances.
If you don’t change your spending behaviour and if you don’t believe you can truly tackle your debt, you’ll never stop the Debt Loop.
First, deal with the emotional side of your debt, then do the math. This is crucial. It’s like having allergies. Instead of treating the symptoms—coughing, sneezing, itchy eyes—over and over, you have to figure out the root cause of the allergy and avoid it altogether.
Spend some time unpacking how you think and feel about your money. Get to a place where you understand your Financial Tripwires and find motivation and strategies beyond the interest your debt is costing you. This is how to stop the Debt Loop.
If you’d like to determine your personal Financial Tripwires and permanently break the Debt Loop, grab a copy of Shannon Lee Simmons’ book, Living Debt-Free, the No-Shame, No-Blame Guide to Getting Rid of Your Debt.
This month the AF team has been gearing up to participate in the annual Motionball Of Sport tournament on June 1st, which raises funds and awareness for Special Olympics Canada.
We’ll be competing as Team Office Space (high five if you love this movie as much as I do), teaming up with local Special Olympics BC athletes to compete in a whirlwind of sports – soccer, football, basketball, you name it!
Even Ross will be playing in the tournament, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what he calls “the iceberg” (his athletic foundations, laid in his UBC Phys Ed. days) out on the field. Stay tuned for photos of that.
The idea to have an AF Motionball team was brought forward by our Product Design Associate, Megan, who stepped up and got the whole team on board, coordinating the initiative and supporting us all in our own fundraising efforts.
Meg came to me with the Motionball idea after she participated a couple years ago with her friends, under AF’s sponsorship. She told me that the tournament day was one of most fun days of her life, and that it was full of positive, inclusive vibes and cool people. This year she wanted to get more people involved and make a bigger impact. It sounded like a fantastic opportunity for the team to have some fun and do some good, so I said yes!
Megan has been so on top of the project, and so supportive of everyone’s individual fundraising efforts. It’s honestly been really inspiring to see a close friend and team member take this kind of initiative, and to see her show such beautiful and fun leadership for something she cares about.
With the big tournament coming up this weekend, we’re still accepting donations to our team page! You do that here.
I’m so excited for the tournament, and can’t wait to see what other projects and team-building opportunities other AF team members cook up in future!
