The investment industry likes to combine financial planning, investment advice and investment management. It locks clients in with high costs and hidden trailer fees. It also means the advisers have a huge conflict of interest and pressure to sell products that may not be the best choice for the investor, but make money for the adviser and financial institution. Fee-only planning goes a long way to ensure that investors get unbiased conflict-free financial advice. It is surprising that this planner did not analyze the decision of when to take CPP without being asked.

The other issue that was not addressed in the article is how to get effective, low-cost balanced investments. If the subjects are using mutual funds that have typical 2.5% MER they are losing potentially 1/4 to 1/3 of their returns with very little added value. The next step is to learn how to invest and use products like ETFs, eSeries funds or a robo-adviser to get the best possible returns within their risk tolerance.