The Bapkin Plan: A Back-of-the-Napkin Approach to Financial Empowerment

Sixty-one percent of Canadians between the ages of 45 and 64 don't have a formal financial strategy. In The BAPKIN Plan, author and financial planner Gerard Hassprovides simple yet effective guidance for creating a financial plan to help you save, invest, and plan for retirement. The BAPKIN Plan presents an easy-to-remember framework and explains the basic steps you can use to simplify and improve your life and your financial wellbeing. Offering checklists to help you organize your journey, this reference tool can guide you to a better understandingof what your financial adviser or planner is recommending-including the positive and negative features of potential investments. You'll learn how to develop a commitment to setting simple goals and to following a simple plan based on common sense; commit to strategies to live within your means; draft a statement of net worth and revisit it every year; protect yourself with an emergency fund, line of credit, and insurances; protect your loved ones by having life insurance coverage, a will, and powers of attorney; understand how you are taxed and the importance of seeking professional help; develop a personal pension plan strategy based on your life stage; institute a disciplined investment strategy that will suit your objectives;and work with the adviser who is a professional-not a salesman. Communicating a wealth of information, Hass provides advice to help move you forward in your financial empowerment.