Prologue: The Last Day in the Life
Meet Richard and John—client and financial planner, life-taught and school taught, and best friends. What is the promise Richard asks John to honour?

CHAPTER 1: The Word Gets Out
Follow John on his appointed task as he spreads the word of Richard’s passing to his estranged family.

CHAPTER 2: Saying Goodbye to a Friend
Join Richard’s family as they say goodbye to him and find out he was a teacher, a philosopher, a friend to many, and a meticulous planner—not the man they thought he was.

CHAPTER 3: The Genesis of the Project
Step back one year and join Richard as he brings together his old friend and financial planner, John, with his long-lost niece and nephew to embark on a journey to create a financial blueprint.

CHAPTER 4: What Does Rich Mean?
The first meeting inspires much discussion of ideas and feelings about money and the concept of “rich”—an important first step when creating a blueprint for wealth.

CHAPTER 5: What Is the Goal?
Follow along with James and Joyce as they learn the importance of setting goals and how to make them SMART.

CHAPTER 6: World of Wonders
Discover the power of Compound Interest—the 8th Wonder of the World—and an easy formula to calculate the growth of your investments—the Rule of 72.

CHAPTER 7: Who Else Would You Pay
Making the decision to save is an easy concept for James and Joyce, but learning to pay themselves first and sticking to the plan may be easier said than done.

CHAPTER 8: The Money Factory
Explaining RRSPs as a money factory is a novel approach and leads to further discussions of CPP, RRIFs, and annuities.

CHAPTER 9: The Three Guarantees
Revealing the influences on your wealth creation involves two of the guarantees—inflation and taxation—which leads to discussions of interest, Canadian dividends and capital gains.

CHAPTER 10: Getting a Bigger Stick
Using leverage to make up for not starting to invest earlier in life is an exciting prospect to James and Joyce until Richard and John introduce some real life complications.

CHAPTER 11: To RRSP or Not to RRSP?
Continuing to explore the idea of leverage, the group compares good and bad debt, discards the myths of leverage and discovers the advantages of using RRSPs and leverage together.

CHAPTER 12: Risky Business
Risk—crisis or opportunity? Discover it is a combination of both as the group discusses market timing, investor psychology and the risk of outliving your savings.

CHAPTER 13: Investment Allocation
Discussing Asset Allocation, Diversification and Dollar Cost Averaging answers James and Joyce’s question of where to put the money they are saving.

CHAPTER 14: Creating the Game Plan
James and Joyce pull all the pieces together in a Game Plan and see that the strategy must be flexible enough to change with the situation—like the three periods in a hockey game.

CHAPTER 15: Where There’s a Will
Discussing the last few pieces of the puzzle without Richard is difficult at first, but the smaller group soon gets around to wills, insurance, powers of attorney and living wills.

CHAPTER 16: The Legacy Lives On
John fulfills the promise he made to Richard in his final hours; James and Joyce are the fulfillment of Richard’s promise to himself.

Epilogue: Selecting a Financial Planner
A final word from John to help point you in the right direction to get started with your financial blueprint.

Appendix: Resources for Financial Planning