September 10, 2025

In Conversation with Julia Chung: Advice for Your Golden Girls Era

In May, we hosted a ladies-only “Women, Wine, & Wealth” event that included a guided rosé wine tasting with Sommelier Sean Nelson and a conversation between Leith Wheeler Private Client Portfolio Manager, Cindy Huang, and Spring Planning co-founder, Julia Chung. Julia shared a number of excellent financial planning tips relevant specifically to women, which we’ve summarized below.

What Julia hears: “I had not really thought about outliving my husband, but of course, that makes sense. I knew that women lived longer but I just didn't put that together.”

Her advice: There’s a good chance you will outlive your husband. Plan for it.

Canadian mortality tables show that women live on average about four years longer than men (84 vs 80), so if you and your husband are the same age, have the same health, and the two of you are “average” in the Canadian context, the timeline is about four years. If your husband is older or you skip the bacon more often than him, it’s conceivable you could outlive him by 10 years or more.

And that’s as of today. Consider that over the past 50 years, life expectancy in Canada has extended by about 20 years and innovations in health and medicine continue apace. These are also averages – recall it takes data points above and below 84 to land on that number. Best to plan for longer.

What Julia hears: “When you said investment meetings can be boring, you're right. I kind of don't care, even though I know I should.”

Her advice: Julia remarked that this is pretty normal – but that men just don’t admit it as often. “The thing is,” she said, “you hired investment professionals because you want them to be the experts. You might not want to talk about price to earnings ratios or where the market is going. That is definitely okay.”

She says the first step is focusing on why your money exists: “What’s it for? Does it create security? Does it provide you with a lifestyle? Does it create tax bills and you honestly don't know why? Does it make sure that you will be able to afford elder care? Does it help you support the people and causes that mean a lot to you?”

Talk about your WHY with your investment manager and then take control of the meetings to make them about YOU.

It’s also ok to ask for your own meeting, especially if your spouse is the one who usually deals with the finances. As discussed above, there’s a chance you’re going to need to do this on your own at some point down the road so it’s smart to get up the curve.

What Julia hears: “I’m not really sure what accounts I should plan to pull my retirement income from.”

Her advice: Julia reinforced that “RRSPs and RRIFs are for you, not for your estate. And it's a really great to plan to draw from them when you have two tax returns to build on.” She added that from a tax perspective, it can be really beneficial to draw money out of your RRIF(s) when both you and your partner are alive, so you can split the money across both of your tax returns. “When one of the partners passes away, though,” she said, “you’ve only got one tax return to deal with. That often means that taking the same amount of money out is going to cost us a lot more in tax.”

She suggests getting a hand from your tax advisors and financial planners to think ahead. An extension of this strategy is to draw more money out now than you need, accessing the funds at favourable tax rates, and then putting the money into your TFSAs.

“TFSAs are amazing for the Golden Girls Era, where you have only one tax return,” she said. “If you and your deceased partner both maximized contributions continually throughout life, then you'll have two accounts where you can draw tax-free income during that time when the taxes can be the heaviest. Those TFSAs are where Golden Girls thrive.”

Two final tidbits of advice: Canada Pension Plan

Child Rearing Provision - If you raised children, you can claim the Child Rearing Provision when you apply for the Canada Pension Plan. It's on the application form when you're ready. Only one parent can claim it. Please make this the parent who is likely to live the longest!

CPP Pension Sharing – You can also split your CPP payouts with your spouse to reduce your tax burden – you just need to apply (and qualify). You can find more information here.