About Medy & Dytuco Financial Services

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Video created by Jaime Munro from Whisper Media (www.whispermedia.ca)

Magdalena (Medy) Dytuco, CPA, CGA, CFP

Known to most as Medy or by my “proper name” Magdalena, I’m a Certified Financial Planner with extensive experience as a designated accountant and leadership/life coach.

I started in this business simply to take over looking after my Dad’s life insurance clients after he retired from 30+ years in the business.  I’ve since also become a Certified Financial Planner because I want to be able to help people with planning their whole financial picture instead of just their life insurance needs.

WHAT I OFFER IS A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

What I offer is not what you’ll get from your typical Financial Planner, most of whom are focused on selling you investments or insurance. For example, in retirement planning, I look beyond investments and RRSPs to support your retirement and incorporate different financial and business solutions that use doing what you love & living the life you want, to help supplement your retirement income.

So I have retirement planning programs that can help you:

  • get clear on what you need to support doing what you want to be doing at retirement,
  • educate you on different financial and business solutions that can help generate the retirement income you need through the various stages of your retirement years,
  • save taxes and
  • ideally avoid claw backs of government pensions and tax credits.

I also have a program designed to help you look at the financial viability of business ideas you think you want to take on as a creative retirement solution – to help you avoid jumping into a business idea that ends up giving you another full-time job, and doesn’t align with the retirement lifestyle that you really want.

MY BACKGROUND

Although my roots are in BC, I also lived for many years in Calgary and Toronto. Between these three cities, I spent most of my career in the Airline and Energy industries, working for companies such as WestJet, Canadian Airlines, Wardair, Enbridge, TransCanada (Pipelines), Sunesis Consulting and most recently on contract with Finning International (through Sunera Consulting).

In the fall of 2011, after 16 years in Calgary, I decided to yield to the call of family, friends and warmer weather and returned home to Vancouver to take over my father’s Insurance business. Today, I still do part-time work as an Internal Audit/Internal Controls consultant but I spend most of my time as a Certified Financial Planner & Coach.

WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT FROM OTHER PLANNERS?

My combined background of financial planning, accounting and coaching allows me to bring a different perspective in helping you achieve your financial goals to support living the life you love – by educating and empowering you with financial & business solutions that are aligned with your values and what’s important to you.

I’m also an independent broker*, so if you do need financial solutions involving products I sell, I can shop around to help you find the best terms to meet your needs and best value for the price – through access of products from different insurance companies for mortgage insurance, travel insurance, critical illness, group insurance, etc.

* (for life and health insurance products as well as investments for retirement or educational savings such as segregated funds for RRSPs, RESPs, TFSAs, and non-registered funds).

AREAS I SPECIALIZE IN

Providing a Different Perspective on Retirement Planning for Professionals

I’ve been focusing more on helping professionals be proactive about their retirement planning because many I know have really been too busy with their careers and life in general to spend any time on looking seriously at their retirement plan.

Too many also have most of their retirement income sources as taxable (pension, RRSPs, CPP, etc).  Even if you have a bit of what’s available through the TFSA program, you’re risking paying high taxes and claw back of government programs if you go beyond a certain threshold – for example – to fund doing what you want (special vacations, more leisure activities) or a medical or family emergency.

So I help you look at what you’re going to be spending money on anyway (either planned or unplanned) and find different financial and business solutions that use doing what you love & living the life you want, to help supplement your retirement income, help you save taxes & avoid claw back of government programs.

Helping Small Businesses Optimize Tax Advantages of Insurance for Business Continuity

Many small business owners don’t worry too much about tax savings at the beginning because they’re usually not making a lot of income.  So they end up missing out on strategies that could end up saving them money in later years when they’re more profitable.  They also don’t seem to worry about risks to business continuity when they’re just starting out because they don’t have much to lose – yet.  That is, until something happens to their health affecting their ability to keep the business going while they recover.  This unfortunately, can also risk losing the business they’ve worked so hard to build up.

Many business owners who don’t spend much time financial planning can also miss out on opportunities to create a sustainable business that can potentially generate residual income and ideally take advantage of the tax-savings available through the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption.

MY CREATIVE RETIREMENT STRATEGY EXAMPLE

One of the key principles I use in retirement planning is – using what you love to do (and will spend money on anyway), to create a profitable small business – to help supplement your retirement income and save you taxes.

For me, it’s travel.  I’ve always loved it and will continue to travel for as long as I’m able.  So I’ve started a part-time travel business now that I’m still a few years away from retirement – to have a profitable travel business before I retire – one that gives me a bit of extra spending money, allows me to travel for less cost and be able to use a reasonable amount of my travel as a business expense.

Now this is not as easy as it sounds, because I first tried being a part-time travel agent – and quickly realized that learning ALL the booking systems created just a bit too much extra work than I wanted to take on.  So now I work as an outside sales consultant along with an inside travel consultant from Da Vinci International Travel who looks after the booking process.

I focus on individual or group bookings for luxury ocean and river cruises, and am in the process of sourcing some seminars to be held on these cruises.  I also use part of this work to support fundraising events for causes that I believe in.

HOW I CONTRIBUTE TO MY COMMUNITY

Those of you who know me also know that I am continually involved as a volunteer in my community both for professional associations and not-for-profit events. This includes previous positions as board volunteer for CGA Vancouver Chapter, CGA-BC Conference Committee, ISACA Calgary, CGA TriCities/RidgeMeadows Chapter and currently the ISACA Vancouver chapter. While in the corporate world, I also spent a number of years volunteering for United Way, Community Investment, as well as Environment, Health & Safety initiatives.

I’m also continually looking for fund raisers and not-for-profit initiatives that I can support using my dream retirement travel business.

PLEASE CONTACT ME

Please contact me about anything I’ve published on my website or if you have any questions about financial planning, retirement planning or life and health insurance. Also please contact me if you’d like a free review and second look of your current plans, regardless of which company they have been purchased from.

Carriers I Represent

As an independent advisor, I have access to a number of insurance carriers, and I choose the best option based on your unique needs – because believer it or not, they all have slightly different terms, exclusions, inclusions and fine print, for the many, many types of life and health insurance that they offer.

I can also refer you to some other trusted professionals who in most cases, I’ve set up a client discount with instead of receiving a referral fee.