Articles
This page has samples of my published articles.
Each online article has a link to its published location, with the most recent articles towards the top of the page.
You will also find articles that have been published in magazines, but not included in the online edition. These articles have been reproduced on this website and more will be added.
To read the article in its entirety just follow the link to where it’s published in full.
In some cases you will need a pdf reader to read this document. Should you need to download a pdf reader you can get Adobe Reader here as a free download.
Enjoy!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Retirement: Paradise Made Affordable
- The International Teacher’s Nine Steps to Financial Freedom
- How We Beat the Market
- How I Got Rich on a Middle-class Salary
- Going Places – Calling all Snowbirds
- World’s greatest investor tells all: invest like Warren Buffett
- Police State Paradise
- Invest Like Warren Buffett
2009
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
November Issue
Retirement: Paradise made affordable
by Andrew Hallam
Fraser Rea likes getting value for his money, but he isn’t the kind of guy who’s going to scrimp on luxuries.
That’s why he and his wife Shary, both in their mid-60s, came up with an idyllic retirement solution that allows for winter getaways in tropical luxury, without stressing their pocketbook. While many Canadians are still reeling from the stock market’s battering and lowering their retirement expectations, Fraser and Shary are enjoying a lavish lifestyle on less than $2,000 a month — including massages twice a week, eating out at least once a day, having a maid service six days a week, and of course, a glass of evening wine by their private plunge pool at night.
How do they do it?
2009
book title to be decided
To be included as a chapter in a book about wellness for teachers.
The International Teacher’s Nine Steps to Financial Freedom
How many times have you heard a teacher say, “I didn’t choose this profession to get rich”?
It’s true that you weren’t exactly handed the keys to the Ivory Tower when you started to teach. But you can increase your odds of retiring in comfort if you acknowledge and utilize some important financial tenets.
International teachers, worldwide, face different financial challenges. Most of them have to independently fund their own retirements.
Salaries range, as do the taxes international teachers pay—especially when comparing teachers in one country versus another.
This chapter will focus on income allocation towards an end goal: retirement.
Post Script: “The International Teacher’s Nine Steps to Financial Freedom” is to be included as a chapter in a book (as yet unpublished & unamed) about wellness for teachers, but it does have basic financial tenets that are suitable for everyone. Please feel free to download this pdf document and share it with your family, friends and colleagues.
(And make sure you have received “Andrew’s 15 Rules to Invest By”, sent to you when you sign up for ”Andrew’s Newsletter.”)
2008
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
November Issue
How we Beat the Market
Our investing club has learned that a few simple rules can keep you afloat in even the roughest markets.
By Andrew Hallam
Nearly a decade ago, at the height of the dotcom bubble, I joined a band of my fellow Vancouver Island schoolteachers in a quest for riches. We formed an investment club, pooled our money and started to buy Internet stocks. We thought we were canny investors speeding down the highway to wealth.
In fact, we were drunks careening along the edge of a cliff called Nasdaq. When the market crashed, we fell and fell. Then we fell some more. Rock bottom didn’t come until our account dropped 60% below what we had initially invested.
Our story could have ended there. We might have resolved never again to touch the stock market. We might have gone back to sticking our money in GICs and bank accounts.
But we didn’t. Once our groans subsided, we decided to get a lot smarter about how we invested. We eventually crawled our way back to profitability. By 2004, we had caught up with the S&P 500 index of blue-chip U.S. stocks. Since then, we’ve pulled farther and farther ahead.
2006
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
June Issue
How I got Rich on a Middle-class Salary
Real life secrets of financial success.
By Andrew Hallam
Picture this: A 27-year-old school teacher shows up at Robb Road Elementary School in Comox, B.C., on a bicycle, towing a trailer filled with a week’s worth of dirty laundry, and skulks into the Home Economics class to do his weekly washing before any of his colleagues can see him. After cycling 55 km through pelting Vancouver Island rain, he’s tired and wet, but his day’s just beginning. After a full eight hours of work, he’ll load his clean laundry into his trailer, and start the long bike ride home, completing a 110 km circuit for the day.
This guy’s not poor. In fact, he and his wife, also a school teacher, have the money for a second car, for a washing machine, and for a decent apartment close to work. But he’d rather scrimp and live in a dingy basement apartment with his long-suffering spouse because he’s bent on saving enough to retire at 45.
Sound frightening? I agree — and I should know, because that was me only nine years ago. I was a leading candidate for Cheapskate of the Decade, because I was obsessed with retiring early. I was a nut, no question about it
2006
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
January Issue
Going Places – Calling All Snowbirds
Thailand and Malaysia make a luxurious vacation or comfortable retirement eminently affordable
By Andrew Hallam
Matt and Mimi Kirkland are enjoying a retirement that any Canadian would envy. The former residents of Edmonton both live in a spacious three-bedroom bungalow, surrounded by bamboo trees. Their home sits across the street from a gorgeous white-sand beach and when the Kirklands entertain visitors on their marble deck, they look over their lush garden, maintained year-round by somebody else’s green thumb.
A full-time maid helps with the house-work and whether the Kirklands are going downtown, to the golf course or to the airport, they never have to worry about parking their car or commuting traffic. Their personal driver takes them to their destination and brings them home when summoned via cell phone.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But before you start thinking that we’re ogling the lifestyles of the rich, consider this: the Kirklands live on roughly $27,000 a year.
2005
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
April Issue
World’s greatest investor tells all: invest like Warren Buffett
Yes, you can pick stocks like Warren Buffett. Here’s how.
By Andrew Hallam
If you want to mingle with the world’s most successful crowd of investors, forget about visiting Bay Street or Wall Street. Instead, count on spending some time in Omaha. It’s there that a mob of 15,000 enthusiasts congregate for the annual general meeting of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
The thousands of apparently sane people who fly from all parts of the globe to spend a spring weekend in Nebraska do so for a compelling reason — they want to see Berkshire’s chairman, Warren Buffett, up close and in the flesh. The 74-year-old multi-billionaire is the world’s second-wealthiest person (behind only his good friend Bill Gates) and, by general acclamation, the greatest stock market investor in history.
2005
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
April Issue
Police State Paradise
By Andrew Hallam
This article was first published in Reader’s Digest and MoneySense Magazine, in 2005.
It was nominated for a Roger’s Publishing Award, and made the finals. Although it didn’t bring home the hardware, it does answer the question, why do I live in Singapore?
I’ve made a few minor changes to reflect my life, as it is, in June 2009.
2003
MONEYSENSE MAGAZINE
January Issue
Invest Like Warren Buffett
The world’s greatest investor turned $100 into a multi-billion-dollar fortune. You can apply several of his stock-picking techniques to your own portfolio.
By Andrew Hallam
If you’re looking for a guide to help you navigate this brutal bear market, can we suggest a candidate? He’s folksy and a bit old fashioned, the type of person who likes nothing better than relaxing over a Cherry Coke and a Dairy Queen hamburger. He’s also hopeless when it comes to technology and he insists on living in the middle of nowhere (Omaha, Neb. to be precise). Still, we think he’s got potential. For one thing, he’s already made a few billion dollars in the stock market. Better yet, he’s survived and even thrived during previous market downturns.
His name, of course, is Warren Buffett. The 72-year-old Oracle of Omaha was ridiculed as an old fogy during the dotcom era when his brand of value investing seemed as out of place as a fox trot at a rave. But while the New Economy zealots have come and crashed, Buffett is still happily doing what he’s been doing for 47 years — investing for the long term and beating the market.
Hello Andrew. Is there an e-mail address where I can reach you? I’d like to chat about a story I’m working on. Cheers. JH
Andrew, please e-mail me at jheinzl AT globeandmail DOT Com It’s for a Globe and Mail article. Thanks. JH