By: Larry MacDonald

I would like to recommend a book to anyone serious about personal finances. It costs $60.00 but is worth the price tag, in my opinion. It’s no fluffy treatise full of cute cartoon pictures. It’s over 600 pages long and packed with important information you are not likely to find anywhere else, examples of which can be found in a recent column and blog post.

In short, it’s a great reference book for your library if you happen to dispense financial advice for a living, are a personal-finance blogger, or simply are serious about managing your personal finances. The author is a tax and estate lawyer with over 15 years experience. The book is:

Wealth Planning Strategies for Canadians 2010
Written by Christine Van Cauwenberghe
Published by Carswell

Here is the publisher’s description of the book:

“The first half of this uniquely valuable publication is organized around your client’s life-event scenarios and systematically identifies the array of financial and estate planning considerations and strategies that ought to be considered. Life scenarios explored include: Marriage • Divorce • Aged Parents • Re-marriage • Birth of a child • Acquisition of property • Many more

The second half concisely sets out the legal/regulatory framework surrounding areas such as powers of attorney, family property, insurance, probate, trusts, etc., with jurisdictional differences succinctly summarized. It provides further detail to the life-scenario section of the book.”