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Anne Kleffner is finally in a position to begin accumulating the assets that could support her when she wants to retire. Just 32, and an associate professor of insurance and risk management at the University of Calgary earning $60,000 a year, she now finds herself with something she's never had before--savings that she's not sure what to do with.
Not to say that it's been easy to get to this point. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, she had a financial shock when she moved to Calgary. She had taken her master's degree and PhD in the U.S., so her student loans were in American dollars. Of course she had to pay them off using Canadian income, a fact of her new life that increased her debts by over 30%. In addition, when she accepted the job, she bought a 1992 Ford Explorer to be ready for the Calgary winters. The vehicle, which cost US$17,500, was supposed to be cheaper in the U.S.; instead, even as she drove north, the Canadian dollar kept losing value and thus her US$16,000 car loan kept increasing. During her first year of work, she also paid a semester's tuition and living expenses for her younger brother, Chris, whom she talked into attending U of C to keep her company in a strange city.
However, Chris has now returned to Texas, and Kleffner has paid off the car loan for "Maggie," so nicknamed because, she says, "It never seemed right to call it a car or a truck. And sport-utility vehicle was too much of a mouthful." All that's left of her debt is a student loan of $8,400 and a credit-card balance of $1,000 that she pays off every month. Since moving into a shared, three-storey townhouse near the university, she has seen her rent drop by more than half, and, in the past year, she has worked on some freelance consulting projects that have provided extra income. "Now I'm at the point where I do have discretionary income," says Kleffner, "and I have limited investments. So that's something I'm looking to do."
She grew up well aware of the necessity of planning ahead. Her father, who teaches at the University of Texas Health Science's Center, impressed upon his...