Black Star Wealth

09/18/2026

Something Pete Walker said on The Number stopped me mid-conversation.

His dad was 38 when he made the decision to wind down the family farm.

38.

Sixth-generation land. 220 years of history. The full weight of legacy on his shoulders.

And no exit planner. No advisor. No framework.

Just him, and Pete's mom, and maybe some quiet conversations with his own father.

He figured it out alone.

And he still had the presence of mind to sit his boys down early enough that they could build their own lives without false expectations.

That's remarkable.

But most business owners today don't have to do it alone.

There are advisors who specialize in exit planning. There are employee ownership models that didn't exist five years ago. There are frameworks for thinking through what you actually want - not just what's conventional, not just what the algorithm tells you a successful exit looks like.

The tools exist.

What's missing for most people is the permission to start.

Permission to say, "I don't have this figured out, and I want help thinking it through."

Pete made a point I loved.

Less than 10% of Canadian business owners have a written exit plan.

So if you're in that 90%, you're not the exception.

You're everyone.

And "everyone" doesn't have to stay stuck.

09/16/2026

Your business probably isn't as transferable as you think it is.

I say that with kindness. Not judgment.

Because most business owners have never been asked to think about it that way.

You built something. It runs. It serves people. It makes money.

But is it sellable?

Is it structured so that someone else could step in and run it without you?

Is the value sitting inside the business - in systems, in relationships, in team - or is it sitting almost entirely inside you?

Owner dependence is one of the most common things I see.

The business performs beautifully when you're there.

And becomes fragile the moment you aren't.

This matters whether you're planning to exit in two years or twelve.

Because "sellable" and "transferable" aren't destination words.

They describe a direction you start moving in now.

→ What would happen to revenue if you stepped away for six months?

→ Do your clients have relationships with your team, or only with you?

→ Could a buyer walk in and understand what they're purchasing?

These aren't comfortable questions.

But they're the right ones.

If you've been meaning to think about this and keep pushing it down the list, I'd love to talk.

No agenda. Just clarity.

09/16/2026

Moving to Canada is exciting.

It's also a crash course in acronyms.

TFSA. RRSP. FHSA. Credit scores. Tax slips. New banking systems. Different rules.
I've worked with many newcomers over the years, and one of the biggest surprises isn't the weather. It's how much there is to learn about money when you arrive.

The good news? You don't need to figure it all out at once.

Focus on the fundamentals. Get your banking set up. Build your credit.
Understand the accounts available to you. And don't be afraid to ask questions.

Because the sooner you understand how the system works, the sooner you can stop navigating and start building.

This practical FP Canada article from Alim Dhanji, CFP, is a great place to start.

One of life’s most significant transitions is moving to a new country. For the hundreds of thousands of newcomers Canada welcomes each year, this fresh start can be very exciting. However, alongside the opportunities come practical challenges. Some of the most confusing are related to finances. 

09/15/2026

There's a quiet assumption a lot of business owners carry.

"Someday I'll just close it up. Walk away. That's that."

And I understand why it feels that simple.

But when you close a business instead of transitioning it, here's what actually happens.

The employees lose their jobs.

The local suppliers lose a customer.

The tax base in the community shrinks.

The people who depended on that business - who built routines and livelihoods around it - have to figure something else out.

Pete Walker said something on The Number that I keep coming back to.

When his dad wound down the farm, 15 of their neighbors lost seasonal employment. Local businesses lost a customer. And this was one small farm in a community of 90 people.

Now multiply that.

Across every town, every county, every rural community across this country where a family business is the anchor.

Where the mechanic, the contractor, the accountant, the shop - that's the economic fabric holding the whole thing together.

If you get it wrong, it doesn't just affect you.

It ripples.

Which is why the question isn't just "what am I going to do with my business someday?"

The question is "am I building something transferable?"

That shift in thinking changes everything.

09/11/2026

Here's something we don't talk about enough in business planning circles.

Knowing what your business is worth isn't the same as knowing what you need.

They're related. But they're not the same question.

I've sat across from business owners who received offers - real, serious, meaningful offers - and turned them down.

Not because the number was wrong.

Because they had no idea what number was *right*.

And without that anchor, there's no offer that ever feels like enough.

I had a client who was five years from retiring for ten straight years.

Every year, the goalposts moved.

He kept expanding instead of exiting.

The offers came. He passed.

Eventually he went bankrupt and got nothing.

That's not a story about greed.

That's a story about not doing the work to figure out what *sufficient* actually looks like.

What does your life need to cost?

What income do you need, and from what sources?

What does "enough" feel like in your body, not just on paper?

Until you can answer those questions, you can't evaluate an offer with any confidence.

You'll just keep running.

This is a big part of the work I do - helping business owners figure out their real number before they need it.

Because when the moment comes, you want clarity waiting for you.

Not more uncertainty.

09/10/2026

Most business owners have a plan for their business.

They don't have a plan for what comes after.

And those are two very different things.

I had Pete Walker on The Number recently - reformed banker, certified exit planning advisor, and someone who has seen this gap up close his whole life.

His dad was a sixth-generation PEI farmer.

At 38 years old - younger than many of the business owners I work with - his dad made a decision.

The farm wouldn't survive the next generation of agricultural consolidation. So rather than pretend otherwise, he made a plan. A real one.

And then he sat his two sons down at the kitchen table and told them.

One sentence.

"I don't know what the two of you are doing with your lives, but you're not doing this."

That was it.

Pete took yes for an answer.

But here's what struck me most in our conversation.

His dad wasn't unusual because he made a hard decision.

He was unusual because he made it *clearly*. And early enough to matter.

Less than 10% of Canadian business owners have a written plan for how they exit their business.

Less than 10.

So if you've been avoiding that conversation - with yourself, with your family, with an advisor - you are not behind.

You are in the vast majority.

The question is whether you want to stay there.

Episode link in the comments.

08/26/2026

Rules of thumb for retirement planning sound reasonable until you actually sit with them.

"You can safely withdraw 4% of your assets per year."

So if you have a million dollars, that's $40,000 a year to live on.

But that rule was never built around *your* life. It doesn't know that your kids moved across the country and you're flying to Vancouver three times a year to see the grandkids. It doesn't know that you want to keep the cottage. Or that you have no one to leave money to and you'd rather spend it than preserve it.

Rules of thumb flatten everything that makes your situation yours.

What actually matters is getting into the messy middle of the real numbers. After tax. On a dollar basis. Anchored to the specific life you want to live.

What does a year actually cost - not a theoretical year, but your year?

→ The travel you've been putting off
→ The home you want to stay in
→ The people you want to support
→ The things that make it feel like freedom, not just survival

For business owners especially, this number matters beyond personal planning. It's the number that tells you what your business *has* to be worth when you sell. It turns a vague future hope into a real target.

And when you have a real target, you can start building toward it. You can see the gap. You can make smart decisions now - about what to grow, what to change, what to protect.

Clarity isn't a luxury. It's the thing that makes all the other moves possible.

08/24/2026

I had a domestic moment this weekend - I set out to make gluten free banana muffins.

The bananas were properly ripe. (First bad Superstore order. Story for another day.)

So I googled a recipe for Banana muffins.

The first two sites I found had gorgeous photos. Ingredients laid out just so. Finished muffins glowing on a cooling rack. A thousand words about the author's grandmother's kitchen before you got anywhere near flour. Or something like that - since I quickly scroll through these wasted words.

And when I finally got to the actual recipe? Ingredients listed. No measurements.

Lots of what. Not much how.

I googled again, this time for a recipe with actual measurements, and the AI summary that popped up gave me exactly what I needed. Cup of this. Teaspoon of that. Done.

Here's what struck me after the muffins came out of the oven.

Financial plans work the same way, except the what was never the hard part.

Anyone can hand you the list. Save money. Pay down debt. Get insurance. Invest for retirement. That part takes about five minutes and you already knew most of it.

The how is where it actually gets built.

How much do you save, and out of which account first, given what you're trying to be able to do in five years versus twenty. How is your debt structured, and does it make sense to pay it down aggressively or hold it while you put that same money to work somewhere else. How much insurance, on whom, for how long, so you're covered without paying for protection you don't need. How is your investment mix built to match your actual timeline and your actual temperament, not a generic model portfolio someone assigned you at 35 because you were 35.

And underneath all of it: how does this list turn into a sequence. What happens first, what happens next, what you check on in a year, what changes if your business has a bad quarter or a great one.

That sequencing, that judgment call on amounts and order and timing, is the entire job. It's also the part nobody can google their way into, because it isn't generic. It's yours.

The list looks the same for almost everyone. The plan never does.
(The muffins turned out great, for the record.)

Hi, I'm Wendy. I run Black Star Wealth, a flat-fee financial planning firm for business owners who are done with generic advice.

I build the how. Not a list of things you already know you should be doing, but the actual sequence, the actual amounts, the actual order of operations, built around your business, your timeline, and what you're trying to be free to do.
If your financial plan is still sitting at the "what" stage, let's talk.

08/20/2026

Unsolicited offers are showing up more and more.

A buyer calls. They're interested. They want to talk numbers.

And the owner - who has spent years building something real - has no idea what it's worth.

Not because they haven't worked hard. Because no one ever told them that business value is something you track, not something you scramble to figure out when someone's on the line.

Here's what I've seen happen when owners *are* prepared.

They say: "Sign an NDA and I'll give you access to our data room."

That one sentence does something. It signals that this business is organized. That the owner knows what they have. That due diligence isn't going to be a nightmare of missing records and mystery margins.

Buyers notice. It shifts the dynamic immediately.

And here's the number that should stop you cold: only about 1-2% of business sale transactions close at the original letter-of-intent price. The due diligence process chips away at it - equipment that needs work, gaps in documentation, inconsistencies in the numbers.

The owners who close at their number are the ones who already know their number. They can defend every piece of it. Nothing surprises them.

Preparation isn't just about being ready to sell. It's about being impossible to undervalue.

Your business will transition at some point. On your terms or someone else's. About half of exits aren't planned - disability, divorce, disagreement, or death.

The question isn't whether to be ready. It's whether you want to be the shiniest apple on the block when the moment comes.

07/09/2026

Struggling to balance today's expenses with your longer-term financial priorities?

You’re not alone. For many Canadians in the middle of their careers, balancing day-to-day financial demands with future goals can be challenging.

In her latest article, Meghan Wassink, CFP, explains how regular financial check-ins, smart savings strategies, and thoughtful financial planning can help you make steady progress toward your goals.

If you're balancing competing priorities today while preparing for tomorrow, this article offers practical guidance to help you move forward with confidence.

Read more now: https://www.financialplanningforcanadians.ca/insights-detail/tips-for-managing-money-mid-career

By mid-career, many people are becoming more established professionally while taking on greater personal responsibilities. For some, this means raising a young family, managing a mortgage, supporting aging parents, or balancing multiple financial priorities—and sometimes doing all of these things ...