Page 2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy Page 2 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy THE BERMUDA ISLANDER Fundamental Financial Planning Primer Series Book One The Dawn of New Beginnings Your Personal Back-to-Basics Financial Review to Dramatically Improve Your Lifestyle Written Specifically for All Bermuda Islanders by Bermudian Martha Harris Myron, CPA JSM Master of Laws in International Tax and Financial Services Content Editor: Bermudian Julie A. Hendrickson-Simons, BSc. AAPA QFA Cover image: Scott Stallard Photography Page 3 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy Covid Commentary CONCERNED COMMENTARY on your health and financial environment in the COVID pandemic crisis. Dear Readers: this has been an abrupt, serious and to many tragic challenges to your personal lives! We grieve for all the lives lost and express sincere condolences for their families. How are you handling your finances, worries, health, and mental attitude during our worrisome, shel- ter-in-place, social distancing environment? Many of you are no strangers to another economic downturn after experiencing the 2008 sub-prime market collapse and financial recession. That time was truly a never-before-experienced survival of the fittest financial endurance test. This time is different. This time it is your health and your finances at risk. This time, governments, including ours, were able to put some mandated impediments to social con- tact in place to limit communities’ health exposures, devastating personal losses, and provide some temporary financial support. This time, forced decreased demand in services and products has impacted home values and sales, rental lease terms and occupancies, wages and the possible availability of jobs, tourist and business vitality, and led to sparse retail commerce on thinly trafficked sidewalks. Thousands of individuals and their families are reporting job losses, while some have never fully recov- ered from the last recession. Resources are running low. Even so, relentless inflation marches on without skipping a beat, continuing to exact its toll on islanders with increases in cost of living products and services. What more can you do now? We cannot control change, but we can plan to put ourselves and our families into the best possible position to weather adversity. No matter what, life does go on. Enjoy the little things, the everyday wonders in life: a child’s smile, sparkling seas, sunsets when we know we will rise again in good health to meet the challenges of an- other day. This free book has been written for you and all other Bermuda Islanders, from young careerists to retir- ees, as my commitment to your financial well-being, a mission that passion and enthusiasm has been carried with me for more than twenty years: Page 4 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy to provide the best of financial information to my beloved country of birth and community, to help you plan, prepare, save, and invest so that you and your families can make the most informed decisions for your future financial success. Please do not be intimidated by the length of this book. • Read a few pages, or a section, at a time. • Perhaps, start with the contingency planning section in STEP FIVE. • Use as a reference to do your own financial research. • I have endeavoured to include all facets of the general phases in a financial life. In some areas, you will wish for many, more details. Those will be provided in future publications – see below in the Introduction section – where each further book in this Series will be stand-alone very finely detailed. Each digital book will have the ability to be updated as relevancy becomes obsolete. In time, I hope to publish all of them for you – as my legacy to you and Bermuda. Write to me with your questions and comments at martha.myron@gmail.com You know that I greatly value your opinions and feedback. Blessings to all of you. Martha Harris Myron August 2020 Reference: Experiencing economic triage for a second time Martha Harris Myron, Moneywise, the Royal Gazette, Bermuda Published May 30, 2020 http://www.royalgazette.com/martha-myron/article/20200530/experiencing-economic-triage-for-sec- ond-time Page 5 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy BERMUDA 2020 Surrounded by Dangerous Reefs - Bermuda is the fourth most remote land mass in the World 640 miles due east from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA Ryze Photography Longitude 64 Latitude 32 degrees. Page 6 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy BERMUDA 1610 Bermuda - 1610 Map drawn by Sir George Somers Page 7 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy Dedication We Commemorate our Legendary Bermuda Pilots Bermuda is a beacon, a tiny island situated on a defunct volcano in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Settled since the year 1604, Bermuda has had a marine history of astonishing proportions to her size and population. For more than 400 years, Bermuda sailors have roved the high seas. Our forebears built highly desired internationally renowned fast sloops, earning skilled reputations for danger, daring, and dedication. By the early 1700's, Bermuda maritime commerce contained more than 700 merchant fleet vessels in the technically, innovative and highly influential for that time, the fast Bermuda rig sloop - used for fish- ing, whaling, trade, plundering, smuggling, and privateering. A large Bermuda sloop, possibly off the coast of Central America, about 1750, with typical raked mast and fore-and-aft Bermuda Rig: the greatest invention in sailing technology after the European “Square Rigger”: Dr. Edward Harris Page 8 of 340 © 2000-2020 Martha Harris Myron Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Consultancy Historical research has established that local Bermuda shipwrights built more than 4,000 Bermuda sloops, sold, traded in the Grand Atlantic triangle to British, French, American navies and commercial seafaring companies. Bermudian seaman played auxiliary roles from our strategic Atlantic Ocean loca- tion during the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, and the English and American War for Independ- ence. They ran crucial supply blockades (more than 1,800 visits) during the American Civil War and pro- vided troop support in the World Wars. They rescued many sea faring souls, some deliberately, some inadvertently, shipwrecked off our coasts. How Bermuda’s speedy sloops joined the Royal Navy by Dr Edward Harris, Royal Gazette, Sep 1, 2012 http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20120901/ISLAND09/709019981 Among these ancestral sailors were the legendary mighty men, our fearless Bermuda pilots whose original navigational tools consisted primarily of their own innate skills, the sea, stars and sky. It was not until 1805 that the first chart, Heath- ers Improved Chart of the Bermudas was published, docu- menting and adding to their traditional knowledge. Piloting in Bermuda was a respected, stressful occupation demanding intuitive planning, great physical and mental strength. In early days, a crew rowing at full speed might eas- ily surpass twenty nautical miles in the race for the first right to pilot a ship, the most lucrative nautical prize. The job re- quired ingenuity and intuitive observations of our ever- changing marine environment. A Bermuda Pilot’s expert guidance and ocean risk manage- ment experience brought vital commerce through ruthless reefs and treacherous shoals into Bermuda’s calm safe har- bours. Their legacy has been an extraordinary contribution to the building of the economic infrastructure of our country. We honour these pilots of old (these original maritime plan- ners) with archival photos sourced to us by the Bermuda Maritime Museum, the commemorative book, Bermuda Pi- loting, celebrating Bermuda's brave mariners and written by Elena Strong, Jane Downing, and Adrian Webb. The contemporary piloting/navigating text book, The Ber- muda Boater 3rd edition, authored by Ralph Richardson, past Commodore of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (2008 - 2009) and former Chief Pilot with Enterprise Submarine with 700 They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters… In Bermuda, the primeval influence of the sea is everywhere. It is part of us, not easily separated from us. It is the salt in our blood; the spray on our faces; the essence of moisture in our lungs. Our ocean is never far away, less than a mile from any homestead. It penetrates our being; it assaults our senses and shores with intimidating towering ferocious rollers in storm- driven surf. It is euphoric on blissful sunny days, glittery, sparkling rainbow lights dancing on azure waves. In dawning pink-blushed tranquillity, it elevates our souls. The sea has been our perpetual con- duit for commerce and discovery. For centuries, it was our only access to the outside world. For we islanders were, and still are, dependent upon the sea for our livelihood. It is our one con- stant, always there - surrounding this tiny isle in the fourth most remote spot on earth. Next >