Archive for January 2017
Our Top Credit Card Picks For 2017
Credit cards are a fact of life and depending on your point of view they’re either a necessary evil or a useful tool for building credit and earning rewards. We prefer the latter, which is why I’m always on the lookout for the best credit card offers. But with seemingly hundreds of credit cards on the…
Read More7 Money Mistakes To Avoid This Year
I’m on a mission to help people get a better handle on their money. Of course, you may be someone who doesn’t make mistakes. However, in the thirty plus years I’ve worked in the financial services industry, I’ve seen lots of things that people do wrong when it comes to their money. This is a…
Read MoreInvestment Return vs. Investor Return: How Did Your Portfolio Stack Up In 2016?
It’s been two years since I sold all of my Canadian dividend stocks and switched to a two-ETF investing solution in my RRSP. I love the hands-off approach, capturing market returns minus a very small fee, plus the instant diversification of owning thousands of stocks from around the world with just two funds. The downside…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: More Books To Give Away Edition
We had such an incredible response to our Victory Lap Retirement book giveaway last week that I thought we should run another book giveaway contest! This one is easy. We’re using Rafflecopter once again to collect entries and the winner will receive his or her choice of books from the bookshelf of my own personal finance home library…
Read MoreFinancial Planning For Couples: What Are You Worth?
Couples become financially secure by building their net worth. Net worth is calculated by subtracting your liabilities (what you owe) from your assets (what you own). It is a snapshot of where you currently stand. There are lots of net worth calculators online, such as this one from Get Smarter About Money or, you can…
Read MoreFrom The Boomer & Echo Mailbag: Help! I Overspent My Christmas Budget
Q. Once again, I spent way over my Christmas budget. How can I prevent that from happening next year? The financial hangover left by Christmas spending is all too familiar. Every year you resolve to stick to your holiday budget and every year you find yourself caught up in a marathon of spontaneous and extravagant…
Read MoreUsing Monte Carlo Simulations In Your Retirement Planning
Wouldn’t it be nice for our retirement planning purposes if stocks consistently gave us eight to 10 percent returns each year? After all, that’s what stock markets have delivered on average over the very long term. Indeed, between 1935 and 2016 U.S. stocks returned 11.4 percent annually, Canadian stocks returned 9.6 percent annually, and international…
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