Posts by Guest
Aeroplan, Avion, Avios, Adios
This is a guest post by reader Charles Newell, who has recently done some extensive research on redeeming travel rewards. Much has been written on these pages about rewards cards but little with regard to what you can do with the rewards once you’ve got them. In October of 2009 we switched from two CIBC…
Read MoreOur Retirement Philosophy: Lock It Away Until We Need It
This is a guest post from reader Diane Wilson as part of our retirement series. We live in a small town in Northern Ontario. My husband is 74 and has been retired 12 years. I’m 70 and have been retired nine years. When we retired we had no specific plans on what we wanted to…
Read MoreHow This Couple Spends Their Retirement Travelling
This is a guest post from long time reader Gary Daniels. We retired in 2006; I am 66 and my wife Margaret is 63. We started collecting CPP at 60 and of course OAS at 65. We’re now in our 7th year of retirement and we are very happy (although it took us three years to…
Read MoreWhat Is Risk Tolerance, And Why Does It Matter?
One of the most important things to understand about yourself when it comes to finances and investing is your risk tolerance. Your risk tolerance is basically a measure of how much risk you can handle. This includes your financial ability to handle risk, as well as your emotional ability to understand risk. You need to…
Read MoreUnderstanding No Medical Exam Insurance
You see it on TV. No medical exam insurance. No agent will call. Less than a cup of coffee a day. No burdensome medical exam. Happy, well insured people! Surely it can’t be that easy though, is it? If you can get life insurance with no medical exam, why would anyone bother? Why would a…
Read MoreWhy Your Financial Plan Sucks
Everybody should have a financial plan. Very few people do. A scientific poll of me, my girlfriend, and our infant daughter reveals that only 33% of Canadians have a financial plan (margin of error of +/- 2.2%, 19 times out of 20). A financial plan is a broad sketch of how you’ll use money to…
Read MoreTravel Medical Insurance: Don’t Leave Home Without It
While we pay higher taxes than the residents of many other countries, Canadians enjoy a world class public health care system. This system provides for many of our health related needs except when we are traveling outside of the country. A recent study conducted by Bank Of Montreal revealed that 60% of Canadians do not regularly purchase…
Read MoreHow To Prepare Yourself Financially Before You Start A Business
While cutting back on expenses and saving more of your paycheck may gradually increase your pool of wealth over time, the best way to significantly improve your financial situation is by starting a business. Now having a steady job is all fine and good, but one of the biggest problems with having a job and…
Read MoreIs Today’s Divorce Rate Caused By More Women In The Workplace?
I had an argument with a female friend the other day and she has a theory that the divorce rate is so high these days because there are more women in the workplace now than in the last few decades. Before I go any further with this article I want to say that I have…
Read MoreMarket Efficiency: A Glaring Oversight In Passive Strategies
Passive investors have been allowed to define active investing for active investors. I want to even out the discussion from an active investor’s perspective. How Passive are Passive Investments? Let’s first call into question whether passive investing is really passive investing. We’ll start with the American S&P 500 index. Unbeknownst to many investors, the S&P500…
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