Personal Finance
Should Banks Have A Hand In Promoting Financial Literacy?
The financial services industry takes a keen interest in promoting financial literacy as a do-good service for Canadians. November is Financial Literacy month, and the big banks and their PR machine are busy pushing out survey after survey explaining why Canadians are struggling to save. The situation is dire, according to many economists and financial…
Read MoreYour Financial Plan Is A Compass
It wasn’t that long ago I was buried in debt and living beyond my means. Back then, financial planning was about when my next paycheque would arrive, what bills were due next, and how much I had left to spend at the bar. I remember checking my bank balance after midnight on paydays just to…
Read MoreStop Asking $3 Questions. Start Asking $30,000 Questions
Frugality can only take you so far on the road to financial independence. That’s because there’s a limit to how much you can save. We all need a place to live, food to eat, Netflix to watch. It’s right there on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Strip your budget down to the bare bones and you’re…
Read MoreWhy Don’t I Pay Off My Mortgage?
Followers of this blog know that I tend to focus on saving and investing rather than trying to pay off my mortgage faster. Indeed, our household assets are projected to exceed $1 million this year but we’ve still got a $200,000 mortgage to contend with. So why don’t I make it a priority to pay…
Read MoreAddition By Subscription Subtraction
Anyone born before 1990 should remember Columbia House – the “world’s largest record club” – whose claim to fame was offering dirt-cheap music upfront to members who joined its mail-order subscription service. The company made billions by using something called ‘negative option billing’, a process by which the customer agrees to have goods or services…
Read MoreGive It Away Now (A Modern Potlatch)
Long before Marie Kondo had us magically tidying up our homes, keeping only the items that ‘spark joy’, the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast were giving it all away through an elaborate ceremony called a potlatch. The literal word “potlatch” means “to give away,” and it was the desire of every chief to…
Read MoreWorthwhile Fees To Pay
There are some fees we just love to hate and so we try to avoid them at all costs. Whether it’s bank fees, credit card annual fees, or late fees at the library, the idea of voluntarily paying a fee is anathema to anyone with a frugal mind. But some fees can be worthwhile if…
Read MoreBudgeting Basics For Your Financial Plan
Usually when someone reaches out looking for financial advice they want to jump right into investment selections or retirement planning. In many cases I walk them back to budgeting basics. Specifically, how much income do you bring in and where does all your money go? Without answering these two questions it’s nearly impossible to make…
Read More10 Financial Lessons To Share With Friends
The personal finance community can be a bit of an echo chamber, reinforcing and repeating the same ideas on how to save, invest, and spend our money. This sort of tribalism can be intimidating for outsiders who are eager to learn but afraid to ask questions or know where to start, especially when it comes…
Read More8 Habits That Are Killing Your Retirement Dreams
A growing number of Canadians plan on working longer because they haven’t saved enough for retirement. We see it at a macro-level; Canadian households owe a record $1.69 in debt for every dollar of disposable income, meanwhile the personal savings rate in Canada stands at a paltry 3.4 percent. There are plenty of reasons why…
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