Archive for September 2016
From The Boomer & Echo Mailbag: Retirement Planning For Single Women
Q. I am a single woman, by choice. So much financial advice is written for couples. How can I invest for my retirement when I have to cover all my living expenses by myself? Women are already at a disadvantage when it comes to saving for retirement. They often face lifestyle and economic issues that…
Read MoreFinancial Planning For Couples: Protecting What You Have
Insurance is one of those expenses we all hate to pay for, but we are very glad we have it if we ever have to make a claim. Auto insurance is a necessity for all drivers and if you have a mortgage on your house, home owner’s insurance is a requirement by your lender. All…
Read MoreAdvice To Millennials: Starting Your Investing Journey
I was born in 1979 – a year that places me at the tail-end of Generation X but still makes me cool enough to give advice to Millennials about investing. My mom worked in a bank and encouraged me at an early age to save and invest. I started investing in mutual funds at 18…
Read MoreDo You Live Next Door To A Millionaire? Or Is It You?
Two decades ago, Thomas Stanley and William Danko set out to interview wealthy people for their best-selling book The Millionaire Next Door. They started out in the affluent neighbourhoods on streets dotted with extravagant homes with luxury vehicles parked out front and in-ground swimming pools in the backyards. They were shocked to find out that the…
Read MoreDo What You Love (On The Side)
I’m a big believer in having multiple streams of income. A side-hustle can help you reach your financial goals faster and fuel your entrepreneurial spirit. Do what you love, on the side, and you can strike the perfect balance between entrepreneurship and a steady paycheque. When I left my job in the busy hospitality industry…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Air Miles Class Action Edition
It was only a matter of time. Air Miles has faced plenty of criticism in recent months, not just for instituting an expiry policy, but mishandling communication to its collectors about the new policy, automatically defaulting existing reward miles into their ‘Dream Miles’ category, not allowing members to transfer miles between their Dream and Cash Miles accounts, hiding…
Read More5 Ways To Stretch Your Retirement Dollars
The latest StatsCanada income trend shows that 6.2% of seniors living in a family, and 28.5% of those living alone are classified as low income. Okay, these 2012 figures are somewhat dated, but there is no denying that many retirees are living paycheque to paycheque. For those with little savings and no company pension and…
Read MoreRevisiting The Tax Free Savings Account
In 2008, then Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced the Tax Free Savings Account. “We already have a retirement plan. This is a savings plan for everything else,” he explained. Perhaps that comment, as well as the name of the plan (not to mention the heavy advertising by banks), is the reason that most people…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Vancouver Real Estate Edition
Greed has a powerful effect on asset bubbles as speculators and insiders try to exploit every available loophole to profit from rising prices. First we had mortgage brokers behaving badly. Then we had shadow-flipping real estate agents. Now The Globe and Mail has exposed a new scheme where a Vancouver real estate speculator is buying homes financed with investor money from…
Read MoreA Twist On The RRSP vs. Mortgage Debate
It’s an age-old financial dilemma. Should you use your extra savings to pay down the mortgage or contribute to your RRSP? A simple answer is to compare the expected return from your investments to the interest rate on your mortgage. In today’s low rate environment, where mortgage rates sit well below 3 percent, many assume…
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