Protecting Your Identity
Security issues hardly ever cross our minds when we hand over our debit or credit cards in a restaurant or to make a purchase, but identity theft and identity fraud are becoming huge problems. Protecting your identity and personal information is harder than ever before. Equifax recently suffered a massive data breach that impacted approximately…
Read MoreHow Often Should You Service Your Vehicle?
How often should you service your vehicle? This table shows the difference between the owner’s manual recommendations and the guidelines offered by Mr. Lube:
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Nobel Prize Edition
One of the most influential books I’ve ever read was Nudge by behavioural economist Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The book is all about subtlety or gently steering people into making better choices to improve their health, wealth, and happiness. Policymakers around the world caught on to his groundbreaking research, which have been widely applied…
Read MoreTurning Your LIRA Into Retirement Income
A reader suggested I expand on my post on converting RRSPs to RRIFs to include locked-in plans. So here it is. Thank you, Frank. What is a LIRA? First, let’s review. Employees enrolled in a registered pension plan who remain with their company until the prescribed retirement age will receive income for life from the…
Read MoreWhat Hobbies Are On Your Retirement Bucket List?
Remember going to a craft and hobby show, or looking through a magazine, and seeing in your mind’s eye all those great projects you could make? Or watching the sports channel and dreaming about aces, holes-in-one, or the salmon you could catch? When most of us imagine retirement, our minds wander to what we’ll get…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Thanksgiving Edition
Our inbox is overflowing with questions about investing, so while we answer those individually we’re also fairly positive these are burning questions for many of our readers. Look for more investing posts in the coming weeks covering topics such as rebalancing, tax-efficiency, safe withdrawal rates, asset allocation, and much more. For now, enjoy this latest…
Read MoreWhat’s Not To Love About ETFs?
The availability of exchange-traded funds is one of the best things to happen to investors in the last twenty years. What’s not to love about ETFs? Investors can get broad diversification on the cheap with just two or three funds. This simplicity is what tipped the scales for me nearly three years ago when I…
Read MoreBuilding Your Wealth: What You Need To Know Before Investing In ETFs
For most Canadians, mutual funds are still the mainstay of their investment portfolios. However, many investors are angry and frustrated with the high fees that are being charged on mutual funds that rarely match let alone outperform the market. Investing in ETFs seems like a good alternative. In some respects, ETFs are similar to mutual…
Read MoreWhy Don’t You Have Bonds In Your Portfolio?
Confession time: I’ve never held bonds in my portfolio. I didn’t own bonds when my portfolio was filled with Canadian dividend stocks, and there’s no bonds in it today. Instead I’ve opted for a two-ETF all-equity portfolio. I don’t have anything against bonds, in fact if you were to ask me to build you a…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Renting Is Bad Advice Edition
I remember three years ago reading then MoneySense Editor-in-Chief Duncan Hood’s confession that he – a lifetime renter – got caught up in a bidding war and purchased a home in downtown Toronto. I remember reading how elated he felt when his final offer secured his dream home, as if overpaying by tens of thousands,…
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