Weekend Reading: The Canada Project Edition

The Canada Project, a survey launched by Maclean’s to mark Canada’s 150th birthday, explores what Canadians love about their country, and what they’d like to see improve. There’s some fascinating information coming out of the survey: how we feel about travel and transportation, about our patriotic drinking habits, and why we hate Nickelback.

Several other Canada Project topics caught my attention. One article explained why Canadians choose price over brand loyalty, with only Gen-Xers and recent immigrants likely to pay more for a label name.

Another piece that deserves further exploration has to do with income equality and why everyone feels like they’re in the middle class. What the survey revealed was that feeling middle class was less about household income (Prime Minister Trudeau described the typical middle-class Canadian family as one with $90,000 in household income) and more about values such as having children, a good education, secure employment, or living in a safe neighbourhood.

Moving on from the Canada Project to another big data picture compiled by The Globe and Mail. This project took data from a survey on intergenerational income mobility and determined that where you grew up affects your income in adulthood.

“The place you come from is very likely to affect your odds of future success, perhaps as much or more than your family, your culture or anything else in your life.”

This Week’s Recap: 

On Monday I broke down how we save for a spend-y summer season.

On Wednesday Marie channeled her inner Maslow and wrote the hierarchy of financial needs.

And on Friday we opened the Boomer & Echo mailbag and answered a reader question about withholding taxes on foreign investments.

Join our growing Facebook community with nearly 4,600 other members. We’re also on Twitter and Instagram.

Here’s also a bit of a freelancing update. I’m back with the Toronto Star writing a monthly column on banking and investing. I’ve also joined the PC Financial team and will write a monthly money column for their blog. Watch for those before the end of the month.

Weekend Reading:

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made headlines when it agreed to make a sizeable investment in troubled Canadian mortgage lender Home Capital Group.

Do all financial advisors turn their clients into better investors? Jason Zweig says sometimes the ‘smart money’ is dumb, too.

If you’re starting to think about retirement here’s a look at two key sources of income to expect.

The time has come (actually, it’s long overdue). The case for banning embedded commissions on mutual fund investments.

One of the drawbacks of ETFs is that investors get charged a commission to buy and sell them and so it’s not ideal to invest small amounts. Dan Bortolotti answers a reader question about how to keep costs low and still invest regularly.

Here’s a great interview with Morgan Housel on what you need to know to be a successful investor. I enjoyed this bit:

My entire net worth is now literally a checking account, a house, and those two stocks (the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index and Berkshire Hathaway). I don’t think it needs to be more complicated than that. The more complicated your portfolio is, the more knobs you have to fiddle with, and the more knobs you have to fiddle with the more opportunities you have to make regrettable, emotion-based decisions.

Millionaire Teacher Andrew Hallam is on a mission to protect investors around the world from predatory investment schemes.

This video explains how to spread your savings across several different categories to maximize your CDIC deposit protection:

This is rich. A new study suggests parental spending is to blame for escalating student debt. Huh? It seems parents are up to their eyeballs in debt and can’t afford to save for their children’s college fund.

As rates rise, Canadians in debt face risk ‘beyond historical experience’.

How living on one income made this blogger rethink her views on money.

Aeroplan and Air Canada are breaking up. Ellen Roseman explains why Aeroplan’s future leaves travellers up in the air.

The have-nots of housing are mad as hell and praying for a real estate crash so they can finally enter the market.

This homeowner was hit with an extra $10,000 penalty for breaking his mortgage early.

The end of car ownership? How ride sharing and self-driving vehicles will redefine our relationship with cars.

An interesting perspective on transferring wealth – why I’m giving my children their inheritance now:

“I will not waste a minute worrying about how they are going to spend the money. And I am glad we gave it to them.”

Finally, the accounting firm that employs Mark Goodfield, aka The Blunt Bean Counter, is conducting a survey on wealth management and would appreciate your input. The survey takes just 3-5 minutes to complete.