Weekend Reading: Happy Thanksgiving Edition

This week Tangerine unveiled details of its long-awaited first credit card; the Tangerine Money-back card. Expected to launch in early 2016, this no-fee MasterCard will offer 2 percent cash back in two spending categories of your choice, and the option to have your cash-back deposited into a Tangerine Savings Account to unlock an additional 2 percent category.

In other rewards news, Capital One made some ground-breaking changes to its Aspire Travel cards by eliminating the tiered structure for redeeming points and allowing partial redemptions, for example the ability to redeem half of an overseas flight.

But before you go off and apply for what might already be the best value travel rewards card in Canada, you should know that in a few weeks Capital One will introduce a new 40,000 point early spend bonus on its flagship Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard, worth up to $400 in travel rewards, when you spend $1,000 on the card in the first three months. Check my Rewards Cards Canada blog for more details on when that offer gets released to the public.

While Capital One enhances its rewards program, TD is devaluing its TD Travel Rewards Program – which affects TD First Class Visa Infinite cardholders. Starting November 15th, it will take 250 points to equal $1 in travel savings – a 20 percent reduction in value from the previous rewards structure.

This week’s recap:

On Monday I wrote about the worst financial advice ever given to Millennials.

On Wednesday Marie started a new series – financial management by the decade; a look at the teen years.

On Friday I shared a conversation about Gen Y money.

Weekend Reading:

Financial Uproar wrote about a topic familiar to Boomer and me: Should parents buy a house for their kids while they’re at college?

Former Nortel employee Alan Whitton says his biggest purchase was not his house, but a pension buyback.

Many of us have our financial awakening after experiencing some kind of shock to our finances, whether it was losing a job, coming up short for rent, or facing an unexpected tax bill. Carl Richards explains three ways to trigger your financial wake-up call without experiencing the trauma of an actual shock.

Money Time blogger John Ryan looks at the difference between needs versus wants, which often lies in-between “survival versus luxury”.

An argument against the core-and-explore investing strategy, James Osborne says the “explore” part of your portfolio should come with a warning label:

“WARNING: THE ACTIVITY YOU ARE ABOUT TO UNDERTAKE IS ALL BUT GUARANTEED TO INCREASE YOUR PORTFOLIO COSTS, INCREASE TAX DRAG AND REDUCE YOUR LONG-TERM RETURNS. YOU ARE EXTREMELY LIKELY TO DO A TERRIBLE JOB AT TIMING THIS TRADE AND YOU SHOULD RECONSIDER IF STAYING IN A LONG-TERM POSITION WILL BE BETTER FOR YOUR INVESTMENT RESULTS.”

Many hedge finds have a fee structure called 2-and-20, where investors are charged a fixed 2 percent, no matter how well the fund performs, and a 20 percent performance fee for any profit over-and-above its benchmark. The Globe and Mail’s David O’Leary explains why performance fees are a scam.

The Motley Fool’s Morgan Housel looks at the tyranny of the calendar, and argues that one-year returns are a useless metric for measuring investor performance.

A Wealth of Common Sense blogger Ben Carlson pulls out some Frank Underwood, House of Cards, wisdom on how to prevent the next crash.

Helaine Olen says financial advice aimed specifically at women sounds like a great idea, but misses the mark.

Jason Heath answers a reader question about retiring in a down market.

Cait Flanders takes a creative choose-you-own-adventure approach to her finances.

Finally, a 15-year veteran banker offers up 10 pieces of advice about money.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone!

8 Comments

  1. Jim on October 10, 2015 at 4:19 pm

    Re: TD First Class – same value maintained if booking via Expedia via TD, which I always do anyways. Only worth less if booking another way. The positive tradeoff is medical insurance coverage increased from 15 to 21 days, and no longer have to redeem in 10,000 point increments. Also, for anyone with a TD all inclusive chequing account, the card is free, unlike other similar cards with an annual fee

    • Douglas on October 11, 2015 at 4:54 am

      Re TD First Class: I believe the card is only free if you maintain at all times $5000 in the TD All inclusive chequing account, otherwise a fee is imposed.

      • Jim on October 11, 2015 at 10:51 am

        I always keep a minimum $5000 as cash part of my overall portfolio, so not a big deal

  2. Karen on October 11, 2015 at 6:50 am

    On the Tangerine MasterCard coming up can one get the extra 2% category if you put the savings into a tax free savings account as well as a regular savings acct?

    • Echo on October 11, 2015 at 9:26 am

      Hi Karen, I asked Tangerine that question on Twitter. I’ll post their response here once they get back to me.

      Thanks!

      • Echo on October 11, 2015 at 2:26 pm

        Hi Karen, here’s what Tangerine had to say:

        “Great suggestion! Currently regular Savings Accts are the only option to accept Cashback – registered accts cannot.”

  3. John Ryan on October 11, 2015 at 7:57 am

    Thanks so much for the link!

    In terms of credit cards, I was amazed at how much better they are down here south of the border. I have a 2% cash back card (on all purchases). When I was up in Canada about the best card I could find was MBNA’s 1% cashback…

  4. Big Cajun Man (AW) on October 11, 2015 at 1:46 pm

    Thanks for the inclusion, I was lucky I was able to make the pension purchase.

Leave a Comment





Join More Than 10,000 Subscribers!

Sign up now and get our free e-Book- Financial Management by the Decade - plus new financial tips and money stories delivered to your inbox every week.