Around the Blogosphere

I write a lot about seeking financial independence rather than early retirement. That’s intentional. I don’t necessarily want to retire – not anytime soon – but what fires me up is the idea of working on my own terms. My goal is to be financially free by age 45. That means I’d be free to…

“Shipping and delivery comes to $160? Forget it!” That was my reaction to the idea of placing an online order for Ikea furniture to be delivered to our home in Lethbridge. Besides the high price tag, the items would also take weeks to arrive. I had to find another option. You see, we don’t have…

In a normal interest rate environment, fixed rate mortgage tend to be more expensive than variable rate mortgages. Borrowers pay a premium for predictability – knowing exactly what their interest rate and mortgage payment will be for a five-year period. For that reason, a common strategy for saving money on your mortgage has been to…

A study published in the Canadian Tax Journal raised doubts about the effectiveness of Tax Free Savings Accounts and whether TFSAs really help Canadians save more. The study showed that one-third of TFSA contributions would have otherwise gone into RRSPs – something the authors called a displacement effect. Furthermore, the remaining 66 percent of contributions…

Greetings from Ireland! We’re on day 11 of our two-week stay on a beautiful farm in Kilkenny, Ireland. Our trip has been amazing so far, with stays in Edinburgh and Inverness, a day trip to the Isle of Skye, and an overnight road-trip to Killarney National Park. Along the way we’ve visited castles and cathedrals,…

We leave for Edinburgh this week, the first stop in our epic 32-day summer break in Scotland and Ireland. As we get closer to departure I’m starting to realize that I don’t know what I don’t know. For instance, I forgot to select our seats until recently (long story!) and now the flight is close…

The financial news outlet MarketWatch has been collecting ideas for a feature it calls the best new ideas in retirement. The goal is to explore the most innovative thinking on the subject, from how we save for it, to how we spend it, to what it all means. “Preparing mentally for retirement may be as…

It’s graduation season for university and college students across North America. The biggest story of the week came from tiny Morehouse College in Atlanta, where Morehouse’s commencement speaker and tech billionaire Robert Smith pledged to pay off the student loan debt of the entire Morehouse Class of 2019. Smith’s generous gift will wipe away student…

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board manages $392 billion in assets on behalf of some 20 million Canadian contributors and beneficiaries. Operated at arms-length of the federal government, the CPPIB is the 11th largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (Norway’s trillion dollar pension fund leads the way). While questions about Canada Pension Plan solvency…

We’ve heard arguments that misconduct only happens with “a few bad apples”, while the rest of the industry is full of good guys and gals looking out for their clients’ best interests.