Around the Blogosphere

I grew up in Calgary in the 1980s and became a huge Calgary Flames fan at a young age (’89 baby!). The Flames organization, like many Canadian sports teams, struggled in the 1990s as the league expanded and the Canadian dollar sunk below 70 cents (player wages are paid in U.S. dollars). By 1999, attendance…

Welcome to our latest edition of weekend reading. We’ve got a busy week ahead, with a Calgary meet-up at the new Tangerine cafe on 17th Avenue, the Canadian Financial Summit (where you can learn more about my four-minute investment portfolio), and a Twitter chat about TFSAs. In addition, I’ll have a new Toronto Star article…

Our kids go back to school next week and so this officially marks the last weekend of summer for parents. We’re very excited to have a brand new elementary school open this year right down the street from us, which means no more early mornings waiting for the bus. Our oldest enters grade three this…

The good folks at Young & Thrifty have put together an awesome initiative called the Canadian Financial Summit. It’s a unique online conference taking place September 14-16 with more than 25 Canadian personal finance experts sharing their insights, tips, and secret money hacks. The conference is completely free to view during that time, or you…

President’s Choice Financial will end its 20-year banking agreement with CIBC beginning November 1st. CIBC, which managed the personal banking services for Loblaws under the PC Financial name, will now take direct control of the roughly $2 million PC Financial bank accounts under the new name – Simplii Financial. PC Financial is keeping its credit…

We started this personal finance blog seven years ago – on August 10, 2010 to be precise. Blog years are like dog years, and seven years is an incredible amount of time to be blogging. We’re still going strong, and that’s in no small part thanks to you, our readers, for continuing to follow along…

Longevity risk, or the risk of outliving your money, is the biggest threat facing the majority of retirees. As gold-plated company pensions slowly disappear, millions of Canadians must carefully manage their retirement nest-eggs (on their own, or with the help of an advisor) to make sure they have enough to meet their needs as they…

It’s vacation time for the next two weeks and while I’ll certainly enjoy the sunshine, and these record setting temperatures, we don’t have any plans to leave southwest Alberta. Yes, that means a staycation, which is perfectly fine with me. So, instead of venturing into B.C. for two weeks, this year we’ll make a few…

This week Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau took aim at a tax strategy used by small businesses and private corporations called income sprinkling. Under current rules, anyone who owns shares in a private corporation can receive dividends without having to actual contribute to the business. Small business owners use dividend sprinkling to pay their lower…

As was widely predicted, the Bank of Canada raised its key interest rate by 0.25 percent last week, sparking interest rate drama across the nation about what this ‘means for you’, along with cries from mortgage professionals to ‘lock-in your rates’. I suppose it’s newsworthy considering the BoC hadn’t raised rates in seven years, but…