Around the Blogosphere

I’ve never heard so much interest in GICs before this year, but with stock and bond markets down and interest rates up it’s no surprise that investors are looking for a safe and profitable place to park their savings. Just two years ago, a five-year GIC was paying a paltry 1.5% interest, while a two-year…

One question retirees face when setting up their retirement income plan is whether to convert their RRSP to a RRIF or to make withdrawals directly from their RRSP. There are pros and cons to each approach, depending on your age, how much income you require, whether you have a spouse, and where your RRSP account…

Many of my clients and blog readers are looking to change their investing strategy to a simple indexing approach using a single asset allocation ETF. This can make a lot of sense if you want to reduce fees, improve diversification, and simplify your portfolio. Indeed, investing complexity has been solved with all-in-one ETF products. Making…

I’ve written before about how buying new vehicles every few years can be a major wealth destroyer. Indeed, next to housing costs, a car payment (or two) can easily be your largest monthly expense.  A recent Globe & Mail article (subs) by Rob Carrick caught my attention when he wrote the average monthly car payment…

I mentioned we are building a new house, which we hope will be finished by spring 2023. It was a stressful time to sign a purchase agreement with a builder. We wanted to arrange our financing so that the new house purchase was not contingent on us selling our existing home (been there, done that,…

The self-improvement market is estimated to be worth more than $10 billion in the U.S. and $40 billion globally. Indeed, there’s no shortage of books, blogs, and online courses designed to boost your productivity and life satisfaction. Hey, if morning routines, vision boards, and setting smart goals gets you motivated to make positive changes in…

Welcome to my latest edition of Weekend Reading. I’m writing from our flat in London, whilst enjoying a coffee on this beautiful Saturday morning. We’re on day four of our 24 day trip to the U.K. that will soon take us up to the Lake District and then into and around Scotland.  London is an…

I got a three-month head start on working from home after I quit my full-time job in December 2019. At first, I worked from a laptop at the dining room table. It wasn’t ideal, especially when our kids were sent home for online school. We later carved out a section of the kids’ playroom and…

I recently coached a client through the process of transferring her existing RRSP, TFSA, and non-registered investment accounts away from high fee managed mutual funds and over to a self-directed investing platform. The goal was to reduce investment fees from an average of 2% on her balanced portfolio down to 0.25% with a balanced asset…