Posts Tagged ‘Links’

Even though I switched to a simple, passive, two-ETF investment portfolio, I still like to check-in on my returns from time-to-time and compare them to other benchmarks and strategies. Call it my competitive nature, or maybe a nervous tick. Let’s take a look at the Blackrock (iShares) website, as it has the most current year-to-date returns…

Here at Boomer & Echo we’re big fans of the robo-advisor model that gives investors the chance to build a low cost, diversified portfolio of ETFs and not worry about the hassle of buying, selling, and rebalancing on their own. Just set up regular contributions to your account and the robo-advisor allocates your dollars into a portfolio of ETFs…

My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary with a trip to Vancouver last week. We found round-trip flights from Calgary for less than $300 and then decided to splurge by staying at a boutique hotel downtown. The location was perfect, as we could walk everywhere from Stanley Park to Granville Island. We took a free shuttle…

The big news out of Ottawa this week saw the federal government taking steps to cool the housing market by introducing a financial stress test to all insured mortgages and closing a tax loophole for foreign real estate buyers. Starting October 17th all home buyers must qualify at the bank’s posted rate, or the Bank…

Canada Savings Bonds are still a thing? The legacy savings program that was built to fund the Second World War is now in its 70th year of sales and costs the federal government $60 million per year to run. But savings bonds that once paid double-digit interest rates now yield a paltry 0.5 percent in today’s low rate environment.…

It was only a matter of time. Air Miles has faced plenty of criticism in recent months, not just for instituting an expiry policy, but mishandling communication to its collectors about the new policy, automatically defaulting existing reward miles into their ‘Dream Miles’ category, not allowing members to transfer miles between their Dream and Cash Miles accounts, hiding…

Greed has a powerful effect on asset bubbles as speculators and insiders try to exploit every available loophole to profit from rising prices. First we had mortgage brokers behaving badly. Then we had shadow-flipping real estate agents. Now The Globe and Mail has exposed a new scheme where a Vancouver real estate speculator is buying homes financed with investor money from…

Back-to-school season is doubly busy for me as our kids enter grade two and pre-school respectively while at my University day job we’re getting ready to welcome back thousands of students to campus this weekend. We all know the cost of post-secondary education has risen dramatically in the last decade and so students (and their…

A decade ago Canada launched Own the Podium to prepare its amateur athletes to reach medal finishes at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It later expanded to include a division for summer sports called Road to Excellence. The program has been incredibly successful, with Canada winning a record 14 gold medals at the Vancouver games,…

I consider my financial freedom 45 plan to be aggressive, yet attainable. Reaching financial independence at a relatively young age requires discipline, sacrifice, and a lot of savings mixed in with a dash of frugality. But my plan pales in comparison to certain members of the financial independence / early retirement crowd who aim to leave…