The third wave of personal finance is about living your best life. New books and blogs are coming out that encourage people to figure out how they want to spend their time once they have achieved financial independence. The personal finance realm is no longer solely about working super-hard for a fixed number of years […]
Wow! The first week of October 2022 is in the history books. That happened quickly, didn’t it? This is a good time to start thinking about what you’d like to achieve in 2023, which will be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. For us Canadians, this weekend is Thanksgiving. If you can, find […]
As I understand things, people with variable-rate mortgages should be very worried about their minimum mortgage payments increasing. They are facing trigger rates on their mortgages. These rates force people to make higher minimum mortgage payments. A variable rate mortgage (VRM) payment covers interest and principal. However, when the mortgage rates increase on VRMs, the […]
Welcome back! How are you doing? What’s been troubling you financially? Maybe it’s time to take a breath? It’s been kind of a crazy time for the past few months, hasn’t it? All the headlines and media platforms are screaming about inflation and debt and financial turmoil. No fun for anyone, right? They’ve amped up […]
There’s a subset of FIRE adherents who religiously follow the BRRRR method that has been made famous by the good folks at Bigger Pockets. BRRRR is an acronym which stands for Buy Renovate Rent Refinance Repeat. Essentially, an investor buys a property, renovates it, and puts a renter in it. Renovations increase the value of […]
One of the perennial questions in the sphere of personal finance is whether it is better to invest or pay off debt. The answer is nuanced and there is no one right answer for anyone. Money has to be invested in the stock market for as long as possible. Time is required so that capital […]
I am an amateur gardener. Essentially, this means that I don’t know what I’m doing but I do it with enthusiasm. Each year, I pick my tried and true favourite annual – petunias – and then I buy new plants that I want to try. My winters are spent watching various gardening channels on YouTube […]
Today, I’m encouraging you to spend your money on what you love. The beauty of personal finance is that it is uniquely specific to what each individual needs and wants. There are general, overarching financial needs that everyone has – think emergency funds, retirement accounts, and just-for-fun money. Everyone who is alive needs to have […]
For those who don’t know, F.I.R.E. is the acronym for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It’s a financial point of view that has gained traction in the past 10-15 years. People live significantly below their means in order to grow their money as fast as possible until they no longer need to work. Once they hit […]
If you’ve been paying attention at all, then there’s no way that you’ve missed the impact of inflation at the grocery store. Food has gotten more expensive! One of the few ways to combat the increase in prices is to make each grocery dollar stretch a little bit further. Enter meal-planning. One of my friends […]