As hard as it may be to believe, the holidays are only a few weeks away. Thanksgiving will be here in another couple of weeks. (Or in November if you’re in the USA.) Then it’s another few short weeks until we celebrate Christmas, or Hannukkah, or Kwaanza, or Festivus. While the holidays will be different […]
The management expense ratio (MER) is the percentage of your portfolio that you pay to the company that sells you the index fund, exchange traded fund (ETF) or mutual fund that you hold in your portfolio. The fees for these products must be disclosed to potential buyers. Thanks to the wonder that is the internet, […]
The silver linings are there if you look for them, even in a pandemic. We all know that COVID-19 has changed things in a fundamental way at a societal level. However, as with most things in life, its impact on individual lives is different depending on one’s access to money and resources. Over the past […]
If I can impart one nugget of wisdom to you today, it is this. You need not make every mistake yourself in order to learn a lesson. You’re always free to learn from others. I’m not promising that you’ll avoid making your own mistakes – that’s utterly impossible. What I am promising is that some […]
Not a single one among us is born knowing how to use money perfectly. Our skill with money comes from making mistakes and learning from them. For my part, I’ve made several notable mistakes with money over the years. I’ve written before about how I failed to take action with my investment plan for 5 […]
Tempus fungit… which is Latin for time flies. And boy does it ever! In 2006, I was fortunate enough to pay off my house. Unfortunately, I wasn’t smart enough to immediately turn my former mortgage payments into investment contributions. Instead, I didn’t start dollar-cost-averaging into the stock market until 2011. This was on one of […]
Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard people talking about the right of offset. As I understand it, the bank who lends you money has the right to take money out of your bank account, held at the same bank, if you don’t pay your debts on time. Wait! What? Start from the beginning, Blue […]
How are you doing today? I hope that you’re ignoring the gyrations of the stock market and going about your business of self-isolating, washing your hands, and self-distancing. They might not be the most exciting activities, but they will flatten the curve and help to avoid overburdening our hospitals. As I approach my golden years, […]
First and foremost, I am not an economist. I write this article as someone old enough to remember H1N1, SARS, the Great Financial Crisis, and the DotCom crash. I’m quite certain that there were other economic challenges earlier in my life but I was young enough, or naive enough, to take no notice of their […]
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. YOLO – You only live once. These are the catchphrases that encapsulate our relentless demand for instant gratification. We want what we want when we want it…ideally sooner. And let’s face facts – it feels really great to have our desires satisfied. Who doesn’t like immediate gratification? This week, […]