Personal finance for singles looking to finance their dreams.
It’s expensive out there. Staying at home with a cup of homemade coffee, snuggled under my favourite throw, and reading a long-anticipated book is a cheaper use of my time. And it’s just as satisfying to me as anything I pay for outside my home. I don’t know about you but it’s expensive to leave […]
Today, I read a very sad story about a 76-year old man who sold his home when his mortgage payment went up. Presumably, the story was about the impact of rising mortgage rates and the lack of affordable housing in Calgary. In reality, what I took from the article was an appreciation of just how […]
People like to talk about their salary when asked about how much they earn. This is hardly surprising, since annual salary is nearly always a larger amount than what you take home. Net income is what you received after taxes and deductions have been subtracted from your gross salary. Whether you get direct deposit and […]
Credit cards are an exceptionally useful tool if used correctly. However, they can also cause great financial harm when the basic rules of use are ignored. There are two terms that you should know: deadbeat and revolver. Deadbeats do not carry credit card balances from one month to the next and they reap the benefits […]
Many people think of retirement as a function of age. They think that it arrives at the age of 65 or 70, and that retiring sooner means an “early retirement”. To my mind, this is wrong. Your retirement date is a function of your money. If you don’t have enough money in the bank to […]
Regret has no place in your financial plan. You’re not perfect and you will make mistakes with your money. Once you’ve identified a money mistake, don’t spend your time regretting it. Simply make a course correction to stop making that mistake and move forward. The past cannot be changed so learn from your mistakes and […]
You should be lowering your MERs, i.e. management expense ratios whenever it makes sense to do so. In short, the MER is the price that you pay for the investment product that you’re buying. It’s a percentage of your investment that is paid to the company that put the product on the market. MERs can […]
I love money. I always have, mainly because it allows me to buy all sorts of things. Hard money is good too, but easy money is better. Hard money is the kind you have to sweat for. It’s what shows up in your paycheque after you’ve traded away a portion of your very precious, very […]
“I have too much money during this time of emergency!” No One Ever If you’ve been paying any kind of attention, you’re no doubt aware that natural disasters have touched many people’s lives in fundamental ways. Threats of fire forced the evacuation of the city of Yellowknife in the summer of 2023. A wildfire in […]
This week, I gave myself a $600 annual raise. No, I didn’t get a promotion or take a different job. Instead, I simply increased my passive income by buying some bank stock. As I’ve said before, salary and income need not be the same thing. There are always ways to increase your income even if […]