There Are Too Many ETFs It wasn’t that many years ago when I was barely aware that Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) existed. After a few years, the benefits of ETFs began to appear. They were a remarkably low-cost way to get broad-market exposure to the world’s investment...
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In the YouTube video A Day in the Life of a Financial Advisor – Funny or Truth, a woman sits down with a financial advisor, unknowingly burdened with misconceptions and a dose of naïveté about personal finance. Her questions and concerns provide a helpful reflection...
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“A million dollars isn’t what it used to be.” Even with low inflation that saying is true. Depending on where you live, your home may easily be worth over a million dollars. To my surprise, there are over three hundred $1,000,000+ listings within the city...
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Meet Lee the DIY Investor Lee is a committed DIY investor who has been carefully building an investment portfolio over the years. His financial assets include a wide range of investments that he has assembled to meet his long-term goals. Like many DIY investors, though, Lee...
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Bank reputations are “in the toilet” The recent CBC Marketplace story on the sales culture inside the banks has proven to be a cautionary tale when it comes to using the banks for transacting in your financial business. As for the topic of this blog post,...
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In light of the recent story by CBC’s Marketplace (video, article) about the pressures bank employees face to meet sales targets, Canadians must become more vigilant when navigating financial products and services. I offer the following suggestions to help you protect your interests and ensure...
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The Canadian Retirement Dilemma As a matter of public policy, Canada has built several safety nets to help mitigate poverty for retirees. Among the most well-known are the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS). Lesser known, but available to lower-income Canadians is the...
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Norman Rothery, The Stingy Investor Norman Rothery of Stingy Investor fame, publisher of The Rothery Report, and frequent contributor to The Globe & Mail and the Canadian MoneySaver, provides a lot of free and paid resources. Among the free resources is his annual “Periodic Table” of...
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Last week, in my 224th blog post, I introduced Gregory (Greg) and Olivia, a young married couple who had bought a house in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). They considered two common ways to reduce the interest they would pay over the life of their...
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Recently, I’ve been thinking about saving versus investing or the idea of engaging in “risky” investments versus “safe” interest-bearing deposit products. This idea came to mind again because of the findings presented in my last blog post that financial planners in Japan did not tend...
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