Many Canadians have a reasonable degree of net worth. Millionaire households are not that unusual if you consider the value of housing, especially if you have been a homeowner for 20 years or more, which would be the case for many who are approaching retirement....
Read MoreDividends and Dates When I worked at a discount brokerage, I routinely fielded questions about dividends, in particular, the record date and the ex-dividend date (often abbreviated as “ex-date”). Investors would often get confused by these two dates and the impact they would have on their...
Read MoreMy dad’s birthday was September 2. He died a little over four years ago just short of age 89. Thanks to his thoughtful approach to financial matters and the careful executorship of my brother, Rob, we four siblings received our inheritances in a timely manner. What...
Read MoreYou have had it. You cannot stand even one more winter of shovelling snow or fearing the loss of your fingers and toes from frostbite. You are going to retire to Panama, or Malaysia, or Portugal, or… There are lots of lists on the internet...
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Bringing a new baby into your home is an exciting but anxiety-inducing time. There is so much change, especially if it is the first baby. There are also lots of financial implications. In retrospect, I’m not sure how we managed to accomplish it when we...
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Debt is not a fun topic. Well, maybe it is if you like engaging in stories like those of the Four Yorkshiremen, later popularized by Monty Python, who sought to outdo each other with their personal histories of poverty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdlkunflRs Poverty and debt are not, of course,...
Read MoreAs I write this at the end of May 2022, we are now about a month past the standard tax-filing deadline in Canada. Depending on the results of your return and your stage in life, you may have been contributing to or withdrawing from any...
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As I wrote on my website, one of the major reasons I began to work in financial planning is because I saw multiple DIY portfolios that were not founded on any rational approach to investment planning. Many seemed to view investing as a variation on...
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A couple of years ago, David Bach, with John David Mann, published the book The Latte Factor. I haven’t read the book, so this is not a review. But looking at the table of contents, it appears that the book is not simply about investing...
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This is the third of four blog posts I intend to write on the election platforms of the national parties that had seats in the House of Commons at dissolution. I exclude the Bloc Quebecois because they do not appoint candidates outside of Quebec. In...
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