The latest Canadian census showed that a growing portion of Canadians are preferring to live single rather than being married or living with a significant other. This probably explains the lack of condo options in popular cities like Toronto and Vancouver where one bedroom condos dominate the city skylines, yet availability remains extremely low. I…
Achieving financial independence isn’t about having enough money in the bank to last you through retirement. Unfortunately that’s how most people think about money. We work so that one day we’ll have enough money in our nest egg to get us through our remaining years. This thinking often leads to many more years worked than…
The Bank of Canada followed through on its promise and raised interest rates by 0.25%. That’s a very small raise and now the bank rate stands at 0.75%. This is still peanuts and far from the norm of 4-5%. Even with this interest rate hike, money still remains very cheap. During the last 8 years…
It still amazes me when I talk to individuals and they tell me they outstanding balances on their credit cards. Do they not realize these cards charge over 20% interest on their purchases? Why on earth would you want to keep any outstanding balance at all on a credit card. That’s just making all your…
Recently the Toronto Star spread an article about a woman and her common law partner buying 5 properties in Brantford, Ontario. The goal was to achieve a passive income of $25,000 a month on rent so that they could retire. She had achieved all this, including buying her own home at the age of 33!…
I’ve already written that an epic crash isn’t going to happen, if you’re sitting on the sidelines and hoping for a massive decline, you might be sorely disappointed. Yet there’s growing fear right now in the Canadian housing market. Every day large media centers are reporting huge drop in sales for real estate and an…
The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the second time this year bringing the US bank rate above 1% for the first time since 2008. During the same week, the Bank of Canada signaled the end to low interest rates is coming and the next interest rate move will most likely be up and…
It’s not the rising prices in Toronto or Vancouver. It’s not the single 7% drop in house prices the GTA experienced in May. It’s not even the fact that the rise in incomes of families don’t correlate to the price of houses in Canada. It’s the fact that many people are using their homes as…
One of the things that the Canadian education system fails to teach our young kids are the lessons related to financial literacy. It’s quite bad if you think about. Most kids will grow up knowing how to read, write and do arithmetic but when they get older they won’t even know the basics of how…
When I mention index investing a lot of people just give me bewildered looks. “What are you talking about?” “Are you even speaking English?” Hey! Were it not for the fact that I know most people don’t know anything about investing, I’d take that as a racist comment. But I’ll let that pass for now.…
If you’ve followed my blog, you should know by now that I’m a big fan of passive index investing. That means I don’t really like to pick individual stocks. I also don’t like to day trade and manage my money on a daily basis. Some may think this is a stupid way to make money,…
The business and economic news that is dominating Canadian media is how an alternative mortgage lender named Home Capital Group has lost over 80% of its value over the past week. This has led to speculation that the company won’t survive and it could be sold off as it continues to lose liquidity. Before we…
