How do I beat inflation? Everyone wants to know these days, with the quickly increasing costs of food, energy, rent, used cars, and consumer goods front and centre in our minds. Add on weather-related disasters, supply chain disruptions, and record money printing and deficit spending by governments, and inflationary pressures look downright scary. Since the middle of 2020, living costs…
Tag: spending
Welcome to tags! Here you will find all the relevant blog posts and content tagged with or discussing the term “spending”.
Annual Financial Review and Goal Setting
As the year draws to a close, I have started my annual financial review and goal setting process for the year ahead. This is an important step in any financial planning. For me, the exercise helps me determine where my family’s finances stand and if adjustments are needed. It also gives me a clear picture of our current accounts and…
Investing for Beginners
Intro Investing is a broad and far-reaching topic, and one that can be completely overwhelming for beginners. Over the years, I’ve had so many friends and family members ask me how to get started. In this piece, I’ll try to break it down for you, and share the steps that I went through myself. What follows is a summary of…
Money News – June 2020
Personal Finance in the News – June 2020: Here’s a summary of June 2020’s Money News: Read & Watch: CMCH is tightening mortgage rules for homebuyers. Credit scores are becoming more important and debt service ratios are becoming more conservative – therefore more mortgage conservatism may be a good idea given the debt loads out there. For more on that…
Liquid Net Worth
Liquid net worth is an unfamiliar term for most people. Many know about net worth, but few understand liquid net worth, what it means, and why it is important. This article will explore the term and unpack its usefulness. What is liquid net worth and how is it calculated? While net worth measures the value of all the assets you…
Preparing your finances for a second wave and a new normal
Have you been preparing your finances for a second wave and a new normal? A lot of people are returning to work or are starting to receive government aid, and this has more than few people wondering “What should I do with my money now?” Even if you’ve been lucky enough to keep your job, answering this question is important.…
Personal Finance and the COVID-19 Coronavirus
Introduction: COVID-19 is a real wake up call for how we should be managing our finances. Aside from the health impacts, COVID-19 may result in real financial hardship for many. Quarantines, school closures, and lockdowns could result in lost time at work and reduced incomes. In the bigger picture, employers may be forced to lay off workers and reduce staff.…
Money Saving Strategies
Money saving strategies are important, but it’s not always easy to know where to start. On top of that, in these days of information overload it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with complicated schemes that are tough to stick to long-term. As an easy antidote, to help jump-start any strategy, here’s a list of my favorite saving habits. These are simple…
Money News – January 2020
Personal Finance in the News – January 2020: Welcome to January’s Money News, and a brand-new decade! Here are a few personal finance focused news articles that grabbed my attention this January: Read: In this article, Jamie Golombek at the Financial Post explains how the CRA has redesigned the T1 Personal Income Tax form for the coming tax year. Are…
Building a Budget
If you’ve already started to track your spending, you might be asking, “Now what?” The answer is, “Now build a budget!” This blog post will go through the basics of setting a personal budget to help get you started. If you haven’t already, you can also check out the Tracking My Spending post, which goes hand-in-hand with this one. …
Tracking My Spending
This blog post details how I go about tracking my spending, and why it’s important. Do you know how much you spend? It may be more than you think. Once you’re done, check out the Building a Budget post that goes along with this topic. Why is Tracking My Spending Important? Tracking your spending lets you see how much money…
Seven Financial Rules I Live By
Personal finance can be complicated. For me, I’ve found that simplicity serves me best. Here are some of the basic financial rules I use with my money: 1. Budget & Track Your Spending No matter what your finances are like today, they’ll probably be better if you start tracking spending each month and building a budget. This will let you…