Personal Finance

I recently took my 3 year old son down to watch the annual Christmas parade for the first time.  I live in Toronto but I imagine that most large cities have their own equivalent.  I was a bit apprehensive since I had never taken him to a large event like that before.  We had a [...]

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I get a lot of requests to do guest posts for Four Pillars so I thought I would publicize some guidelines for these.   As well, I’m also interested in paid writers as well.
Benefits of writing for Four Pillars
Writing for Four Pillars is a great opportunity to share your experience and knowledge with a large readership [...]

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I always enjoy features in MoneySense or the Globe and Mail where they profile a family, highlight their current money issues, then consult with a panel of financial planners for suggestions on what the family should do moving forward.  Some time ago in MoneySense, they talked to a couple who worked, lived a frugal lifestyle, [...]

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I often see kite surfers zipping around Lake Ontario on windy days and I think it would be a great sport to pick up.  The only problem is – what do I do with the kids?  I can’t very well go flailing around in the water with my young kids patiently waiting on the shore [...]

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Canadian Capitalist wrote a very interesting post yesterday highlighting the fact that there are some disabled former Nortel employees that paid into the “self-insured” LTD (long term disability) plan offered by Nortel and now might lose their benefits.  As Thicken My Wallet pointed out in the comments – this basically a loophole in the law [...]

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Please note that Mr. Cheap wrote a very good post yesterday about H1N1 so check it out if you haven’t already – a lot of great comments.
H1N1 (Swine flu) vaccine hysteria has hit my city in a big way – last week there were people lining up for 6 hours to get shots for their [...]

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I’ve been amazed at people’s reaction to H1N1 for a number of reasons.  I was *SHOCKED* that they were able to get the name changed from “Swine Flu” to H1N1 (people involved with the pork industry started oinking immediately after the pandemic started and amazingly managed to get it renamed).  I still like to call [...]

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This is my review of Investing Made Simple written by Mike Piper who is the author of the investing blog Oblivous Investor. I’ve highlighted both Mike’s blog and book before and I was quite happy to review the book for him.  I think it’s a great resource for a non-investor or someone who is [...]

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Earlier today, I published a You Need a Budget review – budget software to help you organize your finances.  I have set up a special coupon code with YNAB so that if you want to purchase this software you can save 10% off the purchase price.
To get the discount just go to the [...]

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In this post I’ll be reviewing the budgeting tool called “YNAB” which stands for “You Need a Budget”.  There are quite a few financial software tools available on the market such as Microsoft Money (discontinued) and Quicken, so it can be difficult to sort out which tools (if any) are right for you.  YNAB is [...]

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Whenever I’ve tried to figure out how much someone should contribute to an RESP for their child – I’ve always gotten stuck on the issue of whether the kid lives at home during his school years or goes to school out of town.  My rough calculations indicate that if you contribute the maximum allowed each [...]

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One suggestion for saving money that I’ve read on countless websites is to participate in free (or very cheap) activities that are happening in your community.  Things like festivals, open houses etc are good examples.  I’ve never really followed this advice since most “community” events seem to be geared toward people with kids – [...]

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Last year my wife and I took advantage of the ING Direct pre-TFSA deal where they paid extra interest on your pre-TFSA contribution which kind of made it like a TFSA.  This year, ING is doing it again – if you have money earmarked for your 2010 TFSA contribution room then you can put the [...]

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Google Street View went live today for Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton, Kitchener, Waterloo, Windsor, Calgary, Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, Montreal, Quebec city, Halifax.  Apparently Saint John NB, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg are next on the list.
If you were impressed by satellite images of your rooftop then you will be really blown away by this service.  I [...]

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Most house or condo owners have experience with doing some sort of do-it-yourself projects fixing up their homes.  Maybe this year you wanted to take advantage of the renovation tax credit.  Whether you were painting a room, redoing a bathroom or fixing up your deck, you probably noticed that some (or all) projects are hard [...]

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One of my blogger buddies – Lynnae from BeingFrugal.net highlighted a deal offered in support of the American Cancer Society.  After looking at the bundle I bought one for myself since there are several items in there that I was going to purchase anyway.  The total retail value of the bundle is $800 although it [...]

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