Susan Daley

My first niece was born a couple of months ago and it got me thinking about her education savings. There are a number of savings options my sister can employ for my niece in the 18 years before she starts post-secondary school. I outline the various sources, and the pros and cons of each option below.

If you’re looking to fund your own or your child’s education but haven’t regularly saved for several years towards those expenses, there are a number of options for paying for expensive tuition, housing and textbook costs. In today’s post, I’ll outline the 5 ways you can pay for education costs or put away short-term savings for it.

In this episode of Your Money, Your Choices, Susan uses a concrete example of a new graduate paying off student and car loans to show how small differences in your debt repayment strategy can add up over time and save you interest costs and reduce the time it takes to pay off debts.

Financial planners and advisors across Canada suggest you should save 3 to 6 months worth of expenses in an emergency fund. You’ve figured out how much you are aiming for, using some of the guidelines from my last video perhaps.

One of the most overlooked things in personal finance I see from young professionals is the emergency fund. Unfortunately, emergency funds aren’t exciting, so instead people want to focus on other things like buying a house and investing in the stock market.

Index mutual funds and their corresponding ETF’s are very similar in terms of their holdings. So how do you which one is best? Like most things in personal finance, the decision will ultimately come down to your personal situation and preferences.

Paying off debt is a worthy goal and there are some key strategies to getting it paid off more quickly. I outline these strategies in my latest episode of Your Money, Your Choices.

Debt is an everyday fact of life for many. Whether it’s student loans, car loans, or mortgage debt, most of us have experienced it at some point in our life. One of the key things to reduce debt’s hold over you is to understand how it works so you can develop a plan to pay it off over time.

I’ve come across many Canadians who don’t think they pay any fees to invest their money. Fortunately, the number of people that are under this impression is falling due to increase exposure. While you might not be swiping your credit card, there are a number of fees that get paid when you invest your money.

Even if you’re the most cost-conscious DIY investor, there are fees to pay when investing your money. Some are straightforward and transparent, others are less so. Today’s episode of Your Money, Your Choices focuses on the transparent and explicit fees you may pay to invest your money.