Personal Wealth

Okay, today, I’m taking on a subject I’ve been dancing around for a while. This is one two-step I’m tired of! So let me tell it to you straight: Most of the financial media is out to get you. Their goal is to lure you into staying tuned to their channel, website, or whatever … all day, every day. And they know just how to do it. They bait their trap with an endless stream of BREAKING NEWS.

Along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, you’d think personal financial literacy would be just as core to our kids’ education. Instead, the subject rarely makes its way into the standard curriculum of grade schools or high schools. I’ve even seen postsecondary business programs pass it by.

In the debut episode of the Canadian Portfolio Manager podcast, we kick things off by helping you choose which Vanguard Asset Allocation ETF is right for you.

When it comes to sensitive subjects, managing debt ranks right up there with firing up a chainsaw or a blowtorch before you’ve read the operating instructions. Like any other power tool, debt can help or hurt you depending on how you use it. So, how do you manage desirable debt, and steer clear of the dangerous kind?

We have a really special episode in store today as we welcome Tim Nash, the Sustainable Economist! Tim shares a vast amount of knowledge and […]

How often are you spending way more than you need to, just to try to earn decent market returns from your investments? The answer is, way more often than you think! It’s still all too easy for financial providers to game the system by hiding their excessive fees and lackluster returns from view.

You might know Ted Seides from his famous bet with Warren Buffett or, more recently, from his widely successful Capital Allocators Podcast. Ted is what we would call a classically impressive guy, having studied at both Ivy League frontrunners Yale and Harvard and having founded Protégé Partners, an asset management and advisory firm that specializes in hedge funds.

In my last video, we took on a tough topic: How do you prepare financially for the death of your spouse? Today, I’m going to bring up another thorny subject: What if your spouse, parent, or another close family member starts having trouble with their memory or their ability to make rational decisions? In other words, what if they become incapacitated? 

In summary, you can pay student’s bills through two types of payments from an RESP. A withdrawal for post-secondary education (PSE) is a refund of the original contributions. There are no limits to the amounts that can be taken out of this bucket, and the amounts are tax free. Educational Assistance Payments (EAPs) come from the grant and accumulated earnings bucket within the RESP. There are certain limits to these payments to keep in mind, and the payments will be taxed in the student’s name.

As unpleasant as it may be, here’s something we all know: If you’re in a marriage, one of you is likely to predecease the other. And yet, in my experience, few of us are as prepared as we should be to deal with the financial realities of widowhood.