I imagine we’ve all spent a little time day-dreaming about ‘if we won the lottery’ – the reality is that ordinary people win.  You can’t win unless you buy a ticket and no one wants to be the lone worker-bee if the group pool hits it lucky so I imagine most of us buy a […]

I attended a conference last week and two of the keynote speakers stood out from the others: A Canadian astronaut A former Whitehouse Chief Information Officer Although each had very different experience and delivery style, their messages were based on common ground: Set goals and develop a plan to get achieve them Run the ‘worst […]

Many of us have never known ‘normal’ let along high mortgage interest rates although it wasn’t that long ago that 6 or 6.5% was the norm for a 5 year mortgage. When I started working at the bank (in the mid 90’s) the rates were closer to 10%!   How much difference would a 1% […]

I thought the days of the UCCB (Universal Child Care Benefit) were gone once our girls turned 6. Although the $100 per child per month wasn’t much and certainly didn’t cover even a tiny amount of their child care fees, it covered half of their annual RESP (Registered Education Savings Plan) – $1,200 of $2,500! […]

Even though it was years ago, I remember the collision of thoughts and feelings when I heard the words ‘we don’t have a position for you after maternity leave’. I was on the receiving end of restructuring. I found out a couple weeks before I was supposed to return to work. Wow. I don’t remember […]

We’re going through our closets in an effort to divest ourselves of some ‘stuff’ and claw back some space. We went through the girls’ closet last weekend. It’s not a job I enjoy because even though we’re lucky to have lots of hand-me-downs and I’ve carefully sorted the clothes and labeled the boxes – It […]

If you owe money to CRA (Canada Revenue Agency), you’re not a happy camper but if you have a tax refund coming to you…you are likely smiling!  Essentially it’s money you’ve paid to the government in one form or another but after reconciling your 2014 income and deductions with what you truly owe, you didn’t […]

Quite a lot – I think. No one likes them and neither one is the ticket to success. That’s the first question – How are you defining success? The key is to define your goal using SMART elements (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). You may begin by saying that you want to lose 10 […]

If a client asked me that question, how would I respond? That’s easy – I’d suggest they check their plan! Our plan has 4 key objectives: RSP and RESP Savings Extra Mortgage Payments Big Trip Savings Other Big Item Savings The majority of RSP and RESP savings is achieved through regular monthly savings incorporated into […]

We went grocery shopping a couple weeks ago and came away with what looked like a medium sized turkey. It was ‘free’ because we spent more than $250 at the store – not hard to do when it’s a big shop day. I’ve made only 1 roast turkey before so I pulled out my battered […]