Home Economics

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glove-lingerie2

Follow along as we consider how your finances…are like your lingerie.

We already explored how your finances, like your lingerie, are intimate. But how else are they similar? Here’s principle two for understanding how these two elements of your life fit together (or not!):

Principle 2: You probably have a portfolio that doesn’t fit.

You likely know by now that most of us are wearing the wrong bra size. Oprah did a whole hour on this!

Here’s the comparison with money, gleaned from my work as an advisor: most people have investments that are a poor match for their circumstances. To the extent that they have a “financial plan,” Read the rest of this entry »

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vintage-bread-tins

bread-rooruu-flickr

I’m at home today; making applesauce, doing laundry, preparing a client’s tax return, and working through my own family’s tax returns. And thinking, as I work, about work: about the paid kind, and the unpaid kind, and how my life is balanced between these two.

Sometimes I feel as though I have “the best of both worlds” – because I am married, and because my husband has been the primary income-earner in our household in the years since our children were born, my family’s economic well-being does not teeter dangerously out of whack if I don’t Read the rest of this entry »

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This week, the following questions have come into my virtual mailbag:

  • I split up with my common-law husband, and so I filed my tax return as “single.” I noticed this changed the amount of Canada Child Tax Benefit I receive. Is what I did right?
  • My husband and I have a lot of debt. But we haven’t taken a family vacation in a few years, and now that we have started budgeting, I’d like to include an allocation for a modest vacation once a year. Is it OK for us to budget for a family vacation even though we have outstanding debt to pay off?
  • What is a business number and do I need to register one? When do I need a GST number?
  • What do others do with the Child Tax benefit? Are there any advantages or disadvantages to putting it into an account in the child’s name? Would it be better to have the CCTB deposited into an RESP, tax-free savings account or something different? I’m looking for a way to save for her future that will maximize her options, in terms of how she can spend the money. What do others do?

We will get to each of those questions in turn. But in the meantime, this is my announcement that your questions about any aspect of your financial life are welcome here. What’s on your mind? What do you need to know?

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The Vanier Institute of the Family, a national, non-partisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting the well-being of Canadian families, has published a research report on the financial health of Canada’s families each year for the past ten years.

Readers of The Wealthy Baker may be unlikely to see their families reflected in the 2008 report’s findings, which are drawn from up-to-date census and other data, and reflect national averages, not any one individual family. Nonetheless, I thought it might be interesting to provide a “snapshot” of family financial health across Canada. Where does your family fit?

Read the rest of this entry »

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