Family Formation & Housing

For young couples starting families, buying their first home and/or other real estate. Covers mortgages, credit cards, interest rates, children’s education savings plans, joint accounts for couples and the like.

Leave an inheritance of cottage relaxation, not taxation

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | June 13, 2016

By Tarsem Basraon, TD Wealth

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The summer is quickly approaching and for many Canadians that means one thing: cottage season.

While many parents envision leaving the family cottage as part of their inheritance one day, with the value of cottages often appreciating since purchase, there’s also the risk of bestowing the legacy of a large tax bill.

To help make sure you’re leaving an inheritance of cottage relaxation and not taxation, here are three strategies you can discuss with your financial advisor when planning your cottage legacy. These strategies are available to you while you are alive, and there are various other strategies that can be implemented on your death in your will.

• Co-own with your Kids

Adding your children to the deed and making them co-owners of your cottage could help defer capital gains tax and save money. For example, if your cottage value has increased over time, it would trigger a capital gain on the portion of the cottage that your children now own and you would pay the tax on that now. Down the road, your kids would only pay tax on the capital gains owing on the remaining portion of the cottage you own when you die. There is, however, a risk with this approach. Continue Reading…

Housing Bubble? Why it’s Crazy to buy in Vancouver or Toronto

Posted By Robb Engen | June 8, 2016

Beautiful view of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada — Vancouver, B.C.

When central and southern Alberta experienced catastrophic flooding in June 2013 there were 32 states of emergency declared and over 100,000 people displaced throughout the region. Reports of price gouging at various retailers surfaced on social media; one story in particular claimed that an unscrupulous Calgary retailer was selling individual bags of ice for $20.

Given the urgency of the situation, and depending on your level of preparedness, what options do you have?

Move on to the next retailer and hope to find an honest owner
Go home with no ice and wait for the situation to return to normal
Suck it up and buy the ice, grumbling the entire way home about how you got ripped off
Hope for some kind of government intervention to protect you and other consumers from price gouging
Borrow ice from a friend or neighbour who has plenty to spare

Millennial Wrap: Wedding Bell Blues, good debt and other illusions

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | June 3, 2016

By Helen Chevreau, Hub Staff

Wedding Bell Blues

After reading this new post from Broke Millennial, I feel lucky to have been spared the first few years of the “wedding apocalypse.” At 24, I have yet to have any of my close friends or relatives tie the knot, and now I know that in addition to being thankful for this budgetary hall-pass, I should really be taking this extra time to start saving for “other peoples’ weddings.” I know I’ve got at least another few years before I will need to start paddling the wedding wave, but knowing it’s something I will eventually need to factor in is important.

Millennial Illusions

The pressure to have our lives together has, I would assume, always been a very real and stressful issue for millennials. Since the onslaught of social media “dream lives” we see on sites like Pinterest, Etsy, Apartment Therapy etc., it’s extremely easy to fall into a pit of expectations that no normal 20-something should be expected to live up to. This is a huge issue I’ve found with becoming a grownup. We see snippets of peoples’ lives and we want our lives to look just like that, but we forget what it’s taken for them to get there. Continue Reading…

Millennial Blog Wrap: Cheap vs Frugal and Chronic Money Stress

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | May 28, 2016

by Helen Chevreau, Hub Staff

This short and to-the-point post from Budget Bloggess is here to quell all our concerns about the millennial generation being frugal. Sure, the word ‘frugal’ may get some flack for its apparent likeness to ‘cheap’, but oh how different the two really are. If you were ever unsure as to whether cutting up your old t-shirts to use as dishrags qualified you as cheap, you can stop worrying. Thanks to Toronto-based Budget Bloggess for putting my mind at ease: I’m not cheap, I’m frugal.

Have Your Latte

We’ve probably all been told at this point in our financial journeys about the magical ‘latte factor.’ You know the one: if we just save the $5 a day we would normally spend on our Starbucks, we’ll be rich before we know it. Of course there’s nothing wrong with this tactic. However, this new post from My Money Counts will definitely help us put that $5 in perspective when compared with the “4 expenses that will steal your savings.” Those being expensive car payments, having too much house, insane student loan debt, and of course, credit-card debt. It is a well-informed look at some of the most common and burdensome factors that contribute to young peoples’ savings struggles. And, if nothing else, it’ll make you feel a little less guilty about that double mocha frappucino!

Chronic Money Stresses? Continue Reading…

How buying a Home makes you Financially Independent

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | May 20, 2016

By Jam Michael McDonald, Zoocasa

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Buying a home takes a lot of planning and can be an expensive endeavour. You have to think about your down payment, your mortgage and mortgage payments, your expectations on your space, your timeframe, your closing costs—the list is endless.

So if you’re spending a bunch of money, how can buying a home make you more financially independent?

First, change your perspective

Some investments are a lot clearer: put your money into this GIC and you’ll receive this return in this many days. It’s easy to see, easy to calculate, and easy to do.

Investing in real estate is an entirely different game, so you have to think of it differently. You’ll have initial costs, you’ll be forking out money, and you’ll feel kind of broke. And that’s okay. These “expenses” when buying a home should be looked at as part of the overall investment. There are some that are pure cost—home inspection, lawyer fees, other closing costs—but they all allow the transaction to occur, and they’re not extravagant compared to the cost of the home.

Think of a real estate investment as long-term, not short-term; complex, not simple; hands-on, not passive.

You can make real decisions about your home to save you money

As a renter, have you ever received your hydro bill and become really agitated? It’s a common experience: you can’t control your heat (or you only can to a certain extent), so why should you pay for something you can’t control?

As a homeowner, you can make changes that could save you money, with some even boosting the value of your home. You can put in energy-efficient appliances, or replace the windows, saving you on your heating bill while improving the look and value of your house.

The flexibility to cut costs that you possess as a homeowner is far greater than as a renter.

With the right home, you can rent to tenants