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.
Since it’s Easter weekend and Passover begins tonight, I thought we’d dedicate the Hub’s weekly wrap to more spiritual matters or at least view personal finances through a spiritual lens.
We’ll start with this essay from Peter Grandich: A Biblical Perspective on Matters of Finance. As Peter noted in an email to me, “We know that matters of finance are the second most talked about topic in the Bible.”
Feeling overwhelmed? Everywhere I look, long-time couples are falling apart.
So I entirely sympathize with single parents who feel overwhelmed both financially and emotionally by the twin burdens of raising kids alone and of still having to bring in money, not to mention re-entering the dating scene.
If you’re in this situation, a good place to look for support is Emma Johnson’s Wealthy Single Mommyblog, which I discovered right here under the Hub’s Best Blogs tag, flagged as one of five “Best-kept secret personal finance blogs.”
No question living off just one income can be tough in the modern world. It wasn’t always that way, of course. Back in the Leave it to Beaver world of the 1950s, it was normal for one partner (usually the man back then) to bring home the bacon in the corporate world while the other played the role of Homemaker and raised the kids.
But those days are gone: it’s almost normal to have two salaries, which is why Continue Reading…
Here’s my latest MoneySense blog, which looks at recent criticisms of Income Splitting for Families with children under age 18: aka the Family Tax Cut.
No big surprise that children and the Burbs go together
By Jonathan Chevreau
Further to this morning’s guest blog about Boomer downsizing by realtor Linda Evans comes a poll by TD Canada Trust that shows wide generational differences in housing preferences.
While aging baby boomers are more likely to prefer small towns (21% do) or rural settings (18%), given the choice a third of Canadians would prefer to live in the city (aka “urban environment”) while almost as many (31%) lean to a more suburban environment.
As you might expect, it seems the younger you are the more you wish to be in the downtown core, while the older folk tend to flee to the burbs or the country. Thus, 38% of Millennials and 36% of Generation X lean towards urban settings, but Gen X is almost as likely to choose the suburbs (33%).
No doubt this breaks down into those with and without children: you’d expect young singles to congregate where the action is downtown, while those who have met “the one” and started to raise families would prefer a larger home further away once they have to accommodate kids. Downtowners typically have short commutes and easy access to public transit and can get by easily without bearing the expense of vehicle ownership. As most parents in the suburbs well know, one or even two cars are almost a necessity outside the downtown core, and a long commute will likely be another price they pay.
Boomers gravitating to small towns and rural settings
Indeed, the TD survey found 39% of Canadian parents and prospective parents would prefer to raise a family in the suburbs, while 26% would choose a more urban environment. Continue Reading…
Downsizing is a positive thing. Of course it’s a big decision and most of us will face this dilemma at some point in our lives. Should we downsize or stay in the family home?
We all have our reasons. The kids have moved out or just come home from university. The house is too big for two people, too expensive to maintain, the gardening, the snow shovelling and oh boy those stairs (my knees). Wouldn’t it be nice to just lock the door and go south for a few months in the winter and not worry about burst pipes or icy sidewalks? Downsizing can be an alluring option at a certain stage of life.
Severing the emotional attachments
The hardest part for most people is the emotional attachments that we have to the family home, not to mention all the ‘stuff’ we accumulate over the years. Treat yourself to a good chuckle and find the Youtube video by George Carlin where he does a hilarious standup on ‘Stuff.’
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By Jonathan Chevreau
