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.

How parents can give their children the gift of future Financial Independence

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Two Red Christmas Balls with Blank Embossed PaperFriday’s post on how Hub readers are generally embracing the $4,500 TFSA expansion promised we’d run one particular letter in full on Sunday.

Below is the letter referred to.  The parents in question gave this letter to their three children at Christmas of 2011, just a few years after Tax-free Savings Accounts were launched. They gave us permission to run it, in the hopes that other families could benefit from the ideas, which include parental matching of whatever savings the kids can come up with to fund their TFSAs.

Merry Christmas    2011

 Name  of Child here _____________________                    

This Christmas and future Christmases Mom and I wish to help you to start planning and working towards your long term financial goals/security. We realize that as responsible young adults you use your financial resources to meet your everyday fixed/living expenses and that with your busy lifestyles you do not always have the time to manage/consider long term financial planning. Continue Reading…

Hub readers embrace Budget’s $4,500 expansion of TFSA limits

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Vector illustration of Man and woman avatars

By Jonathan Chevreau

Following last week’s federal budget, the Hub ran a piece making the case for immediately topping up annual contributions for Tax-free Savings Accounts (TFSA) from the existing maximum $5,500 to the proposed $10,000.

As we later reported in our weekly media roundup on Saturday, the Canada Revenue Agency and most major banks had by the end of the week confirmed it should be okay to make those contributions now, without having to wait for formal legislation later in the summer.

At the end of the earlier piece, I asked readers for comments. We reproduce them below, using initials where we’ve not gotten permission to use actual names.

We’ll start with Brad A:

Really appreciate your articles on TFSAs. I only make 25K a year & love TFSAs.  This whole talk about future lost revenue makes me cringe because there are many other loopholes/tax shelters that also create future lost revenue … principal residence real estate being just one.  Don’t get me started on subsidies for medical or business expenses etc. etc.  Having said this though, I’ve had enough trouble with Revenue Canada, that any time I get a brown envelope in the mail, my heart starts to pound.  So, for now, I’ll probably play the waiting game on the extra $4,500.  I don’t normally vote conservative but this election it’s going to be tempting because my TFSAs & RRSPs are about the only thing that will keep me out of poverty when I’m older.
Continue Reading…

Why It’s Important To Talk With Your Kids About Money

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BriefingBy Gary Rabbior,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Do you talk with your kids about money matters? Are you preparing them to handle the financial decisions and responsibilities they will face in their lives? Do you get a sense that your kids are getting the financial knowledge, or developing the financial skills, in school that they will need in life? Or do you know much at all about what your kids know about money – and how they make financial decisions>

If you are like many parents today, the answers to those questions may not be very encouraging. In this day and age, with money matters so dominant in so many peoples’ lives, it almost seems surprising to have to advocate for talking with our kids about money to help them prepare for their financial futures. But that is what we  — The Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) and BMO Financial Group — are doing with the Talk With Our Kids About Money Day program, which happens today (Wed., April 15th).  We are encouraging and helping parents and teachers to talk with our kids about money.

Early days for school-based Fin Lit Continue Reading…

Weekly wrap: Futurepreneurs, seminar ripoffs and millennial homeowners

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businessman and businesswoman outdoorsWe’ve talked on the Hub before about older Boomerpreneurs (Baby Boomer entrepreneurs) but what about younger entrepreneurs? After all, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs made the leap into entrepreneurship while they were barely out of their teens. The Million Dollar Journey blog this week did a good piece on the Futurepreneur Canada programs. 

Beware however some entrepreneurs who may be getting rich on your desire to become an entrepreneur via real estate. Read this Boomer & Echo blog: Free Seminar — Learn How to Get Ripped Off.

And while we’re on the subject of real estate, check out the Broke Millennial’s recent blog on The Compromises Millennials Make to be Homeowners.

In Canada there has long been talk about expanding the CPP, or Canada Pension Plan. But most of the chatter in the United States has been about retrenching on social security benefits. Riding to the rescue is celebrity economist Paul Krugman, who argued this week in the New York Times the Case for Expanding Social Security.

But just in case you do fall short in saving for retirement, you can take heart from Jonathan Clements’ article in the Wall Street Journal this week, arguing Why you will need less money than you think for Retirement. Of course, we here at the Financial Independence Hub don’t much believe in the outdated concept of Retirement. We prefer the term Findependence, Continue Reading…

Weekly Wrap, Easter edition: finding purpose, Declaration of Financial Independence & more

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Light at end of the tunnel.By Jonathan Chevreau

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.”

One of five “Religious Personal Finance” blogs flagged on the Hub’s Top Blogs tag is Out of Your Rut. It recently ran an intriguing piece entitled 10 ways to be rich without being wealthy. Continue Reading…