Weekly wrap; Getting Financially Real, Post-budget politics, 50 top financial sites

A group of (mostly American) financial blogs and a few international ones have teamed up to create We are Financially Real, part of the 2015 Financial Literacy Awareness Carnival.

It’s hosted by Los Angeles-based Certified Financial Planner Shannon Ryan and her website, The Heavy Purse.

As you can see via this link, there’s a nice list of financial blogs participating, including Broke Millennial and its post, The Day I Got Bullish With Money, and many more from blogs like Club Thrifty, Color Me Frugal, Financially Blonde and Reach Financial Independence (now there’s a blog title we can relate to!)

“For the past three years, it’s been my privilege to host a Financial Literacy Awareness Carnival where I gather top finance bloggers to share their stories and motivate readers to become financially literate,” Shannon told the Hub via email, “Money is something every single adult handles, and too few make confident money decisions due to a lack of financial literacy. The mistakes they make, sometimes without even realizing it, have a lasting impact. It’s my hope through the carnival that we inspire readers to get Financially Real with their lives and reclaim their financial power.”

Budget Redux

North of the border, the federal budget continues to be dissected in the press. Benefits Canada had an interesting piece this week entitled Politics could shrink TFSA room. The magazine interviewed various financial experts and advisers: the gist seems to be that while the Liberals or NDP might attempt to undo the recent budget’s TFSA rise, it’s unlikely they’d roll it back retroactively. So as per the Hub’s blog yesterday on reader use of TFSAs, I still think there’s relatively low risk in adding the $4,500 extra contribution room now.

The other big budget measure was the reduced annual RRIF withdrawal rates. In his RetireHappy blog, Jim Yih provides a good overview of the new schedule. It’s titled Everything you need to know about RRIFs. And I wrote a related piece in Friday’s Financial Post, entitled The Million-Dollar Tax Problem: How to Minimize RRSP Withdrawal Pain.

A handy list of The Top 50 Canadian Personal Finance Sites can be found over at LSM Insurance. And yes, the Financial Independence Hub is one of them. For top American and international sites, click here on the Hub’s Best Blogs tab. The list is based on the annual Plutus awards.

The Young and Thrifty site recently ran a piece by millennial Sean Cooper (no stranger to the Hub) entitled How to achieve Findependence at age 31. According to the LSM list mentioned above, this was the most shared piece of content at Young and Thrifty. Sean’s three big tips for achieving financial independence are achieving mortgage freedom, have multiple streams of income and frugal living (or what we call Guerrilla Frugality in Findependence Day, which Sean reviews in the same blog). Soon after the Hub launched last November, Sean wrote a similar piece for us entitled How to reach mortgage and financial freedom by 31.