In my blog post It’s RRSP season and managed portfolio traps abound, I said that in a future post, I would explain how to do your own breakdown of a recommended portfolio and build your own DIY portfolio of individual mutual funds that are even less expensive than a balanced index fund. This is that…

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Anyone who’s interested in this topic will likely already know the basic strategies of planning your meals based on the grocery store flyers. There is also, of course, the classic trick of shopping around the edges of the grocery store, which is where you will find what should ideally make up the core of your…

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Two years ago last week, Underground Woman and I cut the cable for good. We had been paying Rogers a little over $200 per month for a mealy Internet plan, basic cable, and a Movie Network add-on we rarely watched for the ever more appalling quality of its titles. (I don’t think it’s any coincidence…

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If you read our door-to-door scam artists article, you are undoubtedly aware that we received and wrote about an unsolicited visit from an Ottawa-based, door-to-door residential “heating and cooling” sales company called New Home Comfort. This was just one of many similar, eponymously named outfits that we’ve heard from over the years. We used New…

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As your bank will happily remind you, early in the New Year is still a great time to contribute to your RRSP and receive tax credits for the previous tax year. In 2014, the deadline is March 3rd to get credit for the 2013 tax year. As always, financial advisors are banging the drum to…

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In my last Chromecast for Canadians post, I wrote that I am less than electrified by the current selection of compatible apps. At last count there were 14. Anyone who lives in a Netflix service region can download and cast from Netflix. YouTube, Google Play TV & Movies, and Google Play Music (which does nothing…

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Underground Woman and I love to out scammers. Our favourite targets are those door-to-door home comfort guys: you know, the fast-talking sociopaths who are “working with the province” to replace your perfectly good, paid-in-full furnace with a new Energy Star model that you have to rent for at least a decade. I love it when…

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After singing the praises of the Disney Vacation Club and listing the wonderful exchanges I had with it, you’re probably wondering why I am no longer an owner. It’s a simple one-word answer: divorce. When my first husband and I divorced, we split our assets. The most straightforward way of doing that was to sell…

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