Debt Free in 30

On today's show, I review 10 personal finance books that would make great gifts and/or would be a great start to your own personal finance library. All 10 books are listed below, with the time stamp from the podcast, if you wish to jump ahead and listen to my comments on a particular book: General Money Management The Wealthy Barber Returns by David Chilton (2:35) Wealthing Like Rabbits by Robert...

Have you ever wondered why a credit card isn't called a debt card like it should be? Think about it. That's what a credit card really does – it gives you debt. Well, I'll tell you why. Because it's not good marketing. And credit card companies know this. In Myth 4 of my book, Straight Talk on your Money , I point out that financial institutions know we are guided by our emotions. Banks and credit...

On today's show we discuss the different forms of income that can be garnisheed (or not).  Here are the types of income, with the time stamp if you want to fast forward to that section: Wages – 3:21 Ontario Works – 8:31 Disability Pension – 9:58 ODSP – 10:00 Retirement Pensions – CPP – 12:36 OAS – 13:35 Basic Income – 19:19 Full links to all legislation mentioned in the show are on our website at...

How important is your credit score?  In my book,  Straight Talk on Your Money , on page 48 I discuss the "Credit Score Scam", and on page 52 I say that you should not focus on your credit score.  (Apparently I'm not a fan of credit scores).  It was those passages from the book that prompted Ross Taylor, a mortgage broker, to email me and say: I noticed when reading your book we do not completely a...

November is financial literacy month in Canada , and for the seventh straight year the government will encourage Canadians to: take concrete actions to better manage their money and debt, including making a budget, having a savings plan and understanding their financial rights and responsibilities. So, the solution to all of our financial problems is to make a budget. I disagree. In my experience,...

Registered Disabilities Savings Plans are geared towards helping families and individuals who are living with a disability. RDSPs can only be setup for someone who is eligible to receive the Disability Tax Credit. If this is for your child, you can only begin making contributions  after  your child is diagnosed with an eligible disability . This is one of the main reasons RDSPs aren't as commonly...

Everyone thinks that a house provides both stability and financial security, but on today's show, we'll explain why that is not always the case. It is true that if you live in the same home for many years, you have stability. But there are significant costs to owning a house. You pay real estate commissions when you move, but you also pay a penalty to break a fixed mortgage. As we explain on today...

In some cases it is your fault, if your debt was a result of reckless spending but, in my experience, most people get into trouble because "life happens". Many of my clients have debt problems caused by a job loss, or reduced income, or a life event like a relationship break-down or a medical condition that forces them to take time off work. On today's show we hear the story of Mary, how has debt...

There are recent interest rate increases from the Bank of Canada that will affect many Canadians. But the question of the day is: Do you know how a 1% interest increase will affect your budget? Today's guest is here to discuss just that. Brent Hughes and his team discovered that there are two times throughout the life cycle of a mortgage that people receive professional advice: the beginning, and...

On today's show, I discuss the news that data from Equifax was "hacked". It appears that "only" 100,000 Canadians were impacted, but even if your data was not impacted by this event, it's a good wake-up call for all of us: So how can you protect yourself? My full comments are in my post on Equifax Data Hack: Insolvency Trustee Gives Advice on How to Protect Yourself but here's an important point:...

For more than a decade the "go to" source for Canadian personal finance information has been the Canadian Personal Finance Blog operated by Alan Whitton, more commonly known as the Big Cajun Man (listen to the show to find out where that name came from; having met him to record this podcast, I can confirm that he is a big guy). The Big Cajun man has accumulated the best resources on the internet o...

Over the years I have had hundreds of clients who financed a house, or a car that ended up being more expensive than they could afford, and that one purchase caused other debt problems. When I ask them why they made that purchase, even though in hindsight it was obviously more than they could afford, they give me many rational reasons. They tell me the mortgage payments were cheaper than rent, or...

Student loan debt is a massive problem in Canada.  The average student loan debt resulting from a four year degree program is over $26,000, and a student could end up paying more than $10,000 in interest before the loan is repaid. A government guaranteed student loan is only discharged in a bankruptcy if you have ceased to be a student for over seven years at the time you file bankruptcy. So it is...

Welcome to the first show of Debt Free in 30 Season #4. I know this isn't a TV show, and you're not supposed to have "seasons" on a podcast, but I think seasons are a good way to organize what we do here on  Debt Free in 30 . As I discuss on today's shorter-than-usual show, we will continue to have great guests discussing personal finance and debt issues. But this season I also plan to delve deepe...

The book is called Straight Talk on Your Money – The Biggest Financial Myths and Mistakes … and How to Avoid Them. I wrote the book because based on my 30 years as a professional accountant, and after personally meeting with over 10,000 people, I believe there is not enough straight talk about money.  There are lots of sales pitches, but that's not what we need. On today's show I explain why I wro...

For our final rebroadcast of the summer, we are rebroadcasting our most downloaded show from the past year.  Sean Cooper returns to the podcast today to talk about his new book,  Burn Your Mortgage , to be published on March 1, 2017.  Sean worked up to 80 hours a week for many years to save for a down payment, and then he managed to pay off his mortgage in less than four years.  He held a mortgage...

This is a special rebroadcast of one of our most downloaded shows: it's my father-in-law, telling me how he retired at age 48, and has now been retired for longer than he worked at his job!  If you are like most Canadians, you dream of a long and enjoyable retirement. Is it possible to retire early and achieve that by the age of 48?  While it is an anomaly, my guest today did just that. Bob Lassal...

As we continue to rebroadcast our top downloaded shows this summer, today we replay our first ever  Debt Free in 30  broadcast LIVE on video, over YouTube.  The response was fantastic. We asked our listeners to leave us questions through sound clips, email, twitter and Facebook in advance of the show and took questions during the show.  Doug Hoyes and Ted Michalos answered as many of those questio...

When this show first aired back at the end of November, 2016, the real estate markets were booming, and mortgages were easy to get, but my guest, Ben Rabidoux, had some very specific predictions. First, he predicted that Ontario would implement a foreign buyers tax, just like happened in Vancouver.  Bingo.  In April of this year, five months after we aired this interview, the Ontario government an...

Today's show is a rebroadcast of a show that first aired in October, 2016. My guest is David Bond, who has a PhD in Economics from Yale University, and he makes a number of interesting points.  We discuss the high level of Canadian household debt, and we talk about the most popular topic here on the podcast in the last year, and that's the Canadian real estate market.  Mr. Bond has some very defin...

We just celebrated Canada's 150th birthday and this is Debt Free in 30 episode number 150 so to celebrate both of these milestones I'm bringing back a guest from one of our most popular shows ever. Back in season number one, show number 33, originally broadcast in April of 2015, my guest was Leigh Taylor and the topic of that show was smart ways to pay off debt. Even though that show aired more th...

This is a special rebroadcast of show #111, originally aired on October 15, 2016. We all want to help when someone is in trouble. But helping someone out of financial trouble can come with unexpected costs and consequences. It is for that reason that I strongly advise against ever loaning money to family and friends. On today's show we hear three stories: Mabel is a widow who chose to help her adu...

There's a growing number of people owing money on their tax debts. This is in part because more people are self-employed, or have more than one job, and partly due to a growing seniors population. Getting into tax debt can be relatively easy, and dangerous to your financial health if you don't deal with it quickly. Today's podcast discusses ten tips on dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency and ta...

Debt doesn't start out as an obvious problem. For many people, lack of personal finance knowledge leads them to make poor decisions with their money. Once you figure out how easy it is to get credit, you start spending more and more because, hey, it's there. Today's guest is a former Hoyes Michalos client, and like many of our clients, he struggled with severe debt. Beau started gambling at a youn...

As Licensed Insolvency Trustees, our clients tell us how difficult it is to live on minimum wage.  That's why they often have no choice but to use debt to survive.  The average person we help file a consumer proposal or bankruptcy has an income that is almost 40% less than the median income in Ontario; in many cases our clients are working minimum wage jobs. Our clients don't have a debt problem;...