Build Wealth Canada Podcast

Whether you've already done your taxes for the year or not, I wanted to dedicate this episode to the tax optimizations that you can do to save tax not only this year, but for future years as well.

To help me with this, I've brought on accountant Neal Winokur on the show. Neal is a Chartered Professional Accountant here in Canada, and he's the author of the of the book, The Grumpy Accountant. You might have also seen some of his writing over at the National Post.

He has been an accountant here in Canada for over ten years so I thought it would be great to pick his brain on what all us non-accounts can do to save money on taxes for this year and for years to come.

You'll also learn what we can all do, to ensure that we aren't missing out on any credits and benefits that we are eligible for from the Government of Canada.

Changes happen every year to the different credits and benefits that the government offers, so how can we ensure that we don't miss out on any of the ones that apply to us, and that we aren't leaving money on the table?

So enjoy the episode, thanks for tuning in, and now let's get into the interview.

Questions Covered:

1. To kick things off, let's start with the question on everyone's minds, "How can we pay less in taxes?". And more specifically, what are the tools that we Canadians can use, to pay less in tax?

2. For this episode, I primarily wanted to focus on how we can reduce our taxes on an ongoing basis (not just for this year), but before we do that, considering that taxes are due at the end of this month, is there anything new for this year that we need to know about, when filing our taxes by the end of April?

3. One of the things that I'm sure many of us wonder about every year, is "Are there some benefits, tax credits, and/or exemptions that we're missing out on, resulting in us either receiving less money from the government, or paying more than we have to in taxes".

4. What's the easiest way to screen the different credits and other Canadian government benefits to make sure we're getting all of the ones we're eligible for?

5. How do you keep up to date on changes in tax laws? Is there something that we non-accountants can do to be informed as changes occur so that we can determine if they actually impact us? (i.e. any favourite resources)

6. Speaking of good resources, can you tell us more about your book and what we can learn from it?

7. Is there any low hanging fruit in terms of tax savings that you find Canadians sometimes miss?

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With fixed mortgage rates finally beginning to increase in Canada, many Canadians are wondering whether they should be locking in their mortgage rate in case interest rates continue to climb.

We also cover whether you can lock-in a mortgage rate now, and then have the option to renew at the lower rate if the interest rates continue to climb.

And, while it's easy to get fixated on mortgage rates whether you're an existing or future home buyer, it is worth mentioning that the penalties for breaking a variable vs fixed-rate mortgages can be drastically different, and can also vary significantly from provider to provider.

Which types of lenders tend to have the largest penalties?

What can we expect in fees depending on the lender and mortgage type that we choose?

We cover all that and more in this month's episode.

Also, the spring real estate season is now upon us with lots of Canadians looking to buy and/or sell their homes. Our resident mortgage expert takes us through what you can expect, and how COVID is impacting the real estate market in Canada.

Sean is the bestselling author of the book, Burn Your Mortgage. He bought his first house when he was only 27 in Toronto and paid off his mortgage in just 3 years by age 30.

These days, Sean's helping others burn their mortgages too, as an independent mortgage broker.

Sean has offered to answer for free, any questions that you, the Build Wealth Canada listeners have.

1. Free private Q&A with Sean
2. What's your passive investing style? (Stream Kornel's talk from the Canadian Financial Summit)
3. EQ Bank (The bank that I use with savings account interest rates up to 30x higher compared to other Canadian banks). If you sign up through this link, email me any confirmation that you receive from EQ to [email protected] and I'll email you my guide on the top ETFs in Canada, with an explanation of what I personally invest in and why.

1. When we spoke before the podcast, you mentioned that fixed mortgage rates are finally on the rise. What are the implications of that for Canadians who already have a mortgage, as well as those that are looking to get a new mortgage?
2. The spring real estate market is coming up. For those looking to buy a home or a rental property, what do we need to know about this particular time of year in Canada?
3. Seasonality is clearly a factor when it comes to Canadian real estate. Can you take us through what we can generally expect depending on the time of year that we choose to buy or sell a home or rental property?
4. Anytime interest rates move I'm sure you get lots of questions from your clients on whether they should lock-in their variable rate mortgage, or if someone is getting a new mortgage, whether they should go variable or fixed. Based on the current interest rate environment and the new changes to mortgage rates, what sort of analysis should we be doing to determine the best course of action?

1. COVID is of course, still very prevalent here in Canada. Are there any misconceptions about COVID and its impact on real estate that you think are worth clearing up?
2. As we head into the 2021 spring real estate season, would you say that it's more of a buyer's market or a seller's market?

If you liked the episode sign up for free to receive all new episodes as they get released, news on giveaways, and the free guide on the Top 5 Personal Finance and Productivity Tools.

One of my favourite things to do on the show is to interview other early retirees, especially those in Canada to learn how they did it, and really dissect their journey to financial independence and/or early retirement.

No matter where you are on your financial independence journey, I truly believe that we can all learn from others that have done it, and so I like to view what they did as a case study where we can break down their journey into actionable parts that we can apply to our own lives.

There are after all many paths to financial independence, and so it's valuable to know what those paths are so that you can pick and choose the components that are the best fit for you, and that are most aligned with your own goals.

Our guest today is Réjean Venne. Réjean worked in the insurance industry for eight years before retiring at twenty-nine and becoming a full-time parent. Réjean and his wife Danielle, along with their three young children, live in Northern Ontario. They write regularly on topics related to parenting, health, mindfulness, and money. You can follow them at mindfulfamily.ca.

Réjean recently published 5 Years to Freedom: A Canadian Guide to Early Retirement which documents his journey to financial independence.

In this interview, he's going to take us through his early retirement story and how you got there, along with the lessons that he's learned along the way which you can then apply in your own life to help you retire earlier.

We'll also cover how he was able to cut $53,000 in spending annually by retiring early, and how he and his wife were able to retire so early despite having three young kids which is often perceived as very difficult, due to how expensive many believe kids are.

Enjoy the episode :)

1. Can you take us through your early retirement story and how you got there?
2. As someone that's been retired for 3 years now in their early 30s, what are some of the lessons you learned that could help aspiring early retirees or those that are new to retirement?
3. Is there anything that surprised you after you became an early retiree? For example, were there any preconceived notions or assumptions of what you thought early retirement would be like, and then it ended up being something different?

1. I find you and I are pretty unique in the early retirement space in Canada as we both got to early retirement utilizing passive investments like investing in index funds, but we also used rental properties to get us there. For me, passive index investing was a better fit so that's all I do now, but for anybody that is debating using one of them or both of them, what's been your experience in using these different vehicles?

1. Knowing what you know now, if you had to start over to work your way towards financial independence and early retirement, is there anything that you'd do differently?
2. Are there any mistakes that you made while early retired that we could learn from?
3. You mentioned in your book that you don't really budget in the traditional sense. Can you take us through how you managed your cash flows with your wife during the pre-retirement stage, and how you do it now in early retirement?
4. How do you structure the withdrawals from your investment portfolio (including real estate) so that they are tax-efficient?
5. Early retirement seems like an unattainable dream to many people, yet it's surprising how attainable it can actually be when you crunch the numbers. One of my favourite parts of your book, was how you were able to cut $53,000 in spending annually by retiring early. Can you tell us a bit about how early retirement allows you to make such drastic cuts, and consequently how a lot of Canadians may actually be much closer to an earlier retirement than first meets the eye?
6. You're also retired with three kids, and kids are often seen as this massive expense that makes early retirement nearly impossible. Can you talk about how that's not necessarily so, especially with the Canada Child Benefit that parents are eligible for

1. Most of the early retirees I've talked to and researched built up large investment portfolios with the intention of never working again (myself included). But once they actually reached that financial independence number, they eventually ended up taking on some fun side projects that actually bring in an income. Therefore, they didn't actually need as large of an investment portfolio as they initially thought, and if only they factored that in prior to retirement, they could have retired much earlier. Can you share your experience with this as it seems to be extremely common with early retirees, and Canadians can definitely retire much earlier if they actually include some anticipation of future side income like this in their early retirement plans.
2. Through my research and own experience, I found that getting that sense of fulfilment can actually be a challenge for retirees when they no longer have to work. I know in your book you said that being a dad gives you that sense of fulfilment, but is there anything else outside of parenting that you find really helps in this regard? I find this answer might particularly be helpful for those retirees who either don't have kids, or those who have kids, but the kids are out on their own now, and so they no longer require that large time investment.

1. What are your goals and plans now? Especially now that the book is written.

• Rejean's Book: 5 Years to Freedom: A Canadian Guide to Early Retirement
• Get 2.3% interest through the EQ TFSA and RRSP account. This high interest savings account is at 1.50% (up to 30x higher than other banks in Canada)
• Kornel's Passive Investing Course
• Get your financial planning questions answered for free here.
• Get your mortgage questions questions for free here.
• Rejean's Blog: mindfulfamily.ca

If you liked the episode sign up for free to receive all new episodes as they get released, news on giveaways, and the free guide on the Top 5 Personal Finance and Productivity Tools.

Today we have Robb Engen on the show who is the creator of one of the most respected personal finance blogs in Canada over at Boomer and Echo.

He's been writing about personal finance and investing on the blog for more than 10 years, and he's also a fee-only financial planner, where he helps Canadians achieve their financial goals through unbiased and objective advice.

In this interview, you'll learn:

1. The most impactful financial decisions that we Canadians can make, to set ourselves up for success.
2. The different components that you should look for when analyzing if there are any critical flaws in your investment portfolio.
3. What a good investment portfolio structure is for somebody looking to retire early, and what withdrawal strategies to consider so that you don't run out of money in retirement.

We cover all that and much more, during the interview.

Links from the episode include:

The EQ RRSP, TFSA, and Savings Account

Robb's Site

What passive investing style are you? (video presentation)

Passiv (the tool that I use for tracking my investments and rebalancing)

Here is the full list of all the questions we covered:

1. With the new year kicking off, I'm sure many Canadians have a New Year's resolution of getting their finances in order and optimized. What would you say are some of the most impactful financial decisions that we Canadians can make, to set ourselves up for success?
2. Which ones can we do ourselves vs having to seek out the help of a financial planner like yourself?
3. I noticed that one of the things that you do as part of your financial planning practice are investment portfolio reviews. For anybody new to this, what is an investment portfolio review, and what are the different components that you like to look for when analyzing if someone has any critical flaws in their investment portfolio?What parts of the portfolio review can most Canadians easily do ourselves vs having to hire a professional like yourself for that extra level of optimization?
4. For those that are working towards an early retirement, or are already there, is there a particular portfolio structure that you like?For example: A type of bucket strategy, or something different (ex. just doing a flat withdrawal from a balanced portfolio, etc.)
5. When it comes to withdrawing from your portfolio in an early retirement, or a traditional retirement, which approach or approaches due you tend to prefer so that we don't run out of money in retirement, but also so we don't have too much money left to spend by the time we pass away (ex. 4% rule, 3-3.5% rule, VPW, something else?)
6. With the record low interest rates that we've been experiencing, many of us Canadians are re-evaluating the fixed-income/safe portion of our portfolio. How do you approach the dilemma of buying a bond ETF for the fixed income portion of your portfolio, vs just putting that money towards a really high interest savings account which can give us higher interest than the bond ETF, plus then we also don't have to worry about losing money if the interest rates go up in the future.
7. Where can listeners go to learn more from you or hire you to get their questions answered?

In this episode, we're going to cover how you can retire early, or at the very least, semi-retire early so that you have more time for friends, family and recreation.

My guest for this month is Mark Seed, who instead of rushing to achieve some giant investment portfolio number and fully retiring to never have to work again, he is instead taking what I believe, is the more efficient, sustainable and fulfilling approach of fully embracing an early semi-retirement, instead of a full stop early retirement.

Mark is very much a DIY Canadian investor like myself and has a lot of knowledge when it comes to financial planning here in Canada as he's actually executing his own early semi-retirement.

We have an absolute blast geeking out on these subjects in the interview, and I truly believe that by you listening in, you'll get some really great actionable insights on how you can optimize your own financial independence and early retirement journey (to get there quicker).

1. Where are you right now in terms of your financial independence, retire early journey?
2. I consider you as part of the FIRE movement, but I know that you also have some problems with it. Can you take us through these issues or concerns?
3. How are you structuring your portfolio for your early semi-retirement?
4. Once you pull the trigger and quit your day job in a few years, what is the process and structure that you're going to follow to allow you to live off your investments? (ex. VPW?)
5. When it comes to living off your investments in full or semi-retirement, you and I are big fans of the variable percentage withdraw method. Can you talk about what that is for anybody that is not familiar, and why do you like this approach over a more static approach like the 4% rule?
6. There are many different ways to structure a variable percentage withdraw strategy (ex. Using different spending floors and ceilings, incorporating it with a bucket strategy, etc.). How are you personally structuring your VPW process?
7. How do you plan on dealing with sequence-of-returns risk in your early retirement? And for anybody not familiar, can you define what sequence-of-returns risk is?
8. The last time you were on my podcast, I think you mentioned about potentially moving away from your dividend stocks in retirement, and focusing on just a total return approach, and maybe migrating your dividends stocks to passive, broad market index ETFs. What are your thoughts about that now?
9. I'd like to stress to everybody watching and listening that when it comes to living off your portfolio in early retirement or early semi-retirement, there isn't one silver bullet solution that's perfect for everyone. So, a good process is that when you are approaching your financial independence number, start learning about all the different ways that you can structure your portfolio for your early retirement, and then pick and/or modify one so that it's a good fit for you. Then share that with a good fee for service financial planner to get their take, as you really want a professional 2nd set of eyes on something like this before you pull the early retirement or early semi-retirement trigger. Do you agree with that approach Mark?

A big thanks to 5i Research for giving Build Wealth Canada listeners a free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine (Canada's largest personal finance magazine).

You can get the free 1-year subscription by signing up for free 30-day access to all of 5i's investment research (there's no credit card required, or anything like that).

When you signup for free, you'll receive access to over 70 company reports (perfect if you like to invest in individual stocks too), you'll get 3 optimized model portfolios, and answers to over 90,000 investing questions, along with the ability to ask your stock and ETF questions directly to the 5i Research team of Analysts.

The team at 5i don't sell any investments and they don't get any commissions or bonuses from suggesting stocks and ETFs. I've been using them for years as they are one of the VERY few companies in Canada, that are truly unbiased when it comes to their research and suggestions on stocks and ETFs.

You can get free 30-day access to all their research and resources over at buildwealthcanada.ca/research, and as I thank you for trying them out, you'll receive a free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine, Canada's largest personal finance magazine.

I encourage you to check 5i out, it's a great place get some truly unbiased insights on your investments (especially if there is a ETF or stock that you're considering, and you want an unbiased opinion from a professionally trained financial analyst that isn't there to sell you anything. You get free access for 30 days, and you'll learn an absolute ton.

In this guide, I go over what I personally invest in, and why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement.

At the very least you'll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it'll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there.

The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use my special link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ Bank.

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada (up to 30 times more interest than other banks).

It's also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you're not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.

Because of those reasons, I've been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it's where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money.

To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you're done, forward any email that you get from EQ to [email protected] and I'll send you the full comprehensive guide for free.

Mark's Site: MyOwnAdvisor.ca

We talked about several free tools that you can use to experiment with the 4% rule, and run analysis to see how sustainable your portfolio is in worst-case scenarios. Here are the different free tools that we talked about on the show:

Cfiresim.com

Portfoliovisualizer.com

Firecalc.com

Don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter.

Today we're going to try something a little different in that I'm going to split today's episode into two sections, covering two different subjects:

First, we're going to cover some questions that I've received from listeners of the show and from students of my investing course, so that you can benefit from the strategies and tactics too. These are specifically going to be in the area of investing.

Next, we're going to bring on my guest who is our resident mortgage and real estate expert and best-selling author, Sean Cooper. Sean will explain the real estate situation here in Canada so that you can stay informed on how real estate has been affected in these COVID times, whether you're an existing home-owner that is concerned about the value of their home dropping due to COVID, or whether you are a renter looking to potentially buy in the future.

We cover questions like What should you know? And how can you maximize your chances of getting approved for a mortgage?

And whether you're an existing or future home-owner, there have actually been some mortgage rule changes that recently took place here in Canada so you definitely want to be informed about those so that you can easily renew that mortgage when it's time. Or, if you're looking to buy, so that you can have a smooth stress-free process in obtaining financing for your property, instead of struggling and potentially missing out on your dream home due to financing issues, due to these new mortgage rules that recently got put into place.

RBC's Small Business Navigator Hub: For practical resources, advice, and offers, visit RBC's Small Business Navigator hub at buildwealthcanada.ca/hub.

Business is anything but usual these days, and entrepreneurs are looking for support that goes beyond traditional banking to successfully re-open and manage their business. Now, they can access all of RBC's practical tips, insights, money-saving offers and solutions to support their eCommerce, digital payments, payroll management, employee wellness needs and more – all in one place.

To learn more, check out the RBC Small Business Navigator hub, available online at BuildWealthCanada.ca/hub.

• Get your mortgage questions answered for free by booking a meeting with Sean here.
• Get the real estate expense tool for free when it's released by signing up to the waiting list here.

Investing Topics:

1. Buying near all-time stock market highs. Should you do it?
2. Investing larger amounts of money: Buying-in all at once vs dollar-cost-averaging in.
3. How much to focus on dividends in your investing.
4. Socially responsible investing, and what to keep in mind before diving in.

Real Estate and Mortgage Questions:

1. Let's talk about COVID and the real estate market. Are we seeing increases in home values?
2. How are things if you're looking to buy vs sell?
3. Is it a buyer's or seller's market?
4. There have been some Mortgage Rule Changes recently here in Canada. Can you take us through them?
5. What can we do that is within our control, to maximize the chances of getting approved for a mortgage, and getting the best terms and rate?
6. With these record low interest rates that we've been seeing, many Canadians that are currently in a fixed-rate mortgage are wondering, is it worth breaking their existing mortgage, paying the cancelling fees, and then getting a new mortgage at the lower rate. Can you talk about the analysis that we should be doing to actually mathematically figure this out?
7. What should we consider if we're shopping around for a home right now, in Canada?

Don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter.

Whenever we talk about investments, savings for retirement, and early retirement, the subject of diversification always comes up, and for good reason. We obviously don't want all our eggs in one basket.

But what if we applied that concept to our income sources?

Just how diversified are your income sources? Is 100% of your annual income coming from just one source: your job? Obviously, that's not very diversified.

One of the big things that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, is that our jobs are not actually all that secure.

Join us as we go over the best (and my favorite) way to diversify your income sources: By starting your own business.

Our guest today is Lori Darlington, a Vice-President in the Small Business Division at RBC. Because she works for RBC (one of Canada's largest banks), she has access to an incredible amount of data on small businesses in Canada, and when you have that much data, studies and reports on Canadian small businesses, you start to notice certain patterns between the small Canadian businesses that succeed, vs the ones that don't.

I wanted to ask what her findings were in regards to this so that you and I can structure and optimize our business in the right way, and not make some of the top mistakes that Canadian business owners tend to make.

We also cover questions like how to get set up properly as a new or existing small business in Canada and much more.

Lori and her team have put together some great free resources, over on their site here.

One of my favourite sections, is the "Explore tools and services beyond banking" page, where they share other businesses and services that they found particularly helpful for helping small businesses thrive. I'm actually in the process now of going through it, and am particularly interested in the free business accounting software that they have on there.

The free tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit are finally available here.

In case you're new to the podcast, this is a free event, it's 100% online so no travel required, and it's specifically for Canadians. It's taking place this October 15th, and I'm bringing on some of Canada's top personal finance experts to share their best practices to help you retire early, invest better, lower your fees, pay less in taxes, and help you learn the best practices when it comes to personal finance and investing so that you can hit your financial independence number years earlier.

Collectively, past guests of the Summit have been in hundreds of media articles from major news and financial publications in Canada such as the Globe and Mail, Financial Post, Global News, CTV, Yahoo Finance, and many, many more.

I've brought on some big hitters this year like the creator of the TFSA, Kevin McCarthy, and the Warren Buffett of Canada, Peter Hodson, just to name a few. I hope to see you there, it's free to attend, it's all online, and you can register for free here..

1. As the largest bank in Canada, I'm sure you have access to some really good data on small businesses in Canada, and the top mistakes and challenges that they tend to run into. Can you share some of these with us so that anybody starting or running a small business in Canada can hopefully better bypass some of these common mistakes?
2. For anybody starting a new business or already running a small business, what are the most important essentials and best practices to ensure that we are set up correctly from the banking side and government reporting side, so that we don't end up getting in trouble during tax time, or run into money management issues because we aren't properly set up?
3. One of the pages that I really liked on your site was the "Beyond Banking" page where you list other companies that provide different services that small businesses need (like free accounting software for example), and then it looks like you were able to negotiate deals with some of these companies and give Canadians special rebates and discounts on their services. Can you talk about this page as well as some of the other free resources and tools that you have available on your site? (ex. Your Startup Cost, Cash Flow, and Loan calculators).
4. With COVID-19, we are in a very unusual time for new and existing small businesses. I imagine there are many Canadians who after seeing all these job losses that take place, are considering starting their own business on-the-side to provide that extra cash-flow and give them that extra stability so that they aren't fully reliant on their employer for all of their household's income. Do you have any advice for new and existing small business owner as we (hopefully), continue to recover from COVID-19 as a country?
5. With the thousands of small businesses that bank with you, I'm sure you've noticed some patterns between businesses that especially struggled during COVID-19, vs those that were able to minimize the negative impact that it had. Were there any lessons learned from the data and conversations that you've had, that can help us be better prepared for such storms in the future? (whether it's another pandemic, or something like the 2008 financial crisis).
6. There is a fair bit of aid available to small business because of COVID-19. If somebody has questions or wants to see what their business is eligible for, is it better to reach out to a bank like yours, or should they be reaching out directly to the government instead?
7. Can you tell us more about where we can go to learn more, as well as any other free tools and resources that you have available for small business owners?

Don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter

Today I have Jessica Moorhouse on the show, who is an Accredited Financial Counsellor, an award-winning blogger, the host of the 'Mo Money Podcast, and the founder of the Millennial Money Meetup. You might have also seen her on CBC News, The Globe and Mail, The Financial Post, and many other news channels and publications here in Canada.

In today's episode, you'll learn the highest impact actions that we Canadians can do to really make a dent in increasing our savings.

We cover how to best manage your money and day-to-day cashflows, and the different types of tools and systems that you can use to help you manage your finances. We also talk about investments, and how Jessica actually invests her own money.

Last but not least, I consider Jessica to also be a very successful entrepreneur, and so if you are considering starting your own business, or are looking for ways to take your existing business to the next level, we talk about how Jessica was able to grow her company so successfully, and what lessons we can learn from her, to propel our own Canadian businesses to the next level.

• Check out Jessica's site and valuable resources over at: Jessicamoorhouse.com
• Get Free Tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit
• The top personal finance and investing tools guide mentioned on the episode can be received for free by signing up on the main page over at buildwealthcanada.ca.
• The how to invest videos mentioned during the show can be found at buildwealthcanada.ca/invest. That's also where I can answer your investing questions.
• You can get your financial planning questions answered for free for 30 minutes by speaking with our resident financial planner John Kalos.
• You can get your mortgage questions answered for free by setting up a free call with our resident mortgage broker, Sean Cooper.
• Canada's Top ETFs Guide & Top High-Interest Savings Account: In this guide, I go over what I personally invest in, why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement. At the very least you'll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it'll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there. The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use my special link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ bank. The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings accounts in Canada. At the time of this writing, they are anywhere from double, to over 30 times higher than most of the banks in Canada. It's also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you're not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, and can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances. Because of those reasons, I've been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it's where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money. To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you're done, forward any email that you get from EQ to [email protected] and I'll send you the full comprehensive guide for free.

1. As an Accredited Financial Counsellor, I'm sure you deal with many Canadians that are either struggling financially or would like to really amplify their savings so they can invest more, and eventually retire early.What would you say are the highest impact actions that us Canadians can do to really make a dent in increasing our savings, whether it's to pay off debt, save to buy a home, or have more to invest for retirement?
2. When it comes to financial management and managing your day-to-day cash flows, what sort of system or process do you personally have in place and use? Is that a good starting point for those that are looking to gain more control over their finances? Or is there something simpler you recommend for those just getting started?

1. We all know that we should get our finances in order, optimize our investments and manage our money carefully, but we're all busy and it's easy for things to slip through the cracks.When it comes to staying organized in your personal life, finances and business, are there any tools, systems and workflows that you depend on and that work really great for you?

1. How do you personally invest your money and what's your thought process behind that decision? (ie. Robo vs asset allocation ETF vs individual ETFs vs something else?)

1. I notice you've done a fair bit of work and teaching with students. Student debt is a big concern for many so when someone is debating between paying off student debt vs saving for a home vs investing in their TFSA or RRSP, what's your stance and thought process on how they should decide which to focus on? (let's do this from a qualitative and quantitative angle)

I definitely see you as a successful entrepreneur, so let's shift gears a bit and talk about your life as an entrepreneur, for anybody that wants to eventually work for themselves like you, or have a side-hustle to generate some extra income.

1. As an entrepreneur, I find it's really easy to take on too much and get burnt out. Reading your blog, I noticed you've run into this issue too. Do you have a daily routine that works well for you to balance business with personal time so that you don't burn out?
2. As a successful entrepreneur, I noticed that you work with a lot of big brands in your business. For somebody looking to start or grow their existing business, how do you personally approach such companies and close these deals?It's obviously easier to do this once you're established, so would your strategy change if someone is just starting out vs already having an established business?

1. When it comes to partnering with the different companies/brands how do you determine what to charge them and what to offer them?

1. You are in a lot of different channels and seem to have a pretty wide array of revenue streams for your business. What channels or projects have you found to be the best return on your time invested?

1. How do you prioritize which projects/opportunities to work on?
2. Thanks for coming on the show and where can listeners learn more from you?

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Your credit score is a very important thing to manage as it lets you get the lowest possible rates on your mortgage, car loans, lines of credit, and any other debt that you may wish to take on now and in the future.

In Canada, the best loans with the best terms are reserved for people with high credit scores. So, even if you don't need any sort of loan now (like a mortgage, car loan, or a line of credit), it is something that you should keep an eye on and strive to improve, as you don't want to be overcharged on interest payments if you ever do need some financing.

Even though we no longer have a mortgage or any debt, I still use a free tool to monitor my own credit score, just to ensure that the best loans are available to me in case I ever need them, and to help protect myself against identity fraud.

For example, if somebody got a hold of my credentials and tried taking out credit cards or loans in my name, I can quickly catch that and report it, instead of letting them gradually destroy my credit score over time.

I like sharing the apps and tools that I personally use on the podcast and the free tool that I use to do all of this is called Borrowell. So today on the show, I brought on the CEO of Borrowell, Andrew Graham so that I can ask him some questions after using his tool for almost a year.

We cover things like:

• How to increase your credit score
• The key things that can cause our score to decline
• How to read the credit report so you can see if there are any issues
• How to fix issues on our credit report that are negatively impacting our credit score
• and much more.

• The tool that I use to check and monitor my credit score for free is over at Borrowell.
• You can learn more about Borrowell Boost here.
• Free tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit: To get the free tickets, just sign up anywhere on the main page of BuildWealthCanada.ca and I'll email them to you once they are ready.

1. Your company offers free credit scores and reports from Canada's largest credit bureau, Equifax. For anybody completely new to all of this, who is Equifax and why should we care?
2. To help further answer the question of why we should even care about our credit score; from your experience, how big of a difference have you seen in the interest rate offered to Canadians who have a low vs a high credit score?
3. Many of us have heard about how if our credit score gets checked too much by companies, it can actually lower our credit score. This leads us to the subject of hard vs soft inquiries. Can you talk about what those are?
4. If we need a loan and are shopping around, how do we ensure that we don't get too many hard inquires?
5. I've been using your tools for a while now and one of my favourite time-saving ones is how you automatically calculate our credit utilization score. Can you explain what that is and what credit utilization score we should aim for?
6. Does our credit score improve the lower our credit utilization percentage is to 0%? Or do we really just need to ensure that we're under the specific number?
7. When we receive our credit report (whether it's through you guys or someone else), what specifically should we be looking for and analyzing while going through it?
8. I realize your tool actually does custom suggestions on how to improve our credit score once it pulls our information, but what are some best practices that anybody can apply when it comes to increasing our credit score?
9. At what point is our credit score in that top tier where we are already getting the best possible rate and so it's not worth the effort in trying to improve it any further?
10. How important is it to close down accounts that we still have open but don't use anymore? (ex. credit cards, lines of credit, etc.)
11. If there is an error or discrepancy on our credit report, what's the best recourse that we have as Canadians? Ex. do we contact Equifax? Do we contact the company that put that blemish on our credit report and ask them to fix it?
12. If somebody has no loans and doesn't use credit cards, is that actually bad if you ever do need a loan since lenders want to see that credit history? (ex. A homemaker where their spouse does all the purchasing and their debts are under the working spouse's name?)
13. I'm a big fan of online tools that help me optimize and manage my finances, and you guys have one coming out that I'm pretty excited to try out. Can you talk about the new Borrowell Boost app that you have and what it does?

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Today we're going to cover how you can best automate the management of your investment portfolio, while still paying the lowest possible fees. We also share best practices when it comes to sticking to your investment plan.

To help us discuss this, I have Brendan Wood on the show who is one of the founders of Passiv, a Canadian fintech company that builds tools for DIY investors.

I'm a long-time user of their tools and they've saved me many hours of tedious work when managing my portfolio. So, I thought it would be great to have him on the show especially since Canadians can now get the premium features of the tool for free.

1. I'm excited to share how I use Passiv because it's saved me many many hours at this point and makes checking up on my investments super convenient. But, I'm curious to hear from you how others are using it. Are there certain features or use cases that you see being used most often?
2. What are some of the new features that we now have access to and how should we best use them?
3. Using limit orders vs market orders when buying investments?
4. What's important to look at when examining the performance of your investment portfolio?
5. Dealing with different currencies when investing. What is the cheapest way to convert currency if we want to buy US-listed investments?
6. What is dollar-cost-averaging and your thoughts on using it, especially when the markets are volatile?
7. The impact of COVID-19 on investors. What have you noticed?
8. Investing during down markets.
9. Speculating on markets vs specific companies, and what to do when getting a "hunch" as to where the markets are going.