Ready...Set...Money

The modern vision of retirement - one of perfect happiness and leisure - is one that was crafted for us by an ad campaign for financial services. Our worry about what we’ll do after we stop working has also been crafted for us by decades of policy. It really, really doesn’t have to be this hard.

Becoming common law spouses in most parts of Canada doesn’t automatically entitle you to each other’s property or income if one of you dies without a will, or if you split up in the future. Knowing when your marital status changed and what you each brought into the relationship helps untangle the knot of ownership after the relationship ends.

RESPs are accounts that have other accounts inside of them…kind of like Russian nesting dolls. And you can’t just take the money out and hope for the best…well, you can, but it’s likely to result in the government getting money that could have been yours, if only you knew how to get at it.

For many of us, the decisions we make about what to spend our money on are our most direct participation in the world of finance.

Control over what we buy can sometimes feel like the only control we have, even if that control is limited by how much income we have and what the basic necessities of life cost.

Show notes & resources at https://readysetmoney.ca

Life expectancy is math. It’s a number that comes from how long other people have lived in the past, and it describes how many more years you might live from today. It’s important for financial planning, but it’s even more important for changing the world.

Updated to fix audio (thanks for the h/t John!)

Life expectancy is math. It’s a number that comes from how long other people have lived in the past, and it describes how many more years you might live from today. It’s important for financial planning, but it’s even more important for changing the world.

Credit histories and scores seem like a logical and inevitable part of our lives, and knowing how to build and improve your score is critical to your financial wellbeing. But just because it’s critical doesn’t mean it’s fair or that it says anything important at all about you.

Season Two of Ready…Set…Money is coming soon, and this season we’re looking at our money as a system - how everything about your finances touches everything else.

We’ll zoom in on smaller, individual systems and zoom out to look at bigger systems that feel invisible but impact us every day.

Watch for Season Two to drop in August.

If your basic needs are being met, and you have more than you need to get by, you have the luxury of deciding what to do with that extra money.

This is important, because–as the saying goes–you can have anything, but you can’t have everything. You have to decide what you want, and you have to decide what you’re willing (or not willing) to do to get it.

Show notes and resources at https://readysetmoney.ca

Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been investing for a long time, it’s important to know how much you’re paying to invest, and decide if it’s worth it.

Transcript, show notes, and resources at https://readysetmoney.ca