Retail marketing scientists have mastered the art of seduction. They make a living by influencing your purchasing decisions and, on occasion, roping you into buying something you really don’t need. They have a myriad of analytics at their disposal, and they’re not shy about using them to tempt you into abandoning all rational behaviour and making impulse purchase decisions –...
My grandparents had great pensions, and my parents have OK pension plans. Me though? I have none. The most I’ve been offered by any employer, is a group RRSP. It used to be commonplace for employers to guarantee their employees a specific pension payout for remaining loyally employed with the company. However, in recent years, a lot of employers have...
When making decisions about where to spend money, generosity often trumps or supersedes money concerns at this time of year. For some, it can be so difficult to go against this pattern, they actually feel helpless to control their spending, budget or not. In a recent Investors Group poll, 1 in 4 Canadians feel helpless to control holiday spending....
We have a lot of decisions to make in life. Sometimes the easiest, or most reassuring way to go about making those decisions, is simply to spring for the best your money can get. Do you need to have the very best internet or cell phone package though? Maybe. In reality however, a lot of people overpay, without using even...
It’s pretty common to think that having more will make us happy. In reality, though, the more we have, the more complicated our lives get. We are hardwired to think about the upside when we buy things. We think about how great it will be to take our new boat out on the lake, or spend summers at the cottage...
Fixed expenses directly impact our discretionary spending ability, and our ability to save. Some fixed costs are inevitable: We need to pay down our mortgage, pay our utilities, and make good with the phone company every month. These so-called “fixed” expenses, though, have a way of creeping higher across the board, under the radar, without us acknowledging their impact on...
Starting a business might be scary, but for those already invested in a venture that’s underperforming, knowing when to pull the plug is by far the more terrifying prospect. To be an entrepreneur, you require a certain amount of blind faith, drive and ambition. At some point in your business venture, and long before you have too much invested though,...
No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how much income you earn each year, if your debt is growing, even just a little bit, your lifestyle is not sustainable. Why? Because eventually, that debt will start eroding your lifestyle. Even before you get to that point, you will probably feel stress, or other unpleasant emotions....
Watch your pennies. It’s not terribly difficult to do, and the pennies, the little things, are usually what add up to big savings over time. I was speaking with a client recently who was introduced to the concept of tracking his daily expenditures. This task of “watching the pennies,” really had him questioning things. “What’s the big deal?” he asked...
There are two, very common, hurdles people face when attempting to budget. Unfortunately, these hurdles often go unacknowledged, setting a lot of people up for failure, almost before they even get started. Quite simply, there are two hurdles or speed bumps people encounter with the process: The first challenge is the not-so-simple task of getting started. Unlike starting a diet (which...
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