We are again going to sample recent material from a series of bloggers who participated in The Canadian Financial Summit in September.

This week headlines across the country blared that CRA has changed their position on allowing diabetics to claim lucrative disability tax credits in certain cases.

On Your Money, Your Life, accountant Evelyn Jacks discusses why these changes are being made and how audit-proofing strategies must be implemented by tax professionals and their diabetic clients.

Andrew Daniels writes at Family Money Plan about how he paid off his mortgage in 6 years. Five of the 28 things he and his wife gave up to quickly pay down his mortgage are noted below:

• Eating out, largely due to food sensitivities and allergies with the added bonus that they saved big bucks.
• For the first five years of the pay down period they gave up travel.
• They went without cell phones for four of the six years of paying off their mortgage
• They opted to repair their old cars as required rather than buying new ones.

Jonathan Chevreau, CEO of the Financial Independence Hub notes in the Financial Post that Only a quarter of Canadians have a rainy day fund, but more than half worry about rising rates.

This is based on a survey of 1,350 voting-age adults by Forum Research Inc. conducted after the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark overnight rate from 0.75% to 1% on Sept. 6, the second increase in three months. That said, 17% believe rate hikes will have some positive aspects: Not surprisingly, debt-free seniors welcome higher returns on GICs and fixed-income investments. Another 38% don’t think it will have an effect either way.

Do you know how long it will take to double the money you have invested? MapleMoney blogger Tom Drake explains the rule of 72 which take into account the impact of compound interest and  allows you to get a quick idea of what you can achieve with your money.

For example, if you were expecting a rate of return of 7% you would divide 72 by 7, which tells you it would take about 10.3 years to double your money at that rate. If you want $50,000, you would need to invest $25,000 today at 7% and let it sit for 10.3 years.

Kyle Prevost explores 5 stupid reasons for not getting life insurance on lowestrates.ca. If your rationale is that you are healthy and never get sick, Prevost says, “Glass half-full thinking is a positive thing, but pretending that your full glass is indestructible is a recipe for disaster.”

And if you have avoided buying life insurance because you have so many other bills you can’t afford it, he says, “You seriously need to ask yourself what sort of situation you’d leave behind if tragedy struck. Those bills that look daunting right now would look downright insurmountable.”

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

By Sheryl Smolkin

This issue of Best from the Blogosphere draws on the work of several of the over 60 personal finance bloggers/experts who belong to the Canadian Money Bloggers Facebook Group. While many are old friends, today we introduce you to several bloggers who are new to us that we have recently started reading.

Alyssa Davies on Mixed up Money writes about Why She Still Avoids the Mall 1 Year After Becoming Debt Free. In order to pay off $10,000 in debt arising out of a shopping addiction she had to quit cold turkey. Even going to the mall was too much temptation. She rewarded herself with a new $80 wallet when she paid off her debt, but since then she prefers to shop for clothing online as a form of damage control.

11 Ways to Lower Your Power & Utility Bills by Dan on HowToSaveMoney.ca is a very topical piece for any season. Dan suggests that to conserve water you use low flow toilets and make sure you have no leaky taps. Energy efficient blinds and window upgrades can help keep the cold out and the heat in. And weatherstripping, adding solar panels and smart thermostats are other options for better managing utility bills.

We’ve read a lot lately about Sean Cooper’s book Burn Your Mortgage. In fact I recently posted a podcast interview with him on this site. But FIRECracker chats with Cooper for the Millenial Revolution about what it actually takes to publish a book. Instead of finally relaxing after paying off his mortgage, he spent 3-5 months writing the book; 4 months editing and re-writing it; plus 6-8 months working with a publicist and literary agent on marketing. In addition, he put $20,000 of his own money into the project.

The blogger and founder of Family Money Plan Andrew Daniels says part of his plan to become financially free involves making more money. Taking surveys is one side hustle that is helping him reach this objective. There are a lot of different survey companies out there and each of them compensates differently. But if he is waiting for an oil change or for his kids’ activities to wrap up, he pulls out his smartphone and earns while he would otherwise be just killing time.

CPA Robin Taub frequently blogs for Tangerine Bank’s website Forward Thinking. In How someone stole my identity to commit fraud and what I did about it she tells a compelling story about Janice who was the victim of identity theft and fraud like 20,611 other people in 2014. It took her months to get her credit rating cleared so she could be approved for a mortgage and purchase a home. “To this day, I’m still not sure how my Social Insurance Number was compromised since I didn’t physically misplace or lose the card. But I’m much more vigilant now about protecting myself,” Janice told Taub.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.