By Sheryl Smolkin

This week we have a number of interesting blogs on a variety of topics relating to how you save and spend your money.

On Boomer & Echo Marie Engen asks How Safe Are Your Bank Deposits? Canada is widely considered to have one of the safest banking systems in the world.  But several large financial institutions have failed in the past, so it is  important to understand Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation limits for banks ($100,000/account) and provincial plans covering Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires.

Jim Yih discusses a hypothetical financial counselling session with Jack and Jill and how they decide to save their extra cash flow of $500/month. They choose to contribute $200 extra to their RRSPs for the long term as long as their incomes were higher than the 32% marginal tax rate.

Their tax saving will be used to pay down the mortgage unless they believe he markets will produce future returns of 7% or more. They will also allocate the remaining $300 per month to their TFSAs. This will give them flexibility to use savings in this account to pay a lump sum on their mortgage, top up their RRSPs or open RESPs in the future.

On Canadian Dream: Free at 45, Dave shares how he and his wife are living a (relatively) stress-free life. They live on one salary so if either of them loses his/her job they can still manage financially. The fact that they don’t have children or other dependants helps to make this a practical alternative.

If you have just opened a trading account with a new discount broker or you have accounts in different places and want to consolidate, you’ll need to transfer your holdings between brokers. The Canadian Capitalist has put together a detailed checklist on what you have to do to make this process as painless as possible.

And on Sustainable Personal Finance, Miranda questions whether there are times you should put your ideals ahead of your pocketbook. That could mean giving just a little bit extra to causes that are near and dear to your heart, or making a commitment to socially-responsible investing.

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 with us on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.