These days, Canadians share two unrelated traits – very few of us, the vast majority, aren’t savers. And as well, nearly all of us, a majority, have a smart phone.

Could one attribute help fix the other? Save with SPP had a look around to see if there are any money-saving apps out there, and whether people think they work.

According to Global News, a great app for those who love to clip coupons is Checkout 51. With this app, Global explains, you don’t present coupons at the cash. Instead, you scan your receipt using the app and get money back via cheque.

“After you purchase items on the list you photograph and upload your receipt via the app. The receipt gets checked and once approved (usually within 48 hours) the money you earned gets added to your account. Once you hit $20 a cheque is mailed out to you,” the article explains.

Global also recommends an app called Gas Buddy which tells you where the cheapest gas prices are in your area, using GPS.

Over at the Maple Money blog, among the apps recommended for us Canucks is Mint, which “helps you track your spending, and also alerts you to when you’ve spend too much (or if you get charged a fee for something). In addition to those things, Mint also offers a bunch of money saving tips to help you manage your money better,” the article states.

They also like Flipp which alerts you to flyers for your area after you enter your postal code.

The CBC likes a number of these apps, and also E-bates which is now known as Rakuten. With E-bates, the network notes, you are basically being paid to shop.” Every time you make a purchase through one of their verified vendors, E-bates will send you a cheque. That’s cash back on top of the regular sales your favorite stores are having – and bonus, the app rounds all the deals up for you as well. E-bates earns a commission every time you make a purchase through their website, and instead of keeping it, they pass it on to you,” the network suggests.

Save with SPP can’t vouch for any of these except for E-bates; we have used it for years and yes, when you accumulate enough savings they’ll send you a cheque. It’s sort of like using a cash back card. We will give some of these other ones a try.

Let’s face it – the cost of living never seems to go down, so any app that offers a chance to save you some cash is probably worth at least trying out.

That extra cash, money that you didn’t earn and is thus “free,” can be used for any number of good things. Saving for retirement seems near the top of the list – perhaps the newfound cash can find its way into your Saskatchewan Pension Plan account, where it will grow into future retirement income. And maybe it all starts with a few clicks on an app!

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

This week we feature content from old friends and new dealing with a range of interesting issues.

On You and Your Money, Ed Rempel writes about Understanding the Differences Between Financial Advisors and Brokers. He says, “I do think everyday investors are much better off if they have someone in their corner who is recommending a particular investment product because it actually is the best product for them, given their circumstances and life stage. Not because there’s a commission on the sale at the end of the day.”

Doris Belland on Your Financial Launchpad tackles How to deal with multiple requests for donations and money. According to Doris, “The key is to run your financial life deliberately and consciously. Instead of barrelling through life with your nose to the grindstone, dealing with a plethora of urgent matters, spending on an ad hoc basis depending on which squeaky wheel is acting up, I suggest you make a plan and decide ahead of time which items are worthy of your valuable monthly cash.”

If you are spending a lot on Uber, should you buy a car? Desirae Odjick addresses this question on her blog half/BANKED. If you are laying out a large sum (say $1,000) every month on Uber, she agrees that a car makes sense. But if it’s a seasonal thing in really cold weather when you cannot easily walk, bike or take public transit she nixes the idea.

Mark Seed at My Own Advisor interviews Doug Runchey about the perennial question, Should you defer your Canada Pension to age 65 or 70? Runchey suggests that the main reasons for taking CPP and OAS as late as possible are:

• You don’t necessarily need the money to live on now.
• You have good reason to believe that you have a longer-than-average life expectancy.
• You don’t have a reliable defined pension with full indexing, and the CPP and OAS are integral to your inflation-protected, fixed-income financial well-being.
• You are concerned about market risk to your savings portfolio.
• You aren’t concerned about leaving a large estate – so you use up some or all personal assets before taking government benefits.

And finally, Maple Money’s Tom Drake puts the spotlight on Canada’s best no annual fee credit cards and the perks they offer. His list includes the:

• Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card
• President’s Choice Financial Mastercard
• MBNA Rewards Mastercard
• SimplyCash Card from American Express.

The features of each of these cards and a link to the relevant website are included in Drake’s blog.

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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.

One of the perennial questions that comes up in the first two months of every year is whether individuals should first contribute to a tax-free savings account (TFSA) or a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP), particularly if they cannot afford to max out contributions to both types of plans. And since 2009 when TFSAs first became available, every top personal finance writer has offered their opinion on the subject.

Chris Nicola on WealthBar created  WealthBar’s ultimate TFSA vs RRSP calculator. He says saving for your retirement income using your RRSP will beat saving in a TFSA for most people as long as your marginal tax rate when you are saving is higher than your average tax rate when you withdraw the funds, since the RRSP lets you defer paying tax until retirement.

The Holy Potato TFSA vs RRSP Decision Guide allows you to work through the steps to see which savings plan is best for you. This infographic illustrates that RRSPs can only beat TFSAs if you are making RRSP contributions pre-tax (i.e. contributing your refund so more goes in the RRSP). If you fritter away your refund, go straight to the TFSA.

Maple Money’s Tom Drake also presents an RRSP vs. TFSA Comparison Chart. Drake cites the recently released C.D. Howe Institute study entitled Saver’s Choice: Comparing the Marginal Effective Tax Burdens on RRSPs and TFSAs. The report notes:

“Especially for lower income Canadians, the Marginal Effective Tax Rate (METR) in retirement may actually exceed the METR during an individual’s working years because of the effects of clawbacks on income-tested programs like the Old Age Supplement (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS). At various income levels, these benefits are reduced. If most of your retirement income is from fully taxable sources like CPP, RRSPs, company pensions, and OAS, your METR will be higher than if you mix in some tax-prepaid investments like TFSAs.”

The Wealthy Barber David Chilton sees the fact that you can take money out of a TFSA in one year and replace it in a future year as both a positive and a negative. Thus Chilton says:

“I’m worried that many Canadians who are using TFSAs as retirement-savings vehicles are going to have trouble avoiding the temptation to raid their plans. Many will rationalize, “I’ll just dip in now to help pay for our trip, but I’ll replace it next year.” Will they? It’s tough enough to save the new contributions each year. Also setting aside the replacement money? Colour me skeptical. After decades of studying financial plans, I am always distrustful of people’s fiscal discipline. And even if I’m proven wrong and the money is recontributed, what about the sacrificed growth while the money was out of the TFSA? Gone forever.”

Young and Thrifty’ Kyle Prevost’s TFSA vs RRSP: Head to Head Comparison (updated to 2018) has lots of colourful pictures. He believes the RRSP and the TFSA are like siblings. Not twins mind you – but siblings with different personalities. In some ways he says they are almost mirror opposites and the inverse of each other.  Both options share the trait that let you shelter your investments from taxation – allowing your money to grow tax free using a wide variety of investment options.  Each have their time and place, and are fantastic tools in their own way, but depending on your age and stage of life, one probably deserves more of your attention than the other.

His take when it comes to the TFSA vs RRSP debate is: “Yes… DO IT.”  Prevost believes the real danger here is paralysis by analysis.  Picking the “wrong” one (the better term might be “slightly less efficient one”) is still much better than not saving at all!

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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.

It’s getting close to the end of the year and the holiday season is upon us. Here are some examples of subjects  personal finance bloggers havw been writing about recently.

Marie Engen (Boomer & Echo) offers tips on How To Leverage Technology Into Good Financial Habits. She notes that most banks have a budgeting app that tracks your spending so you get a better idea of where your money is going. If all your accounts don’t reside with just one financial institution, there are lots of mobile apps and budgeting software available, such as the popular Mint.com, GoodBudget and You Need a Budget.

Chris Nicola on the Financial Independence Hub tackles the perennial question, Should you take early CPP benefits or defer as long as possible?  Using Statistics Canada figures, he calculates that a woman maximizes her total CPP payout by waiting until age 70, resulting in an average of $75k (36%) more than if she took it at age 60. A man maximizes his total CPP a little earlier, at age 68, receiving an average of $50k (27%) more than at age 60.

Maple Money’s Tom Drake addresses the question: Should You Invest in Group RESPs? He concludes that the risk with group plans comes if you drop out early. Many of these types of RESPs have high enrollment fees. It’s not uncommon to pay up to $1,200 in fees. With Group RESPs, you don’t pay that amount up front. Instead, it is deducted from your returns when you close the plan early. Therefore if you withdraw from the plan before it matures, you could face big penalties — and even have  your contributions eaten up by the fees.

And getting back to how to save money and still enjoy holiday entertaining and gift giving…..

Holiday décor hacks for having a dinner party by personal finance writer, on-air personality, speaker and bestselling author Melissa Leong suggests that you create your own decor very cheaply, whether by gathering some greens or acorns from outside and dumping them in a vase or using wrapping paper to wrap empty boxes, make napkin rings or use as a table runner.

What If This Christmas… You Didn’t Have to Worry About Money? by Chris Enns on From Rags to Reasonable offers the following suggestions:

• Figure out how much you want to spend.
• Figure out how much you can afford to spend.
• Buy a prepaid credit card and use it as the ONLY way you pay  for Christmas-related materials.

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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.