Of the 500+ blogs I have written for savewithspp.com, monitoring the blogosphere to link you with the best of the personal finance world has been the most rewarding. While some personal finance bloggers generate money from google ads on their websites,  forge corporate relationships, sell courses or develop an enhanced reputation in their chosen field, the vast majority write for free, just because they have information they want to share with others.

Here is a completely unscientific list of some of my favourites who I have featured time and time again in this space. If you want to continue following them, sign up to receive emails notifying you when their latest blogs are posted.

Boomer&Echo: Rob Engen and his mother Marie Engen are the writing team that generate a consistent stream of always engaging blogs about everything to do with saving and spending money.

Cait Flanders: Cait Flanders has written about all the ways she continually challenges herself to change her habits, her mindset and her life. This includes paying off debt, completing a two-year shopping ban and doing a year of slow living experiments. And in January 2018, she published her first book, The Year of Less  (a memoir), which became a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Canadian Dream: Free at 45: I have been reading Tim Stobbs since we blogged together on moneyville for the Toronto Star. He has beat his initial target, retiring recently at age 40, but his blogs about retirement are still a great read.

Jessica Moorhouse:  Jessica Moorhouse is a millennial personal finance expert, speaker, Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada® professional, award-winning blogger, host of the Mo’ Money Podcast, founder of the Millennial Money Meetup and co-founder of Rich & Fit. Don’t miss How I Survived a Trip Across America Using Only Chip & Pin.

Millenial Revolution: Firecracker and Wanderer are married computer engineers who retired in their early 30s. They blog on Millenial Revolution. They opted to not buy a home because they believe home ownership is a money pit. Instead they travel the world living on their investment income. Reader case studies where Wanderer “maths it up” are particularly fascinating.

Money After Graduation: Money After Graduation Inc. is an online financial literacy resource founded by Bridget Casey for young professionals who want to build long-term wealth. Whether readers are looking to pay off student loans, invest in the stock market, or save for retirement, this website has valuable resources and tools including eCourses and workshops.

Retire Happy Jim Yih and his team of writers publish top quality financial planning information. They believe there is a need for timeless information because too many financial and investing sites focus on minute-by-minute investment ideas, changing markets and fast paced trends.

Sean Cooper: Sean Cooper’s initial claim to fame was paying off his mortgage by age 30 which he has documented in his book “Burn Your Mortgage.” Since then much of his writing has focused on real estate-related subjects. He has recently qualified as a mortgage broker and will be leaving his day job as a pension administrator to launch a new career.

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For me, retirement beckons. This is my last Best from the Blogosphere for savewithspp.com. My own blog RetirementRedux has been dormant for some time as I have focused on writing for clients but I plan to revive it now that I have more time. Feel free to subscribe if you are interested.

May all of your financial dreams come true, and when the right time comes, I wish you a long, healthy and prosperous retirement.

 

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.

I comb the blogosphere every week to come up with interesting links for this weekly column. I continue to be fascinated by bloggers who document “early retirement extreme,” (ERE) often in their 30s and 40s. It is important however to recognize that for many people, this does not mean completely leaving paid work behind. It simply means that they have accumulated a financial cushion which gives them the freedom to work less or do something different.

For example, last month Tim Stobbs wrote I Don’t Have Enough Money, But I Retired at 40 Anyway.  He says, “What I’m doing really isn’t a full on ‘I never plan to work again retirement’ but rather an ‘I plan on doing some fun work during a semi-retirement.’  And that little shift of wording regarding what I planned to do made a huge difference between being able to leave now and being able to leave two to five more years in the future.” Stobbs is going to take a stab at writing fiction first for some income and if that doesn’t work out he will consider other options.

Firecracker and Wanderer are married computer engineers who retired in their early 30s. They blog on Millenial Revolution. The built a seven-figure portfolio and live off the passive income which allows them to travel the world and work on projects they are passionate about. They offer a free 53-part series of investment workshops on their blog and they have been widely quoted in the media. But they also write children’s books, develop apps for non-profits and teach children how to code.

In a recent blog, Firecracker interviewed Derek Foster: Canada’s Other Youngest Retiree. Foster, who is well-known to savewithspp.com readers retired at age 34 and he and his wife had eight children since then. He supports his family primarily with dividends generated by his stock portfolio. However, the self-identified “Idiot Millionaire” wrote six investor books and offers portfolio picks for a fee on stopworking.ca. He also accepts paid speaking engagements.

Some people who retire extremely early go back to work a few years into their retirement and take on short-term consulting assignments for a limited period. For example, Retired Syd who packed it in at age 44 in 2007 took on an assignment for several years and returned to full-time retirement in August 2012.

Can or should you aim for ERE? It really depends on your personality and your priorities. I freely confess that I’m very far from a minimalist and I was never prepared to forgo a really significant component of current consumption to fund a frugal very extended retirement.

As Ben Carlson writes in Some Thoughts on the Extreme Early Retirement Movement, “I have a ton of respect for these people. There are so many people out there today who have a hard time saving any money at all. The fact that these people are willing and able to save enough money to become financially independent so early in their years requires a combination of discipline, hard work and planning that is rare these days.”

But like me, Carlson doesn’t see the ERE lifestyle working for him. He says,” To me, financial independence means not having to stress about money all the time; it means having enough money saved so a one-off expenditure won’t be a huge issue; it means having enough money to pamper myself every once and a while without feeling guilty; it means living life in a way that is rich to me personally.”

What does financial independence mean to you? Are you contemplating extreme early retirement?

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 seems impossible that is our last Best from the Blogosphere for the year. The next one is slated for January 8, 2018! I wish all savewithspp.com readers a very happy, healthy holiday season and a new year full of promise and exciting adventures.

If you are starting to think about tax season already, you will really appreciate Janine Rogan’s Professional CRA Hacks. With only 36% of calls actually answered it’s no wonder Canadians are frustrated with the tax system. Furthermore, up to 30% of the time the tax information you receive from an agent may be incorrect, which is as concerning for taxpayers as it is for professionals. A few of her hints are:

• Hit redial 10x in a row.
• Call the French line but ask for help in English.
• Ask for your agent’s direct number and agent ID.

On another income tax-related matter, Andy Blatchford reports in The Toronto Star that during the election campaign, the Liberals promised to expand the Home Buyers’ Plan to allow those affected by major life events — death of a spouse, divorce or taking in an elderly relative — to borrow a down payment from their RRSPs without incurring a penalty.

However, a June briefing note for Finance Minister Bill Morneau ahead of his meeting with the Canadian Real Estate Association lays out the government’s concerns that low interest rates and rising home prices have encouraged many Canadians to amass high levels of debt just so they can enter the real-estate market. “Policies to further boost home ownership by stimulating demand would also exert more pressure on house prices,” says the memo,

Firecracker writes about The Five Stages of Early Retirement on Millenial Revolution. According to the self-styled youngest retiree in Canada (age 31), these stages are:

• Stage 1: The Count Down (1-2 years before early retirement)
• Stage 2: Honeymoon (0 – 6 months after retirement)
• Stage 3: Identity Crisis (7 months – 1.5 years after retirement)
• Stage 4: The New You (1-2 years after retirement)
• Stage 5: Smooth Sailing (2+ years after retirement)
  

The Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick considers the new retirement era and questions How many years past 65 will you work? Carrick says, “Retiring later is bound to be seen as negative, but it’s actually quite unremarkable unless you have a physically demanding job or hate your work. Previous generations may have retired at 65 and lived an extra 10 or 15 years. Retire at 70 today and you might look forward to another 15 or 20 years.”   

And finally, Tom Drake at maplemoney goes back to basics and provides a Guide to Guaranteed Investment Certificates. GICs are a form of investment where you agree to lend money to a bank for a set amount of time. The bank agrees to pay you a certain percentage of interest to borrow this money. You are guaranteed a return as long as you keep your money in the bank for a specified period. Terms on GICs generally run from as little as 90 days to as much as 10 years. “It’s important to weigh the pros and cons of GICs. While you probably don’t want to  build an entire portfolio of GICs (especially if you are trying to build a nest egg), they do have their place in a diversified portfolio,” Drake says.

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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.

I finally found time to clean out the 700+ emails in my in box and here are some of the gems from both the mainstream media and the blogosphere I found hiding there.

The federal government has announced expanded parental leave and new caregiver benefits that will come into effect December 3rd. Eligible new parents will be able to spread 12 months of employment insurance benefits over 18 months after the birth of a child. However, the government will not increase the actual value of employment insurance benefits for anyone who takes the extended parental leave.

The change in leave rules will automatically give the option of more time off for federally regulated workplaces, which include banks, transport companies, the public service and telecoms, and is likely to spur calls for changes to provincial labour laws to allow the other 92% of Canadian workers outside of Quebec access to similar leave. Anyone on the 35 weeks of parental leave before the new measures officially come into effect won’t be able to switch and take off the extra time.

How do you know when it’s the right time to retire? Retire Happy’s Jim Yih advises boomers considering retirement to have a plan that includes both lifestyle issues and money issues.  He says, “Too often the retirement plan focuses only on the financial issues. You can have all the money in the world but if you don’t know how to spend it or have good people around you or you don’t have your health, what good is the money?”

In the Globe and Mail, Morneau Sobeco actuary Fred Vettese says Few Canadians are destined to hit their retirement income ‘sweet spot’. What is an adequate income level to retire? According to Vettese for most people, it means having enough income to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living for the rest of their lives. “Put another way, spendable income in retirement would be 100% of what it was during one’s working years,” he says. “We’re unlikely to hit the 100% target every time, so let’s consider anything between 85% and 115% to be in the “sweet spot.”

If you sometimes get discouraged reading about “wunderkind” who save millions and retire super early, FIREcracker, writing on Millenial Revolution says Don’t Let Comparisons Derail Your FIRE (financial independence, retire early) Journey. “Don’t compare your beginning with someone’s middle or end. Instead of comparing yourself to other people, look back at your own journey and see how far you’ve come, she says. “And remember, even though there are hordes of people in front of you, there are also hordes behind you. They would switch places with you in an instant.”

And finally, make sure your retirement savings plan includes adequate amounts for health care. Health spending in Canada will likely hit $242 billion in 2017, says a report from the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI). CIHI calculates that health spending in Canada is expected to reach $6,604 per capita this year – or about $200 more per person compared to last year. The report also says total health spending per person is expected to vary across the country, from $7,378 in Newfoundland and Labrador and $7,329 in Alberta to $6,367 in Ontario and $6,321 in British Columbia. The public private split remains fairly constant with 30% covered by private out of pocket payment or private insurance and 70% by the public purse.

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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 week we present an eclectic mix of posts from Canadian money bloggers, some of whom have been posting for years but have not previously been cited in this space.

On HowToSaveMoney.ca, Heather Clarke offers 7 Ways To Declutter Without Spending A Fortune, Instead of buying costly clear lucite boxes, monogrammed fabric bins, or classic wooden divided trays, she says that using a little creativity and a few basic craft supplies you can make attractive, low cost storage solutions. But I’m not very crafty, so I think the two year rule is the best way to minimize clutter — if I haven’t used an item in 24 months, it’s time to get rid of it.

Recently governments in British Columbia and Ontario have enacted new laws to try and cap runaway house prices in some markets. Firecracker and her husband Wanderer who blog on Millenial Revolution are typically in favour of a laissez faire approach. But as reported in Your Thoughts on Government Intervention, the majority of their readers disagree. Of 356 readers who responded to a survey they conducted, 198 believe the government should intervene. And about one-third believe a tax on speculators is the most effective strategy.

Does your financial advisor really ‘deserve’ to be paid? Doris Belland tackles this thorny issue in a recent post on Your Financial Launchpad. She notes that the financial advice industry is undergoing a profound shift in which several economists plus some of the worlds’ most successful investors and Nobel Laureates argue persuasively that the higher fees associated with traditional investment products have a negative effect on investors’ results.

Ed Rempel explains Why he will never own an ETF or index fund. He says that the average fund manager can’t beat the market, but superior fund managers clearly can. Based on his research and investment returns, he believes he has selected All Star Fund Managers who have consistently exceeded the relevant indices. “Performance fee models with a very low base fee give you the low fee advantage of an ETF or index fund – plus a good chance of above index returns,” Rempel concludes.

And finally, on Financial Uproar, Nelson introduces The Too Much House Equation. “We constantly rag on people who buy too many video games or finance vacations, but we cheer people who make a similar mistake with their houses,” he writes. “The fact is the easiest way for the average person with only a small net worth to save more is to cut their fixed expenses, starting with housing.”

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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.

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.

By Sheryl Smolkin

Lots of interesting reading this week from bloggers both old and new.

On Millenial Revolution, FIRECracker writes about How to Succeed at Anything. She says success is not linear so you have to keep on trying and eventually things will click.

For example, in 2013 she and her husband had two failed children’s novels and 75 rejection letters. But since then, they have had three books published by Scholastic. Their blog has also been internationally syndicated by CNBC and in less than six months it has grown to 650,000 page views.

If you can never figure out where all your money went (a key requirement for budgeting), take a look at Jordann Brown’s blog 50 Ways to Track Your Spending. From personal experience she recommends Mint.com, and best of all, it is free.

As a new homeowner, Jessica Moorhouse says the one thing she wishes she had researched more thoroughly is mortgages. Read 10 Questions You Need to Answer Before Getting a Mortgage to benefit from her experience.

Jonathan Chevreau advocates for “Freedom, Not Stuff.” In Survey finds financial security beats milestones like buying a home and a car on the Financial Independence Hub, he is happy to report on a survey released by Credit Canada Debt Solutions and Capital One Canada that reveals the majority of Canadians agree with him that that financial security beats milestones like buying a home or a car.

Making Financial Decisions? Beware of Confirmation Bias says Tom Drake on the Canadian Finance Blog. When it comes to making financial decisions, confirmation bias can lead you to stay the course with an investment that has changed fundamentally for the worst, all because you are sure that you can’t make a wrong decision, or because you dismiss the reasons that the investment is no longer a good choice.

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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.

By Sheryl Smolkin

Blogging is essentially self-publishing. Because it is so easy to get started, it’s not surprising that there are new blogs popping up on every subject daily. I must admit it’s easier to keep going back to the ones I know and like instead of constantly monitoring some of the newer (or new to me) guys on the block.

But one blog that I must confess I’m becoming addicted to is Millenial Revolution by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung. The two 30 year olds write about how they got rich and retired to travel the world by not joining what they call “the home ownership cult.” Start with their How we got there series. See my comments on their strategy from the perspective of a semi-retired boomer in Rent vs Buy: A reality check.

But I’m also working my way through a list of the 2016 Top 25 Retirement Bloggers on Personal Income. Many of the blogs on the list are directed at U.S. readers, but much of the commentary on retirement is generic. Here are a few I sampled this week:

In A Wealth of Common Sense Ben Carlson writes about What it takes to retire early. He cites stories from other bloggers who:

• Retired early by using rental income and moving abroad.
• Saved $1 million by choosing to live in a place with a low cost of living to retire in their early 40s.
• Retired in their 30s (Shen and Leung noted above) by avoiding home ownership in an expensive real estate market.

He concludes that to retire really early you have to save lots of money and have very little need for a large annual income in retirement.

Retire by 40 author Joe Udo analyzes the rule of thumb from the early retirement community that suggests you need to accumulate 25x your annual expenses. This benchmark is derived from the 4% withdrawal rate. So if you have 25x your annual expenses, the premise is that you would be able to support your lifestyle by withdrawing 4% from your investment every year. But Udo retired at 38 and four years later he says lifestyle inflation can easily erode retirement savings. So he suggests that extreme early retirees may need a cushion of 30x annual expenses or even more to cover a possible 50 years of retirement.

Mark Miller blogs on retirementrevised. When not to save for retirement may appear to challenge conventional retirement savings orthodoxy, but in fact it makes perfect sense. He says for many people, saving for retirement actually should be fairly low on the financial priority list – well behind the more immediate goals of building a rainy day fund and reducing their consumer debt.

Our next life by Mr. & Ms. ONL asks What Are Your Early Retirement Deal-Breakers? They are not willing to move to a low cost-of-living area they don’t like just to get by or give up a home base entirely and embrace a fully nomadic life. Nevertheless they say, “Life is short, our time here is precious, and even if we have only a short time to climb mountains around the world like we hope to, it will be more time than we would have had if we’d stayed on the usual career treadmill.”

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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.