As the leaves change colours and we gear up for the busy fall and winter season, it’s time to check in on what some of our favourite personal finance writers have been discussing this summer.

With the announcement that CIBC has gobbled up PC Financial which will be rebranded as CIBC Simplii Financial on November 1^st, Stephen Weyman says on Howtosavemoney.ca that it will be banking as usual in the short term but you can expect CIBC to sneak in a few fees here and there to make sure they’re profitable and try to cut costs where they can.

On Boomer & Echo, Marie Engen offers 25 money saving tips. A couple of my favourites are:

• Turn off the “heat dry” on your dishwasher. Open the door when the cycle is done and let the dishes air dry.
• Learn some sewing basics so you can make minor repairs and alterations to your clothing – hem your pants and skirts, sew on a button, sew up a torn seam, put in a new zipper.
• Buy some time. Set aside the purchase you are considering for a few hours (or a day or two) before you decide whether to buy it. Often you may decide you can easily live without it.

Bridget Casey (Money After Graduation) has recently welcomed a new daughter and she is already thinking about saving for her college education. She writes about the importance of setting up your child’s Registered Educational Savings Plan as a trust so it will be covered by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation in the event of financial institution failure up to $100,000 per account.

Retire Happy’s Jim Yih writes a thoughtful piece on Minimizing Your Old Age Security Clawback. The maximum monthly OAS benefit in 2017 is $578.53 ($6,942.36 annually). If you earn between $74,788 and $121,070/year the OAS benefit will be clawed back. He explains that with pension splitting, spouses can give up to 50% of their pension income to their spouse for tax splitting purposes. This is a very effective way to reduce income if you are close to the OAS clawback threshold.

When Sean Cooper, author of Burn Your Mortgage paid off his mortgage, he promised himself he’d stop putting off travel. His first major trip was to San Francisco this summer. Nevertheless, he still travelled frugally booking his $700 roundtrip flight through PC Travel. He also got from the airport to downtown on Bay area rapid transit for less than $10. In San Diego, he opted for a four-bed mixed dorm room at USA Hostels for less than $60 a night as opposed to $200/night in a hotel.

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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.

In the mid-1990s when I obtained my Master of Laws (LLM) from University of Leicester via a distance degree I traveled back and forth to Europe for five extended study weekends. That’s when I first got an Aeroplan number and a CIBC Aeroplan Visa and began aggressively collecting points.

As a result we were able to get almost free flights to many wonderful places including South America, Italy and the U.K. But recently convenient flights have cost more points and additional fees have increased so it has become more and more difficult to use up Aeroplan points in a cost-effective way.

Therefore, several years ago I traded in my Aeroplan VISA for a Capital One MasterCard that offers two points for every dollar spent and travel rewards of $1 for each 100 points accumulated.  I haven’t looked back since then.

But many of you who have stuck with Aeroplan through thick and thin will be affected by the announcement that beginning June 30, 2020. Aeroplan will no longer be the loyalty program for Air Canada.  Instead Air Canada has decided to launch its own loyalty program upon the expiry of its commercial agreement with Aimia, the operator of Aeroplan.

Many details of how the program will be phased out remain unclear, but the collection of media articles and blogs below may answer some of your questions.

A two-part series on Rewards Canada explores what we know now and questions that remain outstanding.

1.  Air Canada to launch own loyalty program in 2020! Aeroplan should continue to be a partner includes excerpts from the Aeroplan news release and questions whether the new Aeroplan will have access to Star Alliance members’ award inventory or if it will become exclusive to Air Canada’s new program.
2. Further thoughts, insight and tips on the split between Air Canada and Aeroplan suggests that perhaps Air Canada will pad their loyal flyers account with some miles to begin with, or they may put in place some sort of transfer option. However it seems from the news provided by both Aeroplan and Air Canada there will be no way to transfer between the two programs, at least for the time being.

The Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick explores rewarding replacements for those of you who are bailing on Air Canada. He says, “Figure out which program works best for you and start watching for special introductory offers to lure new clients. Competition between programs will heat up as we move closer to Air Canada’s departure from Aeroplan.”

Stephen Weyman on HowToSaveMoney.ca says Aeroplan has committed to keeping your miles safe and will allow you to continue redeeming them for flights on Air Canada even after the 2020 deadline. But what could change is the cost in miles for doing so. He says, “I expect the cost will increase substantially, so if you want to fly Air Canada or Star Alliance, you should try and redeem most of your miles before 2020.” Weyman also explores which Aeroplan credit card is really the best.

And finally, read about how a family of four collected one million travel reward points in 12 months and is travelling the world on business class . Global News multimedia journalist Emanuela Campanella writes about Pedro Pla, 35, from Puerto Rico and Grace Cheng, 36, from Singapore who began their odyssey with their two toddlers in January 2017.

“We made it our family goal at the start of 2016 to collect a million air miles through travel hacking. In order to reach this goal, we had to research and plan meticulously so that we were able to maximize the earning of credit card points or miles per dollar of spending,” Pia says. “The bulk of our one million miles was earned from the ground, which means that we earned them as credit card rewards points or miles when we use our credit cards to pay for purchases.”

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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

Several years ago Globe & Mail columnist Tim Cestnick listed what he considers to be the top five opportunities for anyone looking to get their financial house in order:

• Create a pension
• Own a home
• Pay down debt
• Start a business
• Stay married

So I decided to ask 10 money writers to share their top personal finance New Year’s resolution with me, in the hope that it will encourage readers to establish and meet their own lofty goals in 2017.

Here, in alphabetical order, is what they told me:

1. Jordann Brown: My Alternate Life
   I’m still in the process of ironing out my New Year’s resolutions but here is one I’m definitely going to stick to. I plan to save $10,000 towards replacing my vehicle. It’s always been a dream of mine to buy a car with cash and as my car ages it has become apparent that I need to start focusing on this goal. I never want to have a car payment again, and that means I need to start saving today!
2. Sean Cooper: Sean Cooper Writer
   I  paid off my mortgage in just three years by age 30. My top personal finance New Year’s resolution is to ensure that my upcoming book, Burn Your Mortgage, reaches best-seller status. A lot of millennials feel like home ownership is out of reach. After reading my book, I want to them to believe buying a home is still achievable.
3. Jonathan Chevreau Financial Independence Hub
   My top New Year’s Resolution, financially speaking, is to make a 2017 contribution to our family’s Tax-free Savings Accounts (TFSAs). This can be done January 1st, even if you have little cash.  Assuming you do have some non-registered investments that are roughly close to their book value, these can be transferred “in kind”, effectively transforming taxable investments into tax-free investments.
4. Tom Drake Canadian Finance Blog
   My New Year’s resolution for 2017 is to increase my income through my home business. But this can be done rather easily by anyone through side-gigs and part-time jobs. While saving money by cutting expenses can be helpful, you’ll hit limits on how much you can cut. However, if you aim to find new sources of income in 2017, the possible earnings are limitless!
5. Jessica Moorhouse Jessica Moorhouse.com
   My personal finance New Year’s resolution is to track my spending, collecting every receipt and noting every transaction down, for at least 3 months. Doing this really helps me stay on track financially, but for me it’s definitely something that’s easier said than done!
6. Sandi Martin Spring Personal Finance
   I don’t expect much to change in our financial lives over the next year. I hope to avoid the temptation to build a new system because the boring old things we’re already doing aren’t dramatic enough. I’m prone to thinking that “doing something” is the same as “achieving something”, and I’m going to keep fighting that tendency as 2017 rolls by.
7. Ellen Roseman Toronto Star Consumer Columnist
   My personal finance resolution for 2017 is to organize my paperwork, shred what I don’t need and file the rest. I also want to list the financial service suppliers I deal with, so that someone else can step into my shoes if I’m not around. It’s something I want to do every year, but now I finally have the time and motivation to tackle it.
8. Mark Seed My Own Advisor
   I actually have three New Year’s resolutions to share:
   • Eat healthier.  We know our health is our most important asset.
   • Continue to save at least 20% of our net income. We know a high savings rate is our key to financial health.
   • After paying ourselves first, simply enjoy the money that is leftover. Life is for the living.
9. Stephen Weyman HowToSaveMoney.ca
   For 2017 I’m looking to really “settle down” and put down roots in a community. I believe this will have all kinds of family, health, and financial benefits. The time savings alone from being able to better develop daily routines will allow me to free up time to focus more on saving money, growing my business, and better preparing for a sound financial future.
10. Allen Whitton Canadian Personal Finance Blog
    I resolve to keep a much closer tab on my investments and my expenses, while planning to retire in four years. I have a pension, I have RRSPs, but I still have too large a debt load. Not sure this is possible, but I will try!”

By Sheryl Smolkin

It was the dead of winter in my neck of the woods last week, but that didn’t stop bloggers and personal finance writers across the country from writing and tweeting to stay warm. In particular, the blogosphere was buzzing about the “first world problems” of Vancouver couple  Eric and Ilsa (a doctor and a dentist) with five kids and earning potential of $450,000/year who can’t make the numbers work to build a house in pricey Vancouver.

In a disconcerting column in the Globe and Mail, Gail Johnson wrote about every homeowner’s worst nightmare. Fred Weekley, the mayor of the district of Katepwa Beach in Saskatchewan managed to intercept a fraudulent transfer of the title of his family home, but others seniors with paid up homes have not been so lucky.

On MoneyWise, Sean Cooper wrote Turning an RSP Into Income: My Mom’s Story. Like many baby boomers, Maureen found herself ‘house rich, cash poor’. After working so hard to pay down her mortgage she wasn’t too keen on a reverse mortgage, so she sold her house for top dollar and moved to a low maintenance, less costly condo.

Many bloggers make a career out of passing on their tips for living frugally, Barry Choi on Money We Have talks about Money Well Spent for a change. I agree that travel and eating out (if you can afford it) are two of life’s great pleasures. We also have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, but I have never felt the need for a Vitamix.

If you are wondering what the drop in the Bank of Canada’s lending rate to .75% this week could mean for your finances, take a look at Tim Shufelt’s piece in the Globe and Mail The winners and losers following the Bank of Canada’s surprise rate cut.

And for all of you who have been day-dreaming about a new car but realistically need to stick with your current vehicle for a few more years, Stephen Weyman on HowToSaveMoney.ca gives helpful hints on How to make your new car last forever. A good rust-proofing job, finding the right mechanic, knowing how much car repairs should cost and buying your own parts for up to 90% off will help.

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.

By Sheryl Smolkin

This week we are delighted to bring you a new blog from Squawkfox Kerry K. Taylor who has been on a blogging sabbatical for the last several months.

Are you frugal or cheap?  includes a great graphic that answers the question. Kerry’s flow chart reveals that you are definitely frugal and not just cheap if saving a buck is not your ultimate objective; you would spend a little more for higher quality; you think long-term when making purchases; and, you do not prioritize money over relationships.

On the Canadian Personal Finance Blog, Big Cajun Man (Allan Whitton) gives Key Financial Rules for borrowing money. According to Alan, buying a house is the only good reason to borrow money. “Borrowing money to invest just strikes me as asking for a swift kick in the lower abdomen,” he says. 

Guest blogger Stephen Weyman on Million Dollar Journey compares gas reward programs. Surprisingly, he notes that some Grocery Store Gas Bars offering Grocery Store Discount Coupons are top of the list. They typically return 2.7% but select locations in Alberta offer a maximum return of up to 8.1% when paired with other bonus coupons.

When life gives you lemons, add vodka is an irreverent look at how to change your financial behaviour. This week Sarah writes about How to Fail at Your Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (And How to Set A Goal That You’ll Reach).

When she and her husband decided to save $80,000 for a down payment on a house over three years, they gave up after two months. She says what went wrong is that there were no small steps or changes in their habits to build up to this goal. Therefore, they were unable to go from saving nothing to saving over $1,000 each and every month.

On StupidCents, blogger Tom Drake writes about The Best Careers for the Future. He concludes that some of the best job prospects will be in the health care professions. With Baby Boomers retiring and aging in the next 20 years, those who are involved in their care are likely to see job growth and security.

And finally, Jonathan Chevreau, author of Findependence Day who is well known to readers of the Natiomal Post and MoneySense has just launched the Financial Independence Hub. We look forward to bringing you lots of great content from that site it the coming weeks and an update of this savewithspp.con interview in the new year.

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.