In this episode, we’re going to cover how you can retire early, or at the very least, semi-retire early so that you have more time for friends, family and recreation.

My guest for this month is Mark Seed, who instead of rushing to achieve some giant investment portfolio number and fully retiring to never have to work again, he is instead taking what I believe, is the more efficient, sustainable and fulfilling approach of fully embracing an early semi-retirement, instead of a full stop early retirement. 

Mark is very much a DIY Canadian investor like myself and has a lot of knowledge when it comes to financial planning here in Canada as he’s actually executing his own early semi-retirement.

We have an absolute blast geeking out on these subjects in the interview, and I truly believe that by you listening in, you’ll get some really great actionable insights on how you can optimize your own financial independence and early retirement journey (to get there quicker).

Questions:

1. Where are you right now in terms of your financial independence, retire early journey?
   
   
2. I consider you as part of the FIRE movement, but I know that you also have some problems with it. Can you take us through these issues or concerns?
   
   
3. How are you structuring your portfolio for your early semi-retirement?
   
   
4. Once you pull the trigger and quit your day job in a few years, what is the process and structure that you’re going to follow to allow you to live off your investments? (ex. VPW?)
   
   
5. When it comes to living off your investments in full or semi-retirement, you and I are big fans of the variable percentage withdraw method. Can you talk about what that is for anybody that is not familiar, and why do you like this approach over a more static approach like the 4% rule?
   
   
6. There are many different ways to structure a variable percentage withdraw strategy (ex. Using different spending floors and ceilings, incorporating it with a bucket strategy, etc.). How are you personally structuring your VPW process?
   
   
7. How do you plan on dealing with sequence-of-returns risk in your early retirement? And for anybody not familiar, can you define what sequence-of-returns risk is?
   
   
8. The last time you were on my podcast, I think you mentioned about potentially moving away from your dividend stocks in retirement, and focusing on just a total return approach, and maybe migrating your dividends stocks to passive, broad market index ETFs. What are your thoughts about that now?
   
   
9. I’d like to stress to everybody watching and listening that when it comes to living off your portfolio in early retirement or early semi-retirement, there isn’t one silver bullet solution that’s perfect for everyone. So, a good process is that when you are approaching your financial independence number, start learning about all the different ways that you can structure your portfolio for your early retirement, and then pick and/or modify one so that it’s a good fit for you. Then share that with a good fee for service financial planner to get their take, as you really want a professional 2nd set of eyes on something like this before you pull the early retirement or early semi-retirement trigger.
   
   Do you agree with that approach Mark?

Free 1 Year Subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine:

A big thanks to 5i Research for giving Build Wealth Canada listeners a free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine (Canada's largest personal finance magazine). 

You can get the free 1-year subscription by signing up for free 30-day access to all of 5i’s investment research (there’s no credit card required, or anything like that). 

When you signup for free, you'll receive access to over 70 company reports (perfect if you like to invest in individual stocks too), you’ll get 3 optimized model portfolios, and answers to over 90,000 investing questions, along with the ability to ask your stock and ETF questions directly to the 5i Research team of Analysts.

The team at 5i don't sell any investments and they don't get any commissions or bonuses from suggesting stocks and ETFs. I've been using them for years as they are one of the VERY few companies in Canada, that are truly unbiased when it comes to their research and suggestions on stocks and ETFs.  

You can get free 30-day access to all their research and resources over at buildwealthcanada.ca/research, and as I thank you for trying them out, you'll receive a free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine, Canada's largest personal finance magazine.

I encourage you to check 5i out, it's a great place get some truly unbiased insights on your investments (especially if there is a ETF or stock that you’re considering, and you want an unbiased opinion from a professionally trained financial analyst that isn’t there to sell you anything. You get free access for 30 days, and you'll learn an absolute ton.

Top ETFs in Canada Guide & Best High-Interest Savings Account:

In this guide, I go over what I personally invest in, and why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement.

At the very least you’ll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it’ll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there. 

The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use my special link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ Bank. 

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada (up to 30 times more interest than other banks).

It’s also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.

Because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money. 

To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you the full comprehensive guide for free. 

Links and Resources

Mark's Site: MyOwnAdvisor.ca

We talked about several free tools that you can use to experiment with the 4% rule, and run analysis to see how sustainable your portfolio is in worst-case scenarios. Here are the different free tools that we talked about on the show:

Cfiresim.com

Portfoliovisualizer.com

Firecalc.com

Don’t miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter.

Today we’re going to try something a little different in that I’m going to split today’s episode into two sections, covering two different subjects: 

First, we’re going to cover some questions that I’ve received from listeners of the show and from students of my investing course, so that you can benefit from the strategies and tactics too. These are specifically going to be in the area of investing.

Next, we’re going to bring on my guest who is our resident mortgage and real estate expert and best-selling author, Sean Cooper. Sean will explain the real estate situation here in Canada so that you can stay informed on how real estate has been affected in these COVID times, whether you’re an existing home-owner that is concerned about the value of their home dropping due to COVID, or whether you are a renter looking to potentially buy in the future. 

We cover questions like What should you know? And how can you maximize your chances of getting approved for a mortgage? 

And whether you’re an existing or future home-owner, there have actually been some mortgage rule changes that recently took place here in Canada so you definitely want to be informed about those so that you can easily renew that mortgage when it’s time. Or, if you’re looking to buy, so that you can have a smooth stress-free process in obtaining financing for your property, instead of struggling and potentially missing out on your dream home due to financing issues, due to these new mortgage rules that recently got put into place.

A Big Thanks To This Episode's Sponsor:

RBC's Small Business Navigator Hub: For practical resources, advice, and offers, visit RBC's Small Business Navigator hub at buildwealthcanada.ca/hub.

Business is anything but usual these days, and entrepreneurs are looking for support that goes beyond traditional banking to successfully re-open and manage their business. Now, they can access all of RBC’s practical tips, insights, money-saving offers and solutions to support their eCommerce, digital payments, payroll management, employee wellness needs and more – all in one place.

To learn more, check out the RBC Small Business Navigator hub, available online at BuildWealthCanada.ca/hub.

Resources:

• Get your mortgage questions answered for free by booking a meeting with Sean here.
• Get the real estate expense tool for free when it's released by signing up to the waiting list here.

Topics/Questions Covered:

Investing Topics:

1. Buying near all-time stock market highs. Should you do it?
2. Investing larger amounts of money: Buying-in all at once vs dollar-cost-averaging in.
3. How much to focus on dividends in your investing.
4. Socially responsible investing, and what to keep in mind before diving in.

Real Estate and Mortgage Questions:

1. Let’s talk about COVID and the real estate market. Are we seeing increases in home values?
2. How are things if you're looking to buy vs sell?
3. Is it a buyer's or seller's market?
4. There have been some Mortgage Rule Changes recently here in Canada. Can you take us through them?
5. What can we do that is within our control, to maximize the chances of getting approved for a mortgage, and getting the best terms and rate?
6. With these record low interest rates that we’ve been seeing, many Canadians that are currently in a fixed-rate mortgage are wondering, is it worth breaking their existing mortgage, paying the cancelling fees, and then getting a new mortgage at the lower rate. Can you talk about the analysis that we should be doing to actually mathematically figure this out?
7. What should we consider if we’re shopping around for a home right now, in Canada?

Don’t miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter.

Whenever we talk about investments, savings for retirement, and early retirement, the subject of diversification always comes up, and for good reason. We obviously don’t want all our eggs in one basket. 

But what if we applied that concept to our income sources? 

Just how diversified are your income sources? Is 100% of your annual income coming from just one source: your job? Obviously, that’s not very diversified. 

One of the big things that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, is that our jobs are not actually all that secure. 

Join us as we go over the best (and my favorite) way to diversify your income sources: By starting your own business.

About Our Guest:

Our guest today is Lori Darlington, a Vice-President in the Small Business Division at RBC. Because she works for RBC (one of Canada’s largest banks), she has access to an incredible amount of data on small businesses in Canada, and when you have that much data, studies and reports on Canadian small businesses, you start to notice certain patterns between the small Canadian businesses that succeed, vs the ones that don’t. 

I wanted to ask what her findings were in regards to this so that you and I can structure and optimize our business in the right way, and not make some of the top mistakes that Canadian business owners tend to make.

We also cover questions like how to get set up properly as a new or existing small business in Canada and much more.

Links and Resources Covered:

Lori and her team have put together some great free resources, over on their site here.

One of my favourite sections, is the “Explore tools and services beyond banking” page, where they share other businesses and services that they found particularly helpful for helping small businesses thrive. I’m actually in the process now of going through it, and am particularly interested in the free business accounting software that they have on there.

In Other News: Free Tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit Are Finally Here!

The free tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit are finally available here.

In case you’re new to the podcast, this is a free event, it’s 100% online so no travel required, and it’s specifically for Canadians. It’s taking place this October 15th, and I’m bringing on some of Canada’s top personal finance experts to share their best practices to help you retire early, invest better, lower your fees, pay less in taxes, and help you learn the best practices when it comes to personal finance and investing so that you can hit your financial independence number years earlier.

Collectively, past guests of the Summit have been in hundreds of media articles from major news and financial publications in Canada such as the Globe and Mail, Financial Post, Global News, CTV, Yahoo Finance, and many, many more.

I’ve brought on some big hitters this year like the creator of the TFSA, Kevin McCarthy, and the Warren Buffett of Canada, Peter Hodson, just to name a few. I hope to see you there, it’s free to attend, it’s all online, and you can register for free here.. 

Questions Covered:

1. As the largest bank in Canada, I’m sure you have access to some really good data on small businesses in Canada, and the top mistakes and challenges that they tend to run into.
   
   Can you share some of these with us so that anybody starting or running a small business in Canada can hopefully better bypass some of these common mistakes? 
   
   
2. For anybody starting a new business or already running a small business, what are the most important essentials and best practices to ensure that we are set up correctly from the banking side and government reporting side, so that we don’t end up getting in trouble during tax time, or run into money management issues because we aren’t properly set up?
   
   
3. One of the pages that I really liked on your site was the “Beyond Banking” page where you list other companies that provide different services that small businesses need (like free accounting software for example), and then it looks like you were able to negotiate deals with some of these companies and give Canadians special rebates and discounts on their services.
   
   Can you talk about this page as well as some of the other free resources and tools that you have available on your site? (ex. Your Startup Cost, Cash Flow, and Loan calculators).
   
   
4. With COVID-19, we are in a very unusual time for new and existing small businesses. I imagine there are many Canadians who after seeing all these job losses that take place, are considering starting their own business on-the-side to provide that extra cash-flow and give them that extra stability so that they aren’t fully reliant on their employer for all of their household’s income.
   
   Do you have any advice for new and existing small business owner as we (hopefully), continue to recover from COVID-19 as a country?
   
   
5. With the thousands of small businesses that bank with you, I’m sure you’ve noticed some patterns between businesses that especially struggled during COVID-19, vs those that were able to minimize the negative impact that it had. Were there any lessons learned from the data and conversations that you’ve had, that can help us be better prepared for such storms in the future? (whether it’s another pandemic, or something like the 2008 financial crisis).
   
   
6. There is a fair bit of aid available to small business because of COVID-19. If somebody has questions or wants to see what their business is eligible for, is it better to reach out to a bank like yours, or should they be reaching out directly to the government instead?
   
   
7. Can you tell us more about where we can go to learn more, as well as any other free tools and resources that you have available for small business owners?

Don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter

Today I have Jessica Moorhouse on the show, who is an Accredited Financial Counsellor, an award-winning blogger, the host of the ‘Mo Money Podcast, and the founder of the Millennial Money Meetup. You might have also seen her on CBC News, The Globe and Mail, The Financial Post, and many other news channels and publications here in Canada.

In today’s episode, you’ll learn the highest impact actions that we Canadians can do to really make a dent in increasing our savings.

We cover how to best manage your money and day-to-day cashflows, and the different types of tools and systems that you can use to help you manage your finances. We also talk about investments, and how Jessica actually invests her own money.

Last but not least, I consider Jessica to also be a very successful entrepreneur, and so if you are considering starting your own business, or are looking for ways to take your existing business to the next level, we talk about how Jessica was able to grow her company so successfully, and what lessons we can learn from her, to propel our own Canadian businesses to the next level.

Resources and Links Mentioned:

• Check out Jessica’s site and valuable resources over at: Jessicamoorhouse.com
  
  
• Get Free Tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit
  
  
• The top personal finance and investing tools guide mentioned on the episode can be received for free by signing up on the main page over at buildwealthcanada.ca.
  
  
• The how to invest videos mentioned during the show can be found at buildwealthcanada.ca/invest. That’s also where I can answer your investing questions.
  
  
• You can get your financial planning questions answered for free for 30 minutes by speaking with our resident financial planner John Kalos.
  
  
• You can get your mortgage questions answered for free by setting up a free call with our resident mortgage broker, Sean Cooper.
  
  
• Canada’s Top ETFs Guide & Top High-Interest Savings Account: In this guide, I go over what I personally invest in, why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement. At the very least you’ll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it’ll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there.
  
  The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use my special link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ bank.
  
  The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings accounts in Canada. At the time of this writing, they are anywhere from double, to over 30 times higher than most of the banks in Canada.
  
  It’s also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, and can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.
  
  Because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money.
  
  To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you the full comprehensive guide for free.

Questions Covered:

1. As an Accredited Financial Counsellor, I'm sure you deal with many Canadians that are either struggling financially or would like to really amplify their savings so they can invest more, and eventually retire early.
   
   What would you say are the highest impact actions that us Canadians can do to really make a dent in increasing our savings, whether it's to pay off debt, save to buy a home, or have more to invest for retirement?
   
   
2. When it comes to financial management and managing your day-to-day cash flows, what sort of system or process do you personally have in place and use?
   
   Is that a good starting point for those that are looking to gain more control over their finances? Or is there something simpler you recommend for those just getting started?

3.  We all know that we should get our finances in order, optimize our investments and manage our money carefully, but we're all busy and it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks.
   
   When it comes to staying organized in your personal life, finances and business, are there any tools, systems and workflows that you depend on and that work really great for you?

4. How do you personally invest your money and what's your thought process behind that decision?  (ie. Robo vs asset allocation ETF vs individual ETFs vs something else?)

5. I notice you've done a fair bit of work and teaching with students. Student debt is a big concern for many so when someone is debating between paying off student debt vs saving for a home vs investing in their TFSA or RRSP, what's your stance and thought process on how they should decide which to focus on? (let’s do this from a qualitative and quantitative angle)

I definitely see you as a successful entrepreneur, so let’s shift gears a bit and talk about your life as an entrepreneur, for anybody that wants to eventually work for themselves like you, or have a side-hustle to generate some extra income.

6. As an entrepreneur, I find it’s really easy to take on too much and get burnt out. Reading your blog, I noticed you’ve run into this issue too. Do you have a daily routine that works well for you to balance business with personal time so that you don’t burn out?
   
   
7. As a successful entrepreneur, I noticed that you work with a lot of big brands in your business. For somebody looking to start or grow their existing business, how do you personally approach such companies and close these deals?
   
   It’s obviously easier to do this once you’re established, so would your strategy change if someone is just starting out vs already having an established business?

8. When it comes to partnering with the different companies/brands how do you determine what to charge them and what to offer them?

9. You are in a lot of different channels and seem to have a pretty wide array of revenue streams for your business. What channels or projects have you found to be the best return on your time invested?

10. How do you prioritize which projects/opportunities to work on?
    
    
11. Thanks for coming on the show and where can listeners learn more from you?

Don’t miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter

 

Your credit score is a very important thing to manage as it lets you get the lowest possible rates on your mortgage, car loans, lines of credit, and any other debt that you may wish to take on now and in the future.

In Canada, the best loans with the best terms are reserved for people with high credit scores. So, even if you don’t need any sort of loan now (like a mortgage, car loan, or a line of credit), it is something that you should keep an eye on and strive to improve, as you don’t want to be overcharged on interest payments if you ever do need some financing.

Even though we no longer have a mortgage or any debt, I still use a free tool to monitor my own credit score, just to ensure that the best loans are available to me in case I ever need them, and to help protect myself against identity fraud.

For example, if somebody got a hold of my credentials and tried taking out credit cards or loans in my name, I can quickly catch that and report it, instead of letting them gradually destroy my credit score over time.

I like sharing the apps and tools that I personally use on the podcast and the free tool that I use to do all of this is called Borrowell. So today on the show, I brought on the CEO of Borrowell, Andrew Graham so that I can ask him some questions after using his tool for almost a year.

We cover things like:

• How to increase your credit score
• The key things that can cause our score to decline
• How to read the credit report so you can see if there are any issues
• How to fix issues on our credit report that are negatively impacting our credit score
• and much more.

Resources and Links Mentioned:

• The tool that I use to check and monitor my credit score for free is over at Borrowell.
• You can learn more about Borrowell Boost here.
• Free tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit: To get the free tickets, just sign up anywhere on the main page of BuildWealthCanada.ca and I'll email them to you once they are ready.

Questions Asked:

1. Your company offers free credit scores and reports from Canada’s largest credit bureau, Equifax. For anybody completely new to all of this, who is Equifax and why should we care? 
2. To help further answer the question of why we should even care about our credit score; from your experience, how big of a difference have you seen in the interest rate offered to Canadians who have a low vs a high credit score?
3. Many of us have heard about how if our credit score gets checked too much by companies, it can actually lower our credit score. This leads us to the subject of hard vs soft inquiries. Can you talk about what those are?
4. If we need a loan and are shopping around, how do we ensure that we don’t get too many hard inquires?
   
   
5. I’ve been using your tools for a while now and one of my favourite time-saving ones is how you automatically calculate our credit utilization score. Can you explain what that is and what credit utilization score we should aim for?
6. Does our credit score improve the lower our credit utilization percentage is to 0%? Or do we really just need to ensure that we’re under the specific number?
7. When we receive our credit report (whether it’s through you guys or someone else), what specifically should we be looking for and analyzing while going through it?
8. I realize your tool actually does custom suggestions on how to improve our credit score once it pulls our information, but what are some best practices that anybody can apply when it comes to increasing our credit score?
9. At what point is our credit score in that top tier where we are already getting the best possible rate and so it’s not worth the effort in trying to improve it any further?
10. How important is it to close down accounts that we still have open but don’t use anymore? (ex. credit cards, lines of credit, etc.)
11. If there is an error or discrepancy on our credit report, what’s the best recourse that we have as Canadians? Ex. do we contact Equifax? Do we contact the company that put that blemish on our credit report and ask them to fix it?
12. If somebody has no loans and doesn’t use credit cards, is that actually bad if you ever do need a loan since lenders want to see that credit history? (ex. A homemaker where their spouse does all the purchasing and their debts are under the working spouse’s name?)
13. I’m a big fan of online tools that help me optimize and manage my finances, and you guys have one coming out that I’m pretty excited to try out. Can you talk about the new Borrowell Boost app that you have and what it does?

If you liked the episode sign up for free to receive all new episodes as they get released, news on giveaways, and the free guide on the Top 5 Personal Finance and Productivity Tools.

Today we’re going to cover how you can best automate the management of your investment portfolio, while still paying the lowest possible fees. We also share best practices when it comes to sticking to your investment plan.

To help us discuss this, I have Brendan Wood on the show who is one of the founders of Passiv, a Canadian fintech company that builds tools for DIY investors.

I’m a long-time user of their tools and they've saved me many hours of tedious work when managing my portfolio. So, I thought it would be great to have him on the show especially since Canadians can now get the premium features of the tool for free.

Questions and Discussion Points Covered:

1. I’m excited to share how I use Passiv because it’s saved me many many hours at this point and makes checking up on my investments super convenient. But, I’m curious to hear from you how others are using it. Are there certain features or use cases that you see being used most often?
2. What are some of the new features that we now have access to and how should we best use them?
3. Using limit orders vs market orders when buying investments?
4. What's important to look at when examining the performance of your investment portfolio?
5. Dealing with different currencies when investing. What is the cheapest way to convert currency if we want to buy US-listed investments?
6. What is dollar-cost-averaging and your thoughts on using it, especially when the markets are volatile?
7. The impact of COVID-19 on investors. What have you noticed?
8. Investing during down markets.
9. Speculating on markets vs specific companies, and what to do when getting a "hunch" as to where the markets are going.

In this episode, we cover the types of debt tools available to us Canadians, and how to get the lowest rate on them. In other words, what debt options do we have in our Canadian toolbox that we can potentially use, and what are the pros and cons of each?

My goal for you is that by the end of this episode, you'll know what your options are in Canada so that if you ever do need a loan, you know exactly what's available to you, which types of loans have the lowest and highest rates, and which ones are the easiest and hardest to qualify for. 

And Sure, we've all heard of mortgage and credit cards, but what other types of loans are out there that we could potentially use?

Today's Expert:

To help me answer these questions, our guest for this episode is Scott Satov. He’s a CA, a CFA, and the founder of LoansCanada.ca which was Canada's first and today’s largest online loan search and comparison platform. 

So I figured, if we want to know what types of loans are available to us Canadians, then why not get the first and largest Canadian loan search and comparison provider to help us with this since it’s clearly their job day in and day out to know what’s out there.

Links and Resources:

• You can do your loan comparison shopping over at Scott's company: LoansCanada.ca. They also have a lot of educational resources on the site so you can definitely learn a lot there, even if you aren't looking to immediately take out a loan.
• The top personal finance and investing tools guide mentioned on the episode can be received for free by signing up on the main page over at buildwealthcanada.ca.
• The how to invest videos mentioned during the show can be found at buildwealthcanada.ca/invest.

Questions Covered:

1. While ideally, we as Canadians want to have no debt, the reality is that most Canadians don't have enough money on-the-side to just buy a car or house with cash, or to fund some expensive unforeseen emergency (whether it's an expensive home repair, something medical that you have no coverage for, or something else).
   
   We've all heard of mortgages, but what are the other tools available to us, and can you cover the pros and cons of each along with which ones are the least expensive options here in Canada?
   
   
2. What are the different things that are within our control that we can do, to get the lowest rates on loans?
   
   
3. Most don't have the cash to buy a new or used car outright, so what have you found to be the best practices for getting the best loan for a new vs used car? Ex. Going through dealer vs the bank vs sites like yours that can pull the rates from different providers.
   
   
4. If you need money for an important expense, have you found home equity lines of credit (HELOC) to be the least expensive way to raise the funds required?
   
   
5. If someone isn't a homeowner and can't get a HELOC, what type of loan is the least expensive?
   
   
6. How do you go about getting a loan and securing it against your car for example (or some other asset) so that it becomes a secured loan giving you the lowest rates?
   
   
7. What are the most effective ways of building your credit score?
   
   
8. If you have an average credit score, is it worth the effort to try to improve it? In other words, how large are the savings you can get if you do actually work on your credit score and improve it?
   
   
9. What are your thoughts on debt consolidation? When should somebody consider it vs not? 
   
   
10. What are your top strategies for getting out of debt? Especially for those that are struggling or feeling the pressure from the loans that they already have outstanding.

If you liked the episode sign up for free to receive all new episodes as they get released, news on giveaways, and the free guide on the Top 5 Personal Finance and Productivity Tools.

There’s been a lot of new programs and initiatives put in place by the Canadian government due to COVID-19 to help you financially. In this episode, I’m going to take you through what’s out there so that you can make sure you don’t miss out on some free money or benefits that can really help you during this difficult time.

I’ve actually gone through everything that I could get my hands on at the Canada Revenue Agency site, so this is all coming right from the source, and this episode’s intention is to save you a lot of time by helping you quickly learn what’s out there, whether you’re eligible, and help you make an efficient decision on which benefits to apply for, and which ones to make sure you receive.

The 2nd part of this episode is going to focus on mortgages, the drastic changes in the interest rate that we’ve seen (which can of course heavily impact your mortgage payments and decisions), what’s happening right now as far as the real estate market is concerned, if you can take advantage of these lower interest rates by renewing your mortgage. We’re also going to cover the subject of deferring your mortgage payments, if for example you’ve lost your job and fear that you may not be able to pay your mortgage while we are all in lockdown due to COVID-19.

Chat with Sean for free to get your mortgage questions answered by entering your email at buildwealthcanada.ca/sean

Check out Sean’s best-selling book, Burn Your Mortgage: The Simple, Powerful Path to Financial Freedom for Canadians.

A big thanks to Borrowell for sponsoring the show and for building such a great free tool that we can use to check our credit score. It has saved me a lot of time when I want to quickly check the status of my credit score (for example, to ensure there has been no fraud or identity theft on my accounts). 

You also obviously want to make sure your score is as high as possible for any mortgages or other loans that you end up applying for (to ensure you get the lowest rate and get approved). 

Even if you aren’t looking for a loan, I encourage you to at least pull your report for free to help ensure that there are no unauthorized transactions on your accounts. As a best practice, you should be doing this kind of check at least annually. 

Thanks again Borrowell for building a tool where we Canadians can finally get access to this data quickly and for free.

Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): All the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments. 

Canada’s Top ETFs Guide & Top High-Interest Savings Account: In the guide, I go over what I personally invest in, why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement. At the very least you’ll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it’ll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there. 

The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use my special link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ bank. 

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada (they are currently offering 2% which is more than double what the major banks are offering).

It’s also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, and can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.

Because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money. 

To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you the full comprehensive guide for free. 

Don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter

A lot has been happening with the significant stock market declines and coronavirus, so I’ve been getting lots of questions such as: How am I adapting our portfolio and investment strategy to these declines? Should we be buying into the market at these low prices or selling? Should we be waiting out for the market bottom and then buying? What are the other experts that I listen to and trust saying?

With this episode, the goal is to answer these top questions for you.

Now, of course, the health and the safety of your family is more important than the temporary performance of an investments portfolio, so that should be the priority. But since I’m not a doctor or medical expert, it doesn’t make sense for me to try to give you medical advice. So instead, let’s focus on what I do actually have expertise and experience in and shine some light on the investment and financial planning side of things. Enjoy the episode.

New Tool: Get Your Credit Score Checked for Free

A big thanks to Borrowell for sponsoring the show and for building such a great free tool that we can use to check our credit score. It has saved me a lot of time when I want to quickly check the status of my credit score (for example, to ensure there has been no fraud or identity theft on my accounts). 

You also obviously want to make sure your score is as high as possible for any mortgages or other loans that you end up applying for (to ensure you get the lowest rate and get approved). 

Even if you aren’t looking for a loan, I encourage you to at least pull your report for free to help ensure that there are no unauthorized transactions on your accounts. As a best practice, you should be doing this kind of check at least annually. 

Thanks again Borrowell for building a tool where we Canadians can finally get access to this data quickly and for free.

Resources from the Episode:

Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): All the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments. 

Canada’s Top ETFs Guide & Top High-Interest Savings Account: In the guide, I go over what I personally invest in, why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement. At the very least you’ll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it’ll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there. 

The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use my special link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ bank. 

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada (they are currently offering 2% which is more than double what the major banks are offering).

It’s also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, and can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.

Because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money. 

To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you the full comprehensive guide for free. 

I recently realized that I haven’t really provided an update on our early retirement story and more importantly, the lessons learned from it so far.

Therefore my goal for this episode is to share with you what we did wrong and what I think we did right, that allowed us to achieve financial independence by the time I was 32.

Please don’t interpret this episode as some sort of showing off, bragging, or an ego boost. I absolutely hate arrogance and hubris (it’s actually ones of my biggest pet peeves). Instead, the whole idea behind this episode is to give you some actionable insights based on our failures and successes over the years, so that you can hopefully learn from our experiences, apply them to your own financial independence, retire early journey and hopefully cut down the time that it takes you to get there. That’s it.

New Tool: Get Your Credit Score Checked for Free

A big thanks to Borrowell for sponsoring the show and for building such a great free tool that we can use to check our credit score. It has saved me a lot of time when I want to quickly check the status of my credit score (for example, to ensure there has been no fraud or identity theft on my accounts). 

You also obviously want to make sure your score is as high as possible for any mortgages or other loans that you end up applying for (to ensure you get the lowest rate and get approved). 

Even if you aren’t looking for a loan, I encourage you to at least pull your report for free to help ensure that there are no unauthorized transactions on your accounts. As a best practice, you should be doing this kind of check at least annually. 

Thanks again Borrowell for building a tool where we Canadians can finally get access to this data quickly and for free.

Other Resources:

Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): All the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments. 

Canada’s Top ETFs Guide & Top High-Interest Savings Account: In the guide, I go over what I personally invest in and why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement. At the very least you’ll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it’ll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there. 

The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use this link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ bank. 

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada (they are currently offering 2.45% which is more than double what the major banks are offering).

It’s also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, and can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.

Because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money. 

To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you the full comprehensive guide for free. 

Today we’re going to cover some of the top financial questions asked by Canadians, including the number one question, “Am I saving enough for retirement?”.

The way we came up with these questions, is that as you may know, the fee-for-service financial planner that I use is John Kalos, and on my site, I have a page where you can sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with him. 

And so, lots of the listeners of the show have met with John for free to get their questions answered and he then took the ones that were being asked most often, and we decided to do this episode on them so that everyone can benefit from them. 

The top question was definitely “Am I saving enough for retirement?”, but he also addressed other top questions like “What investments should I be buying for each account (RRSP vs TFSA vs taxable accounts), and how much should I be buying of each?”.

Enjoy the episode, and definitely feel free to ask him your own questions one-on-one over at buildwealthcanada.ca/john. When you sign up through that page, I’ve also set it up so that you’ll be automatically emailed a guide that I made on the top questions to ask your financial planner. 

This can help you whether you’re looking for a new financial planner, or to test out your existing financial planner to make sure that there is no conflict-of-interest and that they really are as competent as they claim to be. 

This is something that he’s making available on an ongoing basis so even if you are listening to this episode years from now, you can still go there to get some of your top questions answered, privately, and for free. Enjoy the episode.

New Tool: Get Your Credit Score Checked for Free

A big thanks to Borrowell for sponsoring the show and for building such a great free tool that we can use to check our credit score. It has saved me a lot of time when I want to quickly check the status of my credit score (for example, to ensure there has been no fraud or identity theft on my accounts). 

You also obviously want to make sure your score is as high as possible for any mortgages or other loans that you end up applying for (to ensure you get the lowest rate and get approved). 

Even if you aren’t looking for a loan, I encourage you to at least pull your report for free to help ensure that there are no unauthorized transactions on your accounts. As a best practice, you should be doing this kind of check at least annually. 

Thanks again Borrowell for building a tool where we Canadians can finally get access to this data quickly and for free.

Other Resources:

Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): All the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments. 

Canada’s Top ETFs Guide & Top High-Interest Savings Account: In the guide, I go over what I personally invest in and why I invest in it. The investments that I talk about ​are literally where we have almost our entire net worth (apart from our house), and is what we are primarily living off right now in our early retirement. At the very least you’ll learn about some great ETFs to consider for your portfolio, and if you are new to ETFs, it’ll give you a nice list of some top ETFs to consider from the thousands that are out there. 

The guide is available for free to any listeners that that use this link to sign up for a free savings account with the bank that I personally use, EQ bank. 

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada (they are currently offering 2.3% which is more than double what the major banks are offering).

It’s also free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there. You also get unlimited transactions, unlimited Interac e-transfers, and can take out your money at any time if you need it, and there are no minimum balances.

Because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money. 

To get the free high-interest account and the free guide on the top ETFs in Canada, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you the full comprehensive guide for free.