As our population continues to age in Canada, there will be a number of significant issues and trends that will impact the way business and government respond to the needs of Canada’s senior citizens. One of these issues will be the need for proper housing solutions in many Canadian communities due to this phenomenon. Conventional ways of addressing those needs has typically been through downsizing or renovation to an existing home or property. However, there are other notable reasons why one might be considering selling their family home.

The year is 1989 when Ilyce Glink, then founder and president of Think Glink Media walked into her local bank with her husband to apply for a mortgage. Now sitting down with the bank’s mortgage specialist, Ilyce began describing her monthly income to help the mortgage specialist determine the couple’s borrowing threshold. “Don’t worry honey, your income doesn’t even count”, she recalls being told by the mortgage specialist (1).

In my years of meeting with clients and talking about personal finances, I think that one of the most powerful concepts I’ve introduced into client meetings is the idea of the “future self”.

Simply put, your “future self” is the idea of who you are, where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing at some point in the future.

With the income tax season right around the corner, here are some tax tips that could help you save money on your Canadian income tax filing.

What do we expect from the new U.S. President?

As always, anytime there is an unexpected outcome in political elections, financial markets don’t like the uncertainty. This was evident last night when the future’s markets pointed to fairly significant declines when global markets were set to open for business this morning (1).

During the election campaign, President Elect Donald Trump spoke tirelessly about certain divisive issues, such as:

• Trade Protectionism
• Energy Reform
• Tax Reform
• Health Care Reform
• Immigration/Illegal Immigration Reform

Every day, a new financial scam is born. And every day, more and more Canadians are taken advantage of by savvy financial scammers. In a recent report released by the Better Business Bureau, the top 10 Canadian financial scams cost Canadian’s $1.2 Billion dollars in 2015. Needless to say, financial fraud is an issue.

You’ve never needed travel insurance until you needed it. Let me start by telling my story.

In my early 20’s, I booked a trip to the Dominican Republic. Being young, naïve and somewhat confident that “it wouldn’t happen to me”, I decided to forego the purchase of travel insurance while away on my one week getaway.

On the very first day of my trip, I had an uncomfortable feeling on the surface of my abdomen. After lying in the sun all day, I felt further irritation. I knew that something was wrong when I woke up the next morning with massive blisters on my stomach.

No, I am not talking about the group of famous Canadian landscape painters from the 1920s. I’m talking about the seven of us children raised by my parents, Sue and Paul.

Growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, our family was like most others in rural Nova Scotia. Mom and Dad had plenty of mouths to feed and limited resources. But they were educated and determined to teach us life’s valuable lessons, including finance, during our early school years.

It’s no secret; our basic cost of living has been going up a lot lately. You see it at the gas pumps, on your grocery receipt and every month when you get your electrical bill. So how do low income families keep up with all these increases, and still manage to make ends meet?

Why does it always feel like we are living in uncertain times? Today we are exposed to the slowing economy in China, or are we burdened with the conflict in the Middle East? Some believe that the Russian/Ukraine unrest is the cause for our concerns.