I’ve got a riddle for you; what’s tasteless, has no sense of humour, is often black & white, but sometimes gray, and has no face? If you haven’t guessed it, it’s the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

You’re on a roller-coaster ride and you are climbing that huge crest. Each screeching chug upwards adds more excitement than the last. Full of wonderment, you think “Is this excitement ever going to end?” Just then you take a tumultuous plunge down, which feels nothing like the exhilarating ride upwards, and you have that unwelcoming feeling of losing your stomach; your fight or flight reaction kicks in.

With the rising cost of travel, coupled with the lower value of the Canadian dollar, many Canadians are adopting the new idea of a Staycation. Let’s face it, for many of us our home is our castle and there are plenty of benefits to enjoying our own space while taking time away from work. Staying close to home allows us to continue working on retirement savings and reducing our family debt. Sounds like “killing two birds with one stone” to me!

I continue to read a lot of articles on-line and in magazines that pose the popular question of what makes more financial sense – use extra in-pocket monies to pay down mortgage debt or to add to retirement savings. I want to quickly address this question from another angle that is widely ignored by most pundits.

What a gift!

Several years ago, the federal government introduced a tax planning strategy called pension income splitting for retired Canadians. After just completing a few hundred income tax returns this year, I have been reminded of just how powerful this tax strategy can be.

1. Contributing to RRSPs

Has your financial advisor been coaching you to add regular amounts to your RRSP? This little nugget of wisdom not only helps you save for the day when you are no longer earning a pay-cheque, but also helps you defer paying taxes on that money today, as well as grow that money tax deferred. This tends to be one of the single most impactful tricks to reducing your tax liability for most tax payers.

2. Claiming all eligible medical expenses

If you have read the news lately, you can’t avoid the constant headlines about the recent interest rate cut and the value of the loonie falling in lockstep. A number of my clients have asked me why they should care and what it means to them. Here were some of my answers:

If there is one thing I love to do, it is to dream big. Looking back on this past year, it is clear that I am not alone. In 2014, Apple unveiled its smart watch, we saw the first prototype of a pacemaker made from a 3D printer and learned that nanobots have the capability of killing cancer cells. Wow!! These are all examples of somebody’s big dream to change the way we traditionally understand our world.

Can you believe that in 1987, Fran and I felt lucky when we got our first mortgage at 10% interest! Wow; it was only in the early 1980’s that some people were renewing their mortgages at more than 20% interest. Imagine! It doesn’t seem to make any sense that today you can get a 5-year mortgage for about 3% interest.

There are several reasons why interest rates fluctuate so much; I’ll leave that for the economists to provide you with the boring details.

I bet almost everybody has heard the real estate industry talk about it being a buyer’s market or a seller’s market in real estate. But what does this actually mean?

Simply put, if there are lots of people who need/want to buy a home but fewer people interested in selling their homes there ends up being not enough homes available, so prices start to increase. This favours the sellers and therefore, this is what is called a seller’s market. Of course, there are always more factors involved, but for the most part it is a simple supply/demand formula.