Invest
How Does a Pension Affect My 401(k)/RRSP Withdrawal?
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Should I Buy a House as a Passive Investment? - May 17, 2019
- FUD, FOMO and Bitcoin - May 13, 2019
- Why I won’t Touch Cryptocurrencies and Neither Should You - May 6, 2019
Pensions. Remember those things? No? Well then gather round, young Millennials. It’s Story Time! You see, back in the days of yore (i.e. the 60’s), companies had these magical things called “pensions” that they offered to their employees as part of this other magical thing called “benefits.” I know, I know, it sounds crazy but it was a different time. I also think cars worked by sticking your feet through the bottom and running on the pavement back then. ANYHOO, here’s how these things worked. The employer would automatically take a small contribution off their employee’s paycheck (pre-tax, of course). […]
Norbert’s Gambit: How to Exchange Money Without Paying Fees
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Should I Buy a House as a Passive Investment? - May 17, 2019
- FUD, FOMO and Bitcoin - May 13, 2019
- Why I won’t Touch Cryptocurrencies and Neither Should You - May 6, 2019
We frequently get questions from our readers about how we handle exchanging foreign currencies while living in so many countries. And our standard answer was: a combination of a credit card with no forex fees and a checking account that reimburses foreign ATM access fees. This way, you could simply hold most of your wealth in one currency, then spend it frictionlessly all around the world! And that system has worked out pretty well for us. Until. NOW! Why now? Well, while we were working the vast majority of our money was earned in Canadian dollars, so our portfolio was […]
Our 2018 Finances Part 2
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Should I Buy a House as a Passive Investment? - May 17, 2019
- FUD, FOMO and Bitcoin - May 13, 2019
- Why I won’t Touch Cryptocurrencies and Neither Should You - May 6, 2019
Our 2018 financial review continues after Part 1, where FIRECracker detailed our annual spending. Today, we’re going to talk about how our portfolio did, and the transactions we performed to fund next year’s living expenses. How did it perform? At the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, the financial media tried to sum up the overall year for stock investors. The more polite ones called it “challenging.” The less polite ones called it a cluster-fuck. And with good reason. December was an especially wild ride, with the Dow swinging up and down 300+ points more times than I […]
Why You Should Be Happy The Markets Are Crashing
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Should I Buy a House as a Passive Investment? - May 17, 2019
- FUD, FOMO and Bitcoin - May 13, 2019
- Why I won’t Touch Cryptocurrencies and Neither Should You - May 6, 2019
One of the nice things about being sequestered away in Greece for two weeks was our rather serene and much appreciated seperation from the daily news cycle. For two weeks, we were completely sheltered from the day-to-day shootings, terrorist attacks, and whatever the Hell Trump said/did/Twittered that day, and I gotta say, it was awesome. So it was a with a great deal of trepidition that I returned back to the real world last week and turned on my phone again. And as I feared, I got inundated with emails like this. “OMG, are you seeing what’s happening in the stock […]
Who Should Contribute to a 529 Plan?
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Should I Buy a House as a Passive Investment? - May 17, 2019
- FUD, FOMO and Bitcoin - May 13, 2019
- Why I won’t Touch Cryptocurrencies and Neither Should You - May 6, 2019
Continuing from my last article about saving for your kids’ college education, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading, learning, and MATHING SHIT UP on this topic, and what I’ve discovered is that, as usual, while the Canadian college savings plan known as the RESP is relatively straightforward to understand and use, the American college savings plan known as the 529 is not. So today I thought I’d share my thoughts on how best to use a 529 plan to save for your kids’ college expenses. Should I Even Have One? The big question we have to ask for […]
