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New research shows, savings more important when buying a home In the fall of 1997, I moved back home to live with my parents. I had been living on my own since I was 23, attending university, teaching and living abroad. I boomeranged home when I was trying to decide my next career move. While my parents made it easy to live with them, it… Read More
What Home Buyers Need to Know About Multiple Offers In 1998 my family sold my grandma's home, a home that she had lived in for 40+ years for $91,500. Back then, there were no multiple offers and we weren't experiencing a "hot" sellers market. Even so, she would have been astonished at this princely sum. My grandmother had always treated her home with pride,… Read More
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should: five questions to decide if DIY investing is right for you I am embarrassed to admit that this past holiday season (as well as many before it), I sat and ate an entire box of Toffifee in one sitting. That being said, just because I could, doesn’t mean I should. The same can be said for DIY investing. When I was 18, I got a “hot… Read More
Far away From Family: Three things we can do to protect loved ones from the financial pitfalls of isolation I can remember visiting my grandma well into her 90’s and I always marveled at the phone calls and drop in visitors that she had from family and friends. The phone calls and visits were instrumental in keeping her connected to and safe from the outside world. My grandma had eight children and 46 grandchildren,… Read More
Couples and Money: Lessons from the Toilet Paper Aisle As a marketer, I rely on the truism of the “two types of people in the world”: for example, there are those who “invest” in a premium brand of toilet paper and those who prefer to save on this necessity with econo-brands. Now follow me – and these two types of people – to the… Read More