LATEST
Retirement is a financial state, not an age
When retirement is portrayed in popular culture, it's often a person golfing, sailing on a boat, or passing winter on the beach in Florida. There are many more generalities around retirement, but they all share the same thing: it's old people who don't work. In Canada, the normal retirement age is 65 and in the US, it's now 67. Those numbers are based on the age at which government programs start paying the retiree, whether it's Old Age Security and the Canadian Pension Plan/Québec Pension Plan 🇨🇦 or Social Security 🇺🇸. Because of those, that's the age at which people usually think of retiring.
PREVIOUS POSTS
Subscriptions are getting more and more popular. There are the obvious TV streaming services like Netflix or Disney+, or the newspaper subscription (although digital now instead of a printed version). But they're becoming the norm in a lot of sectors where they weren't before. While it was once reserved for niche boxes like Japanese candy or cosmetics, you can now buy plenty of household products like coffee or pet food with a subscription. Retailers often even give a discount if you do. Apps that were once sold for a one-time fee are now available for a monthly subscription, like Photoshop, Office, even Tinder. And many merchants will even sell you a subscription to improve how you use their services: Amazon Prime, Uber Pass, or the original Costco.
With Prime Day just past us and Black Friday coming up, this is the perfect time to talk about deals. Who doesn't like a good one? It's not just about the money saved, and you know I love saving money. It just feels good knowing you paid 20% less for <popular gadget of the year>. Even more if you were going to buy it regardless, but managed to snatch a deal just before buying it.
Investing is generally misunderstood by a large portion of the population. A large part of it is the abysmal state of our financial education, combined with constant reporting in the news about the results of some of the largest companies in the world.