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Welcome to the first installment in the Finance 101 series. Throughout these posts, we'll explore the basics of personal finance, starting from scratch. If you've never been interested in the topic before, or find it daunting to get started because everything seems so overwhelming, this is for you. If you're already a veteran, it'll be a refresher on topics you probably already know. Take this opportunity to think about your current situation and plan, making sure you have all bases covered.

Welp the world is not going any better. Living in Canada, I've went from full "this is fine" to "stay home as much as you can" in the span of 7 days. I'm lucky enough that I can work home, so I'm very grateful for that. Take that, 2020 resolutions! Also very grateful that while my vacation plans are down the drain, I'm already in Canada now that the border is shutting down. And everything is refundable so I'm getting all of it back! I got super lucky as I usually only book the cheapest fare which are usually not refundable. In this case, it was booked on points so was cancellable by default... and COVID-19 pushed the company to make cancellation completely free.

If you have watched the news lately, you already know that the world is getting crazy about COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus. This has not escaped the stock market, with the NYSE and the TSX both down more than 10% over the last few weeks. It's still unclear when the situation will go back to normal, if we'll actually get into a recession rather than just a temporary drop, and when Costco will drop selling out on toilet paper. But one thing for sure, is that all of those things are linked.

Another new year has just passed us. I hope everyone has taken advantage of the end of year holidays to get together with their loved ones and have a good time! Now that everything is going back to normal, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on last year and on what’s to come in 2020. I’m not a fan of making resolutions in January just to drop them 3 weeks later, but reflecting back is important to learn from our experiences, and now is as good a time as ever to do it! So I encourage everyone to do it. Here’s mine that I’ll share.

Money has this weird property where it’s hard to earn but easy to spend. Bad planning (or no planning at all) can compound this even further and cripple your ability to save towards a better future. Don’t lose hope though, nothing is impossible! With the Money Hack series, you get simple, actionable advice you can use in your daily life.