Personal Finance

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.

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.

In Coronavirus and the stock market: 6 months later, we observed that the stock market has already rebounded from the shock that happened in March. That's when the Coronavirus started hitting countries all over the world. I ended the article with a small note:

Today, I'm proud to release the first of many upcoming tools to help you take control of your finance, a Compound interest calculator. As its name suggests, it's based on the magic of compounding interest. Before we go further, let me explain what that is. If you already know and understand the concept, you can skip the next paragraph and read the rest of the article to learn more about the calculator itself and how it can help you.