Personal Finance

In this installment of the Finance 101 series, we'll take a deeper look into the basic concept that makes up personal finance. Getting a good understanding of the flow of your money is essential for anyone. It doesn't matter if you make minimum wage or you're a lawyer, if you spend more money than you make, you'll be in trouble. Very few people track where their money goes, they simply spend what they have.

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.

If you've ever listened to your grand-parent talking about their youth, you may have been surprised to learn how cheap everything was. A bus ride would cost 5 cents, you'd get a bag of candies for pennies... and your take-home pay would be less than 300$ per month.