Like going to the gym or eating a healthy diet, saving money is one of those concepts that’s simple to grasp but weirdly challenging to put into practice. We understand its benefits. We agree that it’s essential to our well-being. We know that it’s something we should be doing. But paycheque after paycheque, it’s the same routine: after the bills have been paid and the regular expenses have been looked after, there just isn’t quite enough left over for our savings goals.

Supporting your local community is a positive thing—it builds relationships, it strengthens the local economy, and it makes your neighbourhood a happier and healthier place to work and play. The most obvious way to support your surrounding community is with the choices you make with your dollars.

Choosing a career is tough. Whether you’re a new grad or considering a career change, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when tasked with selecting your next gig. And why shouldn’t it? It’s an enormously costly decision, in terms of both time and money. In many cases, it defines your lifestyle: it determines where you live, how you spend your time and what you can afford. It has influence over your stress levels and your general happiness. It’s a big deal and, to complicate matters further, there are over 10,000 options to choose from—even Barbie has had 130 different careers over the years!

You just got your paycheque. Your eyes scan down the list of deductions and settle on the most important part—your take-home pay. You take that number and start subtracting your bills, your day-to-day purchases, or that expensive item you’ve got your eye on. However, hiding in the often-overlooked payroll withholdings, you may find some untapped potential.

If you use a cellphone or have an email account, you’ve almost certainly been exposed to an attempt at mass marketing fraud. Common examples include being interrupted by an annoying robocall just as you start eating lunch, or waking up to a suspicious message in your email inbox that somehow slipped through the spam filter.

Although savings goals vary from person to person and range in size and scope, it’s likely that your longest-term savings goal will be your retirement.

Auto dealers are expected to sell cars that meet certain consumer protection criteria. This may include providing a warranty that will cover the buyer’s costs if a car turns out to be a lemon. Unfortunately, some unethical dealers may attempt to bypass these laws by curbstoning.

Bulls and bears can be considered the unofficial mascots of the stock market. They represent the upward and downward movements of the stock market over a period of time and have even come to describe investor behaviour (optimistic investors are said to be bullish, while investors with a pessimistic outlook are said to be bearish).

Pursuing post-secondary education should be an exciting time in your life. You’re making decisions and opening up possibilities that will shape your future—a future that is adventurous and fulfilling and that decidedly does not include years and years of crippling debt.

Depending on who you are, filling in the blank above can be an exciting, troubling or outright confusing task. If you happen to be a kindergartner, filling in the blank is awesome, because at that age, dinosaur and superhero are both perfectly viable career options.

When you start looking for financial advice (or any kind of advice, for that matter), experts will share their take on what’s “good” and what’s “bad”. In personal finance, there are some classifications that we can all agree on: Debt is bad. Emergency funds are good. Overdrawing your account is bad. Earning interest on your savings is good.

It’s hard to ignore the appeal of making real money online—after all, we live in a world where bloggers land book and movie deals, where top YouTubers are multimillionaires and where celebrities collect thousands of dollars in exchange for a single sponsored tweet.

Everyone has some idea of what it means to be money smart—however, whether or not you’ve acted on that idea is a different story! There are a few nuggets of financial wisdom in particular that are echoed so many times in articles, blog posts and TV segments that they become clichés, albeit practical ones.

Picture this: you’re steering your shopping cart through the sliding doors of the supermarket, shopping list in hand. As you walk the aisles, there’s a strategy you can use to save an average of 33% on your entire purchase. It doesn’t require any coupon clipping or rewards cards.

It’s the night before the interview. Your outfit is all laid out, your resumé is hot off the press and you’ve Google-Mapped your route. You’ve done your company research and you’ve practised answering the tough questions. You are perfectly prepared—and you still feel like a nervous wreck.

Every year, it’s nice to do a bit of “financial spring cleaning” and declutter your filing cabinet, your desk drawers, and the various hiding places where miscellaneous scraps of paper tend to accumulate and multiply. Read on to find out what you should be saving, and what’s OK to shred.

Asking the right questions is an important part of every financial decision you make, and home ownership is no exception. If you’ve been thinking about buying a place, preliminary research will turn up a long checklist of questions for you to ask at every part of the process. There are questions for your financial institution, questions for your mortgage broker and questions for your real estate agent. But what about the questions you should be asking yourself?

Insurance coverage can be tricky to shop for, because it requires making specific financial decisions about some hazy and unpredictable concepts. Depending on the type of insurance you’re looking into, you might find yourself pondering some downright uncomfortable questions

Investing can seem like a very risky, complex and fast-moving process. With endless combinations of investment vehicles to choose from, it can be difficult to take your first step as an investor—especially with the knowledge that all investments carry the risk of losing some or all of your money. So why bother?

A loan is also one of the biggest financial commitments we make in our lifetime. Rushing into a loan without fully understanding how it will affect your budget can create a very stressful situation that can quickly spiral out of control.

How did you decide where to open your first bank account? Where did you learn to budget or pay bills? If you have a money question now, what do you do? Who do you turn to? If you’re under the age of 30, your answers to the above questions are likely some combination of “my parents”, “the Internet” and “I don’t know—I just kind of figured it out”.

Living on your own for the first time can be empowering. It means having independence and all the things that come with it. Some of those things—like not having to share a bathroom—are wonderful. Others—like killing spiders yourself—are not so fun. And leading the pack in the not-so-fun category: bills.

When it comes to buying a new car, you have three options: purchasing it with cash, purchasing it through a loan (also known as financing) or leasing it. For most shoppers, the decision comes down to buying or leasing.

An emergency fund is an essential part of your personal finances. Its importance is stressed in almost every personal finance book and budgeting blog, and yet 27% of Canadians have one month or less of expenses in their emergency fund.

If an emergency fund is, in fact, so important, why doesn’t it seem that way? Why do so many put off contributing to an emergency fund?

Think fast: what’s the most recent financial decision you made? You likely won’t have to think too far back.

While bank and banking are universally understood and accepted terms, the term credit union is still largely misunderstood and unknown to many. Credit union is an unusual term, isn’t it? Is it just another name for a bank? Is it a credit card company? Do I have to be in a union to join?

In case you haven’t heard, compound interest is the best.

You may remember it as an equation you had to memorize for math class, but it’s so much more than that. It’s the concept that powers all sorts of savings and investment products and, over time, allows you to turn your money into, well, more money!

Budgets are like the New Year’s resolutions of personal finance. We all know we should have one and we all know it’s a fairly simple thing to follow—at least in theory. Like resolutions, we often map out personal budgets with the best of intentions, only to abandon them a couple of weeks later.

Credit scores are an area of personal finance that seem a lot more mysterious than they actually are. Many people believe that improving them is a matter of trial and error and, as a result, there’s a lot of “credit score advice” floating around that can end up doing more harm than good. Four common credit score myths have been rounded up and debunked in this article.

Estate planning is the process of organizing and managing the distribution of your assets and property after your death. While it may not be a pleasant topic to think about, it’s essential for ensuring your financial legacy is distributed according to your wishes. Estate planning also helps to minimize taxes, legal challenges and conflicts among family members. A well-prepared estate plan provides peace of mind that your loved ones will be taken care of and your assets handled appropriately.

Identity theft is nothing new, and yet it still manages to cost its victims billions of dollars (yes, that’s billions with a “b”) globally each year—not to mention the time and hassle involved in recovering a stolen identity.

You’ve likely heard about credit scores before (thanks to all those commercials with terrible jingles), but what do you actually know about them? How long have they been around? And what’s the deal with checking them?

What was the very first financial choice you ever made? It likely took place before your first job, even as far back as when your annual income consisted of money from the tooth fairy and lucky pennies. The very first financial decision you ever made is also one of the most important choices—where to keep your money.

Canadian pet owners spent an estimated $8.23 billion on pets, food, supplies, medical care and pet services in 2017, according to Statistics Canada. Although the love and companionship our furry (or feathered, or scaly) friends provide is priceless, it’s impossible to ignore the effect that pet ownership has on our wallet.

Even though there are over 250 credit unions in Canada, many misconceptions about their structure and their services still exist. One popular-but-false assumption is that the term “credit union member” is interchangeable with the term “credit union customer”. It might seem like a harmless mistake, but the concept of membership is what sets credit unions apart from other financial institutions. A “member” isn’t an empty marketing term—it reflects your credit union’s commitment to co-operative values and shapes your entire banking experience. As a member, you’re a part owner, you have a say in how your credit union is run and you get to share in its success in tangible ways.

Borrowing money comes at a cost. This extra cost is called interest. If borrowing money costs more, why do people still do it? Here are three reasons why:

Cheques hold an odd place in our personal finances. In many ways, cheques seem like relics from a previous era. We maybe write one or two cheques a month (usually for rent or similar bill-paying situations where electronic payment simply isn’t an option). This is vastly different from only a few decades ago, when cheques represented more than 85% of all non-cash retail payments. (Can you imagine whipping out a chequebook in line at the grocery store? Times have certainly changed!

Like local car dealerships and personal injury law firms, short-term and payday lenders tend to have the most annoying commercials on TV. They’re often tacky and annoying, and tend to air during daytime talk shows or very late at night. Their promises of “fast cash!”, “guaranteed approval!” and no “credit check required!” are enough to make you change the channel—and yet, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to get your hands on some extra money fast, those commercials might start making sense to you. If your car breaks down or you are short for this month’s rent payment and you have no emergency funds set aside, going to a payday lender or a pawnbroker may seem like your only options.

When most people think of inflation, their response is usually similar to when they see a vintage advertisement: reminiscing about the cheaper prices of the past (15 cents for a burger? Awesome!) while simultaneously feeling some resentment towards today’s ever-rising prices. Generally, inflation is seen as a frustrating “financial fact of life” that passively affects everyone as price levels climb and as the dollar’s purchasing power decreases over time.

News outlets and credit card companies are quick to label millennials as being credit card-shy. According to a recent survey, millennials apparently fear their credit card debt more than climate change, the threat of war and even death. It may sound like an overreaction, but the underlying trend is substantial: millennials are carrying fewer cards and have lower balances, compared to the previous generation of young adults.

Successful scholarship applications take considerable time and effort. Although there’s no shortcut to a quality application, there are steps you can take to make your efforts as rewarding as possible. Tackling your scholarship search with strategy and efficiency can translate into extra applications—and therefore, extra tuition dollars. For best results, incorporate the following tips into your application process as early as possible.

Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about all of the amazing lifestyle changes that await you just beyond your next pay raise? Have you ever fantasized about how to spend a work bonus, only to have the money instantly disappear into your monthly spending? If this sounds familiar, you might be prone to lifestyle creep.

Losing your job is stressful. Even with an emergency fund in place, it doesn’t take very long to feel the financial impact of a sudden loss of income. When recovering from income loss, the focus instantly shifts to finding a new job.

Does Your Work-From-Home Outfit Boost Your Productivity? According to science, clothing can influence the way we think and feel though symbolism and through routine.

Learning a new skill has many potential benefits.It can entertain you, it can save you money, it can boost your self-confidence, and it can unlock new opportunities at school and at work. However, choosing a new skill to learn is only half of the battle.

For most people, spending comes naturally. Saving up for something special is harder. And setting money aside for giving is really hard. The concept of three money jars can help.

A savings account is a great place to store your money at first. It’s safe and it pays a little interest. But it won’t make you rich! Growing your money requires that you move some of it into investments with a higher rate of return.