Credit Debt Banking News | CDBN

The Chang School at Ryerson University ran some newspaper ads, attracting 100 people to my free seminar last week. Everyone was eager to learn and share tips, including a dedicated few who kept talking and arguing outside later on.

The course is designed to reach a 20-to-35-year-old group by my partners in this venture (the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and the Investor Education Fund). But many are older.

Beth Kaplan, a friend at the event, mentioned her surprise at seeing a middle-aged audience here in her blog. She also made the brave admission that saving and investing are hard for her, even as she nears her 60th birthday.

Many questions were about credit scores (how to get access to them and how to ..read more

Remember when all you heard from investment salespeople during the RRSP season was about the 30 per cent tax credits available on a labour-sponsored fund?

Sometimes, they added the RRSP deduction and showed how 75 to 80 per cent of your contribution was subsidized.

Sounded like a great deal, right? But did they also mention the sky high management fees or the fact that a portfolio of emerging businesses might prove to be highly illiquid in an economic downturn?

Unless you held the fund for eight years, you had to repay the tax credits. But just as cash-in time was getting close, many funds suspended redemptions and moved to annual distributions. This meant an even longer wait to retrieve your money, assuming you had much left.

What I find ..read more