Personal Finance Canada

Finance is a combination of luck, good/bad decisions, and a little bit of chance!

Let’s talk about your ups and downs! What successes did you have this week? Who messed up?

Come talk about your job, your salary, and everything related to it.

It’s time to talk about investments, no matter how diverse they may be. Whether it’s in stocks, cryptocurrencies, ventures, let’s discuss them! Ask questions, discuss the markets, or compare your portfolios.

We chat about real estate, mortgages, and everything related.

It’s Monday, the start of a new week.

Ask your embarrassing, silly, or worrisome questions. Come learn and discover without judgment.

My wife is working on getting her travel blog off the ground and just asked me about claiming business expenses come tax time. Let's say we go for a week long trip to Spain, she makes some social media posts on her work accounts and creates some blog posts, maybe some shouting out or showcasing a restaurant/experience/service we used while on our trip. While not a traditional "business" trip, she is taking this trip with the intention of making some money back off of it through her content, so is there any portion of the travel expenses that she can claim as business expenses?

I'm currently wrestling with a dilemma. Two significant positions in my portfolio have dipped by 15%. These are solid companies that I intend to hold for the long term. However, I've reached my allocation limit for them in my portfolio, so I can't increase my holdings. I'm curious, how do you handle such situations? Do you choose to patiently wait it out, or do you consider adding more & averaging down even when the stock has already reached its allocated percentage in your portfolio?

Finance is a combination of luck, good/bad decisions, and a little bit of chance!

Let’s talk about your ups and downs! What successes did you have this week? Who messed up?

Come talk about your job, your salary, and everything related to it.

It’s time to talk about investments, no matter how diverse they may be. Whether it’s in stocks, cryptocurrencies, ventures, let’s discuss them! Ask questions, discuss the markets, or compare your portfolios.

Anybody have experience using BMO mortgage cash account? This is where you can pre-pay down the principle and then supposedly withdraw those funds when needed. I’ve been frustrated by the terms and conditions on my daily HISA so thinking this could be a way to get the equivalent of 5.15% (my current mortgage rate) for money that I don’t need to touch frequently. Seems like I can’t do better than this even in a HISA ETF.

My concerns are: am I thinking about this the right way? (Paying down principle on mortgage is equivalent to earning that percentage in a regular bank account?). Does this BMO mortgage feature really work like this? It wasn’t advertised to me, I had to dig into it.

We chat about real estate, mortgages, and everything related.

It’s Monday, the start of a new week.

Ask your embarrassing, silly, or worrisome questions. Come learn and discover without judgment.

Finance is a combination of luck, good/bad decisions, and a little bit of chance!

Let’s talk about your ups and downs! What successes did you have this week? Who messed up?

Come talk about your job, your salary, and everything related to it.

It’s time to talk about investments, no matter how diverse they may be. Whether it’s in stocks, cryptocurrencies, ventures, let’s discuss them! Ask questions, discuss the markets, or compare your portfolios.

We chat about real estate, mortgages, and everything related.

It’s Monday, the start of a new week.

Ask your embarrassing, silly, or worrisome questions. Come learn and discover without judgment.

Hi,

Wondering if anyone has recommendations on lenders offering HELOC that don't require your mortgage to be with them. I've checked a few credit unions but it's a slow process since none seen to want to offer the information up front

Thanks

Edit: if anyone stumbles across this in the future and is in the same boat, I'd recommend Simplii Financial. They were the only one I found that would be second signer with a somewhat obscure lender holding the primary mortgage. Very quick and painless, all over the phone/online aside from the legal part, in which the lawyer came right to my house.

Finance is a combination of luck, good/bad decisions, and a little bit of chance!

Let’s talk about your ups and downs! What successes did you have this week? Who messed up?

Come talk about your job, your salary, and everything related to it.

It’s time to talk about investments, no matter how diverse they may be. Whether it’s in stocks, cryptocurrencies, ventures, let’s discuss them! Ask questions, discuss the markets, or compare your portfolios.

We chat about real estate, mortgages, and everything related.