The Blunt Bean Counter has some concrete suggestions for those in debt to get organized and make a complete snapshot of their debts. Rob Carrick says that car insurers just don’t get Generation Y. Preet Banerjee says that establishing a habit of saving is more important initially than worrying about investing fees. He’s right that the expense ratio on the funds you own becomes more important as your total assets grow. Big Cajun Man had some trouble canceling a Motley Fool newsletter subscription after the free period was over.

This is a template for a guest post on a blog. Read at your own risk. 1. Buy a Less Expensive [Item] [Item]s can be very expensive. But, if you look around, you can find less expensive [item]s that are just as good. If you keep buying the expensive version, you could end up needing the services of [embedded link to credit-counseling business]. 2. Don’t Buy So Many [Item]s Try to extend the life of your [item] by taking care of it. If you can’t do this you could end up needing to see [embedded link to payday loan company]. 3. Look for a Used [Item] blah blah blah ... [link to random page in this blog to make this guest post seem like it belongs]. 4. Another Ridiculously Obvious Suggestion blah blah blah 5. Insultingly Simple Idea blah blah blah This guest post was brought to you by [link to more examples of this wonderful author’s work].

There are good reasons for investors to reduce the riskiness of their portfolios using bonds. However, some commentators like to point out the surprising result that a portfolio mixing stocks and bonds can sometimes beat both the all-stock portfolio and the all-bond portfolio. A recent example is a post by The Reformed Broker titled ‘The Triumph of Diversification’ . I ran an experiment that shows that this kind of reporting can set up investors for unrealistic expectations. Common sense tells us that if you start your investing year with some stocks and some bonds and make no trades, your overall return will be somewhere between stock returns and bond returns. However, by a quirk of mathematics, if you rebalance to your target portfolio mix after each year, it is possible for your multi-year returns with a mixed portfolio to outperform both an all-stock portfolio and an all-bond portfolio. Somehow your portfolio can become better than the sum of its parts. I decided to see ho...

Canadian Couch Potato reports that Vanguard will be changing the benchmark it uses for several of its index ETFs to save on benchmark licensing fees. Canadian Mortgage Trends reports that a mortgage broker who submitted fraudulent mortgage documents on behalf of his clients in an effort to improve their chances of approval will be going to jail. They say this is a good thing because questionable mortgage documentation is all too common. Million Dollar Journey reports stock-picking contest results to the end of Q3. The average return of the 10 participants is 4.5%. This trails the TSX at 6% and the S&P 500 at 15%. I guess I’ll stick to indexing. Big Cajun Man is worried about the looming bacon shortage. Of course, we won’t have an actual shortage; it’s just that the price is going to rise. That’s the great thing about free(ish) markets; you can always have what you want if you’re willing to pay for it. Retire Happy Blog says that the ability to save money is a com...

Having worked in the private sector throughout my career, I’ve seen my share of rounds of layoffs. Even the most successful company will eventually stumble and not have enough revenue to pay all of its employees. What amazes me about large layoffs is that employees are unable to see them coming and do little to prepare themselves. Businesses have owners who invest their money to make a return. If a business misses its profit target, owners will be unhappy. A common remedy to improve profitability is to lay off employees. So, employees who see their company missing profit targets should immediately expect that layoffs are a possibility. But most employees are shaken when they learn that layoffs are planned, despite the seemingly obvious clues. They go from feeling safe and happy to feeling afraid for their futures. If their finances can’t withstand unemployment, it makes sense to be fearful. The part that doesn’t make sense is having felt safe and happy before the layoffs we...

Most of my readers know of Rob Carrick, a personal finance columnist at the Globe and Mail. He does an excellent job of cutting to the important parts of just about any financial story that affects your wallet. He also has a blog consisting of his picks of the best articles related to personal finance. The Globe and Mail ran a contest to rename Carrick’s blog. The winning name was Carrick on Money . I must say that this name sounds great to me. However, I have a nagging feeling that it seems familiar. Can anyone help me figure out why it feels like I’ve heard it before? Kidding aside, I hope Carrick continues delivering solid information to help us all run our financial lives well.

Nancy Woods at Globe Investor answered a reader question about an RESP for his newborn grandchild : “does it make more sense to contribute a lump sum and forgo the government grant (CESG) or do I make annual contributions and take the government’s free $500? Signed Bill”. Unfortunately, her analysis failed to find the best option. This question only matters if Bill actually has $50,000 (the maximum total contribution RESP amount) available right now. So, he either throws it all into the RESP now or he puts a certain amount in each year and invests the amount held back in a non-registered account. The advantage of the lump sum right now is longer tax-free compounding. The advantage of spreading out the contribution is that each year the government will match 20% of the contribution up to a maximum of $500 per year and a lifetime maximum of $7200. (There are also catch-up provisions, but they are not relevant in this case.) Woods concludes that Bill has two options: 1 . Make...