The Globe and Mail’s Stress Test podcast is heading into Season Three and we’re looking for new money stories to tell – from the point of view of millennials and Gen Z.
We’re talking about the kind of stories that come from the gut. How do you feel about money? What keeps you up at night? What money-driven goals motivate you? If you could ask someone for unbiased, financial advice on one topic, what would you want to know?
Stress test is a podcast about how the pandemic is shifting the rules of personal finance for 20- and 30-somethings. For renters, for aspiring home owners, for budding investors, for gig economy and part-time workers, for parents, singles, and couples who have just started dating. It doesn’t have to be super-serious – one of our favourite Season Two episodes was about the cost of groceries. You can help us know what kind of topics we should dig into by reaching out and sharing your story.
Why Gen Z and millennials? Because COVID-19 has hit this demographic hard. So we’d like to try to put their finances in the broader context of what’s happening in the economy and in society. Parents and older readers, feel free to weigh in too. We want to know what you see your kids or the young people around you struggling with. The goal is twofold: to help young people manage their money, and explain to everyone what this demographic is up against.
Afraid you’ll never be able to afford a house? Taking big risks in the stock market because you feel that’s your best hope of a big financial win? Worried about your debts…or worried about your parents’ finances? Decided you want to remain single forever and wondering how to get ahead? Or maybe you’ve made some really great decisions that other young Canadians can learn from. Tell us about it, and then let us present the story on Stress Test, where we keep things respectful and judgement-free.
Millennials and Gen Z’s, we want your money war stories: Trying to find an affordable home to rent or buy? Struggling to launch as an investor? Juggling various part-time jobs with no pension or benefits? Email Globe personal finance editor and Stress Test co-host Roma Luciw at rluciw@globeandmail.com to share your personal story.
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Rob’s personal finance reading list
Getting real about real estate
A hilarious send-up of a New York Times real estate article in which a couple installs “his-and-hers front doors, a walk-in veggie crisper, multiple tax shelters, and a CBD-infused HVAC system.”
The eternal insurance question – term life versus whole life
An investing blogger explains his own thinking in choosing between these two types of life insurance coverage. He made a similar choice to the one I did.
What to put in your emergency kit
A personal finance blogger inventories her household emergency kit, including some cash. I wonder about that – in an extreme emergency, what’s the right currency? Electronic payments won’t be working, but will people want your coins or paper money?
Cleaning tips that will save you money
How to get gum off clothes, get rid of berry stains and remove salt stains. All solutions cheaper than buying new stuff.
Ask Rob
Q: Having been an investor for many years with reasonable success and retired for 23 years, I find a need to become less active in looking after our portfolio. I find that most financial advice to people in their later years, is to invest in fixed income in order to preserve capital. But I think I speak for many investors when I say I am looking for investments other than fixed income to protect capital and also show some growth. However selecting ETFs that meet these requirements becomes a daunting task these days, with so many available on both sides of the border. So I would appreciate your thoughts on how or where to select ETFs particularly for retired folks.
A: I wrote a column not too long on ways retirees can generate investment income of 4 per cent and more with exchange-traded funds. This column was a follow-up to something I wrote on the introduction of an ETF specifically for retirees – the Vanguard Retirement Income ETF Portfolio (VRIF).
Do you have a question for me? Send it my way. Sorry I can’t answer every one personally. Questions and answers are edited for length and clarity.
Today’s financial tool
Tax information specifically for indigenous people from the Canada Revenue Agency, including some coverage of COVID-19 benefits.
The money-free zone
I finished The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel in about five days, which is lightning fast by my standards. It’s about a group of people linked in various ways to a Ponzi scheme, which is to say an investing fraud. So readable and smart in its insights about people and money.
NEW GLOBE AND MAIL NEWSLETTER
Given what the pandemic has done to government finances, the Tax & Spend newsletter is going to be essential reading in the years to come. I just subscribed.
In case you missed these Globe and Mail personal finance-related stories
- Six of the most fuel-efficient vehicles available in Canada
- Cashing in your travel points now may not be the best deal
- When it comes to tax debt, there’s no such thing as an honest mistake – usually (for Globe Unlimited subscribers)
More Rob Carrick and money coverage
Subscribe to Stress Test on Apple podcasts or Spotify. For more money stories, follow me on Instagram and Twitter, and join the discussion on my Facebook page. Millennial readers, join our Gen Y Money Facebook group.
Even more coverage from Rob Carrick:
- 🎧 Catch up on Stress Test: How to survive the gig economy • How to get out of debt • Is now the right time to buy a house? • Crisis-proof your finances • Does investing change during a pandemic? • Can you afford to live downtown? • The cost of kids • Should you move back in with your parents?
- ✔️ A 10-point pandemic personal finance checklist: Create a "wartime" family budget; stop worrying about bank deposits; clean out your big-bank savings account; get relief on car payments; get preapproved for a mortgage; WFH? Save $1,000 a month; save, save, save; build resilience by not anxiety-buying; consider the cost of mortgage deferrals; get ready for the second wave of financial distress.
- 📈 Investing: The case for a tight portfolio of big blue chips dividend stocks; robo-advisers beat human advisors (and they’re thriving), why online banks that are better than the branch; is it time to invest your 2020 TFSA; don’t get your mortgage at a bank; why it’s so hard to invest in preferred shares; stock up on stocks to retire early; and are you following the 10-year rule with your investments?
- 💰 Saving: Food waste is wasted money; why you might regret that SUV and find out if CAA is worth it; juice your PC Optimum points; how an ex-Bay Street lawyer got out of debt; blindly easy tweak to your retirement investments to survive economic downturn; should you buy that latte?
Are you reading this newsletter on the web or did someone forward the e-mail version to you? If so, you can sign up for Carrick on Money here.
Rob Carrick