For years, I’ve used credit cards rewards points to help offset the cost of travel throughout the year. I’ve always gone with a travel rewards card, so earlier this year when Scotiabank reached out and asked if I would partner with them and use their Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card, I jumped at the chance to try out one of the best cash back cards available in Canada. But then 2020 turned my life around, and suddenly, I found myself scrambling to get refunds for booked international trips, working from home, stressed about money, my career, and the health of my family. Even though I feel ve ..read more

Hello, friends! It’s been a long time since I’ve written in this blog… There are a few reasons why I stopped blogging: 1) I started a new (dream) job and really want to focus all of my energy into succeeding, and 2) I felt like I wasn’t relatable anymore to my peers who were dealing with the financial pressures of having kids, buying a house, paying off student loans, etc. But I think there’s still a small place for me in the personal finance community. I should be proud of how hard I’ve worked on my career, how far we’ve gotten saving for retirement, and how much I still have to learn about g ..read more

In the saga of selling or renting our old condo, we ended up accepting an offer at the very end of March (for full asking price, our Realtor is amazing), and earlier this month we finally closed on the sale. YAY! We expected to walk away with about $200k, and I was super pleased with my calculations because the final cheque ended up being $199,400.:) But having that amount of money sit in our bank account was a bit short-lived, because we immediately put $70,000 towards our new mortgage (max annual contribution), and then replenished our sad savings accounts (since we had to raid most of our c ..read more

Note: this post was sponsored by Capital One, but all views and opinions are my own. A recent study by Capital One Canada revealed that the vast majority of Canadians have become more proactive in mitigating fraud and identity theft. In fact, 93% of Canadians are taking steps to protect themselves – a substantial increase from the 53% who reported taking action in 2018. I used to be one of the people who didn’t think fraud could happen to me. But I’ve had my credit card information compromised before, and not only is it scary to think of how many ways they could have gotten that information. I ..read more

Wow it has been a while since I’ve updated the blog. After Christmas vacation and the excitement of buying a new condo, we got swept up in the madness of getting our old condo ready for Open Houses (which continue to happen every weekend). It was hard to coordinate because for every Open House in the beginning because we had to take our cat Zoey out of the house. She gets incredibly anxious around strangers, so it was a choice between the stress of moving her out the house for a few hours each time, or leaving her to hide and be scared. We chose to take her, and I think it was the right choice ..read more