Weekend Reading – Money revelations, value stocks, avoiding home ownership and more

Welcome to a new Weekend Reading edition friends.  I hope the back end of the summer is treating you well.  Earlier this week I shared this financial goals update.  We’re on vacation thanks to some savings we started many months ago.

For folks looking to put major dents into their retirement plans – here are 25 kick a$$ ways to do it.

Enjoy your weekend and see you here next week!

I enjoyed these money revelations by Ben Carlson.

Andrew Hallam believes value stocks are not dead and buried.  In fact, most asset classes have their day in the sun when they look dead.

Our Big Fat Wallet had a take on avoiding home ownership to retire early.  We didn’t avoid home ownership and we hope to still retire early anyhow thanks to an aggressive savings rate.  Besides, very early retirement might actually be boring after a while…

Tawcan listed some impressive dividend income.

Sean Cooper, free from his Toronto mortgage, shared his net worth update on Million Dollar Journey.

Preet Banerjee shared the importance of disability insurance.  Did you know you have a 1-in-3 chance of becoming disabled for more than 90 days before age 65?  That’s an eye-opening stat.

Want more Preet then you got it!  In this video he discusses how RESPs work and why as a parent you should open one.

Big Cajun Man thinks killing your own student debt is better than starting an RESP for your young kids.

PhysicianOnFire wrote about every dollar he earned in his lucrative career.  Regardless of his income his money lessons learned should apply to all of us to some degree:

• Live well below your means. Pay no attention to how your friends and neighbors live.
• Use debt wisely, or avoid it altogether.
• Be patient. Time in the market beats timing the market.

Here’s how Douglas Porter, BMO’s Chief Economist, invests.   Seems like we invest alike:  “The ancient rule of thumb is your equity share should be 100 minus your age, but I think, given where interest rates are now, that’s gone by the wayside. I’m heavily weighted to dividend-paying stocks given where yields are and the favourable tax treatment.”  You can read about the favourable tax treatment of Canadian dividend paying stocks here.

Michael James on Money has a larger view of the Air Miles changes.  I liked his take but I’m biased – I’ve used cash back credit cards for years and have no complaints with that reward system.

Ben Reynolds has some suggestions about when and where to start investing.  I think you should do these three important things before investing.