Debt

At Women and Money Inc we love giving debt advice to women, because debt is such a private and unspoken topic that affects almost every family, and with devastating weight. Many women not only have their own debt, but also deal with their husbands debt as well. And we find it’s often like asking for…

By Margaret H Johnson Wow this has been a colourful year already with so much public attention being given to personal finance and household debt. This week alone there have been articles about retirement incomes, seniors and lotteries, the rising costs of cell phones, and Statistics Canada’s annual report on household expenditures. In other words…

By Margaret H Johnson The old joke about the sure things in life used to refer to death and taxes. I think we need to add consumer debt to this list. Certainly if one considers the irrefutable fact that Canadians have borrowed more and more money, each and every year – from $20 billion in…

By Margaret H. Johnson Last week I tried to talk about the various experts involved in debt collection and credit counselling. You know what? I forgot all about credit reporting agencies, otherwise known as Credit Bureaus.

By Margaret H. Johnson This is going to be a very interesting year, indeed. Only ten days in and we see a story about debt. That’s different. The story ran in the Globe and Mail about Canada’s excessive debt and how that has made the rest of the world wary about our dollar, our plunging…

By Margaret H. Johnson Yesterday the boiling hot news of the day was a 25% interest bearing car loan to a BC couple. The story involved the TD bank and a family that had gone bankrupt recently. It raises a number of troublesome questions.

By Margaret H. Johnson Lots of media attention to a Royal Bank poll that discovered that a quarter of Canadians appear to be debt free. They reported that for those who do have personal debt the average debt load has jumped up to $15,920, a $2779 increase from a year ago.

By Margaret H. Johnson Now let me clarify the title right away. It‘s a pun, my friends, a play on, “Keep it Simple Stupid”. Because, there is nothing simple about debt. People and governments keep underestimating its complexity. For example, the recent amendments to the Statute of Limitations that reduce the period of time to…

By Luann Lasalle In the event of death, can a child inherit parent debt along with assets? {Click here to view the original article published in the Canadian Press on Jun 14, 2013. } The death of a parent can sometimes mean financial turmoil for surviving relatives, but advisers say that lingering debts aren’t the responsibility of the adult…