April 30: Best from the blogosphere

April 30, 2018

Before the weather improves and we all want to be outside for the summer, get out the snacks because it’s time for one more personal finance movie night.

First of all, we feature the ever-engaging Bridget Casey from Money after Graduation. She explains why even in Calgary where public transportation is poor, she prefers to manage without a car. She says it saves her over $10,000/year and she is much healthier because she walks almost everywhere.

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TED Talks are influential videos from expert speakers on education, business, science, tech and creativity. Below we present videos of four excellent personal finance TED talks that are posted on YouTube.

Alexa von Tobel is the founder and CEO of LearnVest.com, the leading personal finance and lifestyle website that brings financial literacy to women. Since launching LearnVest, Alexa has been widely quoted as a personal finance expert and entrepreneur.

She takes you through the life of a very average new college grad, Jessica, and explains the pitfalls in each of the poor financial decisions Jessica makes and the way in which they affect her future.

Economist Shlomo Benartzi is a behavioral economist interested in combining the insights of psychology and economics to solve big societal problems. He talks about how we tend to want to spend money instead of saving which is fun in the present but causes major problems in retirement. In his talk, he asks: “How do we turn this behavioral challenge into a behavioral solution?”

The way people speak affects the way they save money. So many people view the future as a distant thing so they end up not saving for it right now. However, futureless language leads to the view that to get the future, it is important to think about the now. Saving money for the future is only possible if the money is managed properly right now. Keith Chen covers the whole topic extremely well. He explains just how those who use futureless language view the present and future as the same thing. It helps them take control of their finances right away.

So many parents give their children allowances, but it doesn’t really help them with their finances. This teaches children to think about a job, rather than expand their business ideas and build on their entrepreneurialism. Skills gained in younger years serve adults well when they’re looking into managing their finances.

Cameron Herald covers  how parents can help children become better entrepreneurs. He says that instead of expecting a set amount of money each week, it’s time to teach kids to start looking for the jobs that need doing around the house. The more they manage to do, the more they will make. They also get to negotiate the pay for doing the certain jobs.

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Written by Sheryl Smolkin

Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.
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