Angie Raymond - Financial Coach & Advisor

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Angie Raymond - Financial Coach & Advisor

Helping individuals and families understand where they stand financially, identify opportunities to save, and build a clear plan moving forward.

08/24/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐤𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭.⁣
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Take someone contributing 200 dollars a month starting at 15 instead of 25, both at a 7 percent average annual return. That's only ten extra years, but the ending balance at 40 years of contributing is roughly 525,000 dollars, compared to roughly 244,000 dollars over 30 years. More than double, off the same monthly amount.⁣
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Most of us weren't taught any of this early enough to use it. We learned through mistakes, the ones that cost real money and real time to recover from. The advantage of teaching your kids now isn't that they'll avoid every mistake we made. It's that they get to start compounding before they're old enough to have made any of their own yet.⁣
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That gap between 15 and 25 is exactly why I put together a set of guides on teaching kids how money actually works, one for younger kids and one for tweens and teens, free on my Smart Money Tools page. I'm also working on a calculator so your kids can plug in their own numbers and actually watch what starting now versus starting later does to the end result. Stay tuned for that one.⁣
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Illustrative example at a 7% average annual return. Actual contributions and returns will vary.⁣
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08/17/2026

Most investors don't lose money to bad markets. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐬.⁣
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I put together a new guide on long-term investing, and while building it out, the same three mistakes kept showing up as the real threat to people's returns, not market conditions.⁣
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Panic selling during a downturn. Locking in a loss right before markets typically start to recover turns a temporary dip into a permanent one.⁣
Trying to time the market. Guessing tops and bottoms consistently is nearly impossible, even for people who do this professionally. The best and worst days tend to cluster close together, so stepping out for a few weeks can mean missing the recovery entirely.⁣
Going it alone with no strategy. DIY investing gets pitched as the smart, low-cost move, but most people doing it are also the ones making mistakes one and two, with nobody checking their thinking before it costs them. Rotating into whatever performed best last year isn't a strategy, it's a reaction dressed up as one.⁣
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None of these are market problems. They're behavior problems, and they're a big part of why discipline, and having someone in your corner, tends to outperform going it alone.⁣
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The full guide covers compounding, risk, and time horizon, and it's live now on my Smart Money Tools page.⁣
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08/11/2026

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝?⁣
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Price shopping insurance skips past the parts that actually decide what you get for your money.⁣
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Start with disability coverage. A waiver of premium rider means if you become disabled and can't work, your policy stays in force without you having to keep paying for it. A policy without this can lapse at the exact moment your family needs it most.⁣
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Child riders add a small amount of coverage for your kids under your own policy, usually for a few dollars a month. It is not there to replace a child's future income. It is there so a family is not scrambling to cover funeral costs and time off work during the worst weeks of their life.⁣
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End of term options decide what happens when your term runs out. Some policies let you convert to permanent coverage without new health questions. Others simply expire, and if your health has changed since you first applied, you may not qualify for anything new at any price.⁣
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Underwriting timing might be the part people understand the least. Fully underwritten policies ask health questions and review your history before the policy is issued. Guaranteed and simplified issue policies often skip that step upfront and only look closely at your health history after a claim is filed. That is called post claim underwriting, and it is exactly when denials happen, after someone has already died and the family is counting on the payout.⁣
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And the most important part: does this policy come with an actual plan. A policy bought on its own, disconnected from your income, your debt, your other coverage, and your goals, is just a product. Insurance only does its job when it is built around a plan for your specific life, not sold as a stand-alone item off a price list.⁣
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Which of these, disability coverage, child riders, end of term options, underwriting, or the plan behind it, did you know the least about before reading this?⁣
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08/03/2026

𝐃𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲'𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮.⁣
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If you die without a will in Ontario, you do not get a say in who raises your kids, who manages your estate, or how your assets are split. Ontario's default rules decide that, and they do not always match what you would have chosen.⁣
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Cost is the most common reason people put it off. Here is what that actually looks like.⁣
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A lawyer-drafted will in Ontario averages around $500 for one person, and a couple's mirror wills through a law firm often run $800 to $1,500 or more once you add powers of attorney.⁣
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The pre-paid legal plan I recommend to clients is $34.95 a month. That covers a will for you and your spouse, including notarization, and it is non-contractual, so you can cancel any time. It comes with other legal benefits beyond estate documents too.⁣
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Neither option fits every situation. Complex estates, business ownership, or blended families sometimes need more than a standard plan covers. But for a lot of families, the thing standing between them and a will is not complexity, it is the price tag they assume comes with it.⁣
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What's stopped you from getting a will done: cost, time, or just not knowing where to start?⁣
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07/27/2026

𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒕𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌.⁣
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A referral came in this week for term life insurance to protect a mortgage. Good instinct, but it only covers one bill.⁣
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One spouse is the primary income earner, and there are young kids in the picture. If something happened to that income, the mortgage would be paid off, but daycare, groceries, and every other cost of running the household wouldn't disappear with it.⁣
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It took ten minutes to walk through this with the family. Ten minutes to see the gap between "the house is covered" and "our life is covered." That's the whole value of sitting down and running the numbers.⁣
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I put together a free calculator so you can see your own number without waiting for that conversation. The kids e-books are there too! Link is in the comments.⁣
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07/20/2026

𝑴𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒌 𝒗𝒂𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚'𝒍𝒍 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆.⁣
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I sat with a young couple this week who have real potential to build a strong financial future. What came up in our conversation was simple. No one ever taught them what to actually do with their money. Not in school, not from their parents, nowhere. So like most people, they've been reactive, dealing with money as things come up instead of deciding ahead of time where it goes.⁣
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Think about the last trip you booked. Comparing flights. Reading reviews on three different hotels. Checking exchange rates. Building a day-by-day itinerary. That's real time and effort for seven days away.⁣
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Now think about your retirement plan. Your debt payoff timeline. Whether your family is covered if something happened to you tomorrow. For most people, that gets an hour, if it gets any time at all.⁣
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I'm not saying skip the vacation planning. I'm saying the mismatch is the problem. A trip ends. Your financial life doesn't.⁣
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This is exactly why the Expert Financial Analysis software I use in my practice is making changes. It's a no-cost session where we lay out where your money is going right now and build a plan around it, so you're deciding in advance instead of reacting after the fact.⁣
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If you've got the pieces but not the plan, that's worth a conversation.⁣
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07/10/2026

Most people I talk to know roughly what their pension is worth.

Almost none of them know the actual rules around it, like whether they're allowed to move it out as a lump sum, or if that door closes at a certain age.

That's not on anyone. Pension statements are written for actuaries, not for the person holding them.

If you've got a defined benefit pension. It's worth the time to discuss your plans and options. Let's talk!

07/08/2026

𝑨 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒖𝒑𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕/𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏.⁣
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When we actually looked at her numbers, the math was overwhelming. Given her situation, and what she wanted her money to do, taking the commuted value and moving it into her own account came out well ahead of waiting for the monthly pension. ⁣
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She'd control where it was invested and how much she wanted, instead of leaving that to the plan. And if anything happened to her, it would pass directly to the people she named, not filtered through a survivor benefit that might have paid out less than she assumed, or not at all.⁣
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None of that would have mattered if we'd had the conversation after age 54. Her plan only allowed the commuted value option if she made the decision before turning 55. Once that birthday passed, the choice would have been made for her, whether or not it was the right one.⁣
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She still had time. Most people don't check until it's already gone.⁣
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Not financial advice. Every plan has different rules, check yours directly.⁣
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07/03/2026

This week got into the weeds a little. Here's the short version.⁣
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We covered a lot of ground this week. TFSA, RRSP, the Home Buyers' Plan, and the FHSA, all in the context of saving and where your money actually belongs.⁣
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They are tools, and the right one depends on what you are saving for and when you will need the money.⁣
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A TFSA gives you flexibility. An RRSP gives you a tax break now in exchange for tax later. The HBP lets you borrow from your own RRSP for a first home, but it has to be repaid. The FHSA gives you the deduction of an RRSP with the tax free withdrawal of a TFSA, built specifically for a first home.⁣
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Most people are using at least one of these without ever having had it explained clearly. If this week helped any of that click into place, that was the goal.⁣
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07/01/2026

Two ways to use your savings for a first home. They are not the same thing.⁣⁣
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Yesterday we touched on the FHSA briefly. Today, the full picture.⁣⁣
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The Home Buyers' Plan lets you pull money out of your RRSP to put toward a first home. It sounds great until you remember it is a loan from yourself. You have to repay it over 15 years, and if you miss a payment, that amount gets taxed as income that year.⁣⁣
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The FHSA works differently. You contribute to it like an RRSP, so you still get the tax deduction now. But when you withdraw for a first home, it is completely tax free and there is nothing to pay back. If life changes and you never end up buying, the money simply rolls into your RRSP without using up any of your existing room.⁣⁣
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The two are not either or. A first time buyer can use both the HBP and the FHSA toward the same purchase, which adds up to a meaningful chunk of a down payment.⁣⁣
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One thing people often do not realize. Owning a home before does not always rule you out. If you have gone through a separation or divorce and have been living apart from a spouse or common-law partner for at least 90 days, you may requalify as a first time buyer for both of these programs. It is worth checking before assuming the door is closed.⁣⁣
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If you are saving toward a first home and not sure which of these makes sense for you, or whether you should be using both, that is exactly the kind of conversation worth having before you are deep into the process.⁣⁣
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