Quotations by Erica Alini

With unsecured LOCs, the maximum credit limit you can hope for is usually in the tens of thousands of dollars. With secured LOCs, credit limits can easily reach the hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the value of your collateral, because the lender can take possession of your collateral if you don’t pay back what you owe. Having collateral usually allows you to access higher credit limits, lower interest rates, and more flexible repayment terms. Secured LOCs also often allow you to make interest-only payments. A personal LOC is an example of an unsecured LOC. Home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, are the best-known type of secured LOC. [2021] - Erica Alini

LOCs usually come with variable interest rates that can go up or down with the general level of interest rates in the economy. The bank can increase your interest rate at its discretion, something that 85 percent of HELOC holders do not realize, according to a recent FCAC survey. Lenders can also lower your credit limit or ask that you repay your balance at any time, although they have to give you advance notice of any changes to your credit agreement. [2021] - Erica Alini

If a year’s worth of rent adds up to less than 5 percent of the market value of a similar home, renting is an attractive option. Vice versa, if rent works out to more than 5 percent, buying may make more sense financially. The 5 percent rule assumes you’re going to be a pretty aggressive investor — someone comfortable putting a good share of their savings into stocks — to keep up with the long-term wealth growth a homeowner might see. And if you have a generous pension plan at work where your employer matches your contributions, that’s a vote in favour of renting and being able to make bigger monthly deposits to that group retirement plan. [2021] - Erica Alini

If you’re charging $35 an hour for tutoring but it takes you 30 minutes each way to get to your pupil’s house, you’re really making $17.50 an hour, not including the bus fare. Other time-consuming tasks for which you won’t earn a cent include looking for new clients, bidding on projects, and financial housekeeping. [2021] - Erica Alini

Job-hopping works best when the economy is strong and there are plenty of job vacancies employers need to fill. That isn’t to say you can’t hop your way to better pay in an economic downturn. But, generally speaking, you’re likely to have less negotiating power in a job market with high unemployment and few openings. Software developers and staff accountants who’d never quit turned out to earn 10 percent less than the job-hoppers in their field. But operations managers and administrative assistants who had stayed put were earning around 20 percent more than new hires. For nurses, there wasn’t much of a difference between job switchers and job stayers. [2021] - Erica Alini

You’d think sites that connect freelancers with paying customers would be a slam dunk for making some extra cash fast. Often, though, you’ll be wading into a “saturated market.” If there are lots of people out there offering the same services you’re trying to sell, you may find yourself competing against talented folks in places like India or Ukraine — or a small town in Middle America — who have 500 five-star reviews and seem to be able to somehow survive by charging ridiculously low fees. It may take you a while to break in, and even when you do, you may not bring in the kind of money you were hoping for. [2021] - Erica Alini

A common piece of advice is to invest in stocks only if you have a time horizon of 10 years or longer. One long-standing general rule for retirement holds that you should hold a percentage of stocks equal to 100 minus your age. But with people living longer and retiring later and returns from bonds very low, many investment advisers say the old guidelines aren’t bold enough. Some suggest using 110 or even 120 minus your age to achieve the kinds of returns that will sustain you in retirement. [2021] - Erica Alini

Thanks to the tax treaty between Canada and the U.S., Uncle Sam will refrain from taxing U.S. dividend income received inside an RRSP (or RRIF, for that matter). But that doesn’t extend to TFSAs. You’ll be dinged with a 15 percent tax deducted at source for dividends paid on U.S. stocks held in a TFSA. You don’t have to worry about interest income or capital gains from U.S. stocks, though. The tax treaty guarantees those are only taxable in Canada, which means they’re tax-free in a TFSA. [2021] - Erica Alini