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The Spread Bet Guide Most investors only think in one direction, buy and hope the price rises, but when a company’s valuation gets stretched, there’s another route- shorting Inside the guide you will find how spread betting works, including real examples and the exact strategy I used to short Spacex. What’s included: – Buying Shares vs Spread betting – How Leverage and Margin Actually Work – The Spacex example –How to use it as an […]
Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! We have been at home in Raleigh for the month of July enjoying a relaxing break from globetrotting. We spent the last half of June in England, Norway, and Iceland on board the Majestic Princess cruise ship. I heard some fellow passengers describe this as a “trip of a lifetime”. Given all the amazing sights we experienced, I have to agree. As this post goes […]
The Chase Sapphire Reserve has become a divisive premium credit card. It used to offer a simple set of benefits that were easy to understand and use, but after its recent refresh, the card now looks much more like other high-fee cards. It comes with a long list of credits that can help offset the annual fee, but many of them require extra effort or specific spending habits. Whether the card is worthwhile depends on […]
“I couldn’t afford to buy more than $10 worth of gas. I had no money in my bank account and all my credit cards were maxed out.” Something as simple as getting gasoline was suddenly a luxury when Scarr had only $10 and no credit available to fill her car’s tank. This was Scarr’s “rock bottom” moment. The moment she knew she needed to do something to change her financial situation. Have you been there? One of my favorite parts of writing this blog has been the community of readers who have “been there, done that” and have been willing to share advice along the way. Debt can feel isolating and even shameful. It’s easy to believe you’re the only one who’s made mistakes or that you’re the only one trying to climb out. That’s why I wanted to start featuring real reader stories. Thank you to “Scarr,” our first reader whose story I’m featuring in today’s post. Like many people, Scarr’s debt didn’t happen overnight. It accumulated gradually. Student loans helped pay for college and credit cards helped fill in the gaps. At first, purchases felt harmless: clothes, movies, apartment decorations. Then came car repairs and other unexpected expenses she couldn’t afford, creating a cycle that became difficult to escape. By the time her cards were maxed out, she had about $16,000 in credit card debt, on top of $60,000 of student loans. “For me, the hardest part was starting….the amount felt so massive and I kept imagining being crushed by it.” When your finances feel out-of-control, it can be easier to bury your head in the sand than to face the terrible truth. For Scarr, the emotions she remembers at the beginning were humiliation, shame, and a complete loss of control. She wanted to get out of debt and start saving money, but could not seem to get out of the cycle that kept her in debt. “I would pay off my credit cards, tell myself I’m not doing this again, have an emergency but no savings so I’d use my credit cards again.” The gas station situation wasn’t the only time Scarr felt stranded with no money to purchase even basic necessities. A short while after being stuck at the pump with only $10 to spare, she was asked to be a bridesmaid for a friend. When dresses were ordered, her check bounced. And when the wedding rolled around, she didn’t have enough money or credit to even rent a hotel room for the night. Those experiences became the turning point. She resolved to pay off the debt once and for all, and to break the cycle she’d found herself trapped in. At first, she was still in school plus working two jobs, so it wasn’t really possible to increase her income. Instead, she focused on trying to decrease spending as much as possible. She limited travel and learned to cook at home. She came up with a plan. She focused on one debt at a time
Chart updated in sidebar – networthshare was back online after a week or so.Stocks/funds/cash total increased by +$10,008 (+1.78%) to $572,189. The only bright spot in a rather lackluster month.TSB decreased by -$521 (0.02%) to $2,327,888. Investment gains and my modest SGL contributions just about offset the reduction in the ‘money-back protection’ value of my QSuper Lifetime Pension accounts (
Most of our suffering is useless. Eckhart Tolle wrote a line in Stillness Speaks that I often think of: “Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.” He is of course referring to the mental suffering that so many of us go through every day. The constant mental chatter that takes away our attention from the present to the voice that’s never satisfied. You see, we all want to live a happy and interesting […]
The month of July 2026 as ended and it was quite the month! The S&P 500 has been down 0.63% over the last month and up 0.34% over the last 5 days. The S&P TSX Composite index has been down 0.14% over the last month and down 0.48% over the last 5 days. Portfolio Activity Margin Account Activity On July 8, I sold 4 RCI.B.TO 07Aug2026 $54.00 covered call options at $0.07 per contract for a total net […]
Morning friends! So this is more of a life hack than a money saving one (in fact, it’ll actually cost you more money, lol), but it’s been such a game changer for me that I had to share 🙂 In a nutshell, I buy DOUBLE of the stuff I need or use everyday, and then scatter them all around the house to make everything more convenient! Example: every morning I wake up at 5am and either work out at the gym or take a fun hot yoga class. Being how it’s so early in the morning though, I hate rustling around our main bathroom while getting ready and waking up my wife and kids, so instead I head to our downstairs one to limit the noise. But to use the downstairs bathroom means moving all my toiletries from the top one to the bottom one each night before, and as you can imagine I forget half the time. I’d been doing this for years, and then one day a lightning bolt hit me – why not buy a second toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, hairspray, etc and then just leave them all downstairs? That way I have everything I need each morning without doing a thing?! And boy let me tell you – it makes a world of a difference!! One small tweak for daily compounding effects – the best kind of hack 🙂 (And turns out, this particular example doesn’t actually cost you any additional money since you’re only extending the shelf life of your main toiletries since you’re now only using them half the time! It works out nicely! PS: this also works well with shoes) So that’s kinda where this “double everything” idea came from… Which I now employ in other areas of my life too! Here are the other things I’ve doubled up on, or even quadrupled up on! Phone chargers — Why have only one to use, when you can have others spread across different rooms saving you time and energy? (Literally!) No more going back and forth or forgetting your phone in a different room if you have it right there in your current one charging right up… Laptop chargers — Especially helpful if you go to coffee shops or other places to work every day! I used to take my main one from my house every day, but similar to the toiletries I’d often forget and then get stuck somewhere with no battery juice. One time late at night when I was out of town I got stuck in the middle of a project and my laptop shut down. I scrambled like a crazy person to find an open store who sold them and fortunately came across one, but had to spend over $60 for it (!!!). So now I just throw an extra one in my laptop backpack and keep it there so I’m always good to go without ever having to think about it. Laptops themselves! — This may be a bit extreme,
The Vanguard High Dividend ETF (ticker VDY.TO) has accelerated its outperformance over the TSX Composite (XIC.TO). In 2026 VDY has more than doubled up on the returns of the TSX at 26.2% vs 10.1%. VDY is concentrated in Canadian financials. Energy then chips in, in a meaningful way. From 2021, financials and energy have greatly outperformed. That has lifted the Canadian stock market, but more so the Canadian high dividend ETFs such as VDY.TO, iShares […]
New data from Kiwibank’s 2026 State of Savings Index landed this week, and one number stands out: a quarter of New Zealanders don’t have enough set aside to cover an unexpected $500 bill. Not a holiday, not a new car – a $500 bill. A broken washing machine. A trip to the dentist. A car … Read more
Dave Ramsey advises a caller to dump her boyfriend. Image source: Dave Ramsey Show, via YouTube.com. While I’m not the regular Ramsey-listener that I used to be, I do sometimes see his stuff pop up on my social media and, occasionally, a headline will grab my attention enough to make me click to see more. A 26-year-old nurse with $90,000 in student loans called into The Ramsey Show. Her boyfriend makes $250,000 a year, but he refuses to propose until she is completely debt-free. Dave’s response was blunt: “If you were my daughter, do you know what I would tell you? Dump him… He’s making you prove your worth based on money. You’re having to buy your way into this relationship. You’re a princess and you deserve more than this…it’s a toxic and unhealthy relationship.” He went on to say that one of the top causes for divorce in North America is money fights and money problems. Given that they’re already having money-related relationship issues, why enter into a marriage at this point? Here is the original video, via YouTube. The Nuance If you’re just looking at the headline, it seems crazy for Dave to tell the caller to get out of the relationship over the situation. But digging in deeper, his point is that the caller and her boyfriend are actually on the same page already. Both of them don’t like debt. Both of them want her to get rid of the debt. In fact, the caller started with closer to $160,000 of debt (side-note: that seems like an incredibly high amount of student loan debt for a 4-year degree), so she’s shown that she’s committed to paying off the debt and has made great strides in that direction. Refusing to propose until it’s gone, therefore, feels like manipulation. If they’re already aligned in their goals and their future plans, the caller’s partner should not be holding this over her head the way he is. Why This Matters For A Lot Of People I’m curious about people who enter into dating relationships where there is a large income discrepancy and/or a large debt discrepancy. Dave’s point wasn’t that debt doesn’t matter. It does. And he wants the caller to get out of debt (and she’s shown she’s well on her way). The problem is when debt becomes a measure of someone’s worth in the relationship. I think this would be a very different conversation if the caller were still spending frivolously, racking up credit card debt, or making no effort to change. But she’s not. That’s not the situation here. If you were dating someone and you found out they had a huge amount of debt, would that be a deal-breaker for you? When my now-husband and I first met, he was 100% debt-free (minus his home). While I had made great strides in my debt-payoff process, I still had quite a bit of debt, spread between student debt and legal fees (from my prior divorce). I can’t imagine what
If you’ve got a green thumb and a garden full of plants, Etsy might be one of the best ways to turn that passion into real income. The platform has over 39 million active buyers, and plants are consistently one of its most popular categories – meaning there’s a ready-made audience of people who genuinely want what you’re growing. This guide walks you through everything: which plants sell well, how to set up your shop, […]
If you’ve ever heard a great voiceover and thought “I could do that” – you’re probably right, and the good news is that people are actually making real money doing it. Voice acting has exploded as a side hustle, and there are some genuinely great platforms out there where you can get paid to record your voice – whether you’re totally new to this or already have some experience under your belt. Below, I’ve rounded […]