10 Passionate Canadian Personal Finance Bloggers To Follow In 2017

Canadian Bloggers To Follow In 2017
Figure #1: Canadian bloggers to follow in 2017
 

In one of my recent posts, I provided a guide on how to improve your financial health and recommended a few personal finance bloggers that I personally followed and learned quite a bit of personal finance concepts from their unique perspectives. Each personal finance blogger shared their unique stories and approaches on how to build personal wealth and financial freedom. They come from different walks of life, professions, and financial backgrounds, but they all have one common goal – to achieve financial freedom as soon as possible and in their own terms. Since I am a Canadian and I want to show the average Canadians how to build a sound and secured financial future, I am going to introduce a list of Canadian Personal Finance bloggers/enthusiasts that you can follow to improve your personal finance in 2017 and beyond. From reading their blog posts, I can categorize them into the following areas: frugal and high savings, goals and budgets oriented, Debt-free living, investing and all around balanced approach. So without further adieu, let’s see who’s on the list.

 
Frugal And High Savings
Figure #2: Frugal And High Savings
 
Frugal And High Savings
This philosophy emphasizes on living within one’s mean and saving as much of one’s income as possible. Finding great deals and paying less for everything without sacrificing much in terms of quality is the lifestyle. This is a great way to keep more of your money, spending wisely and saving diligently. I know a few bloggers that are able to save about 50% to 70% of their pay cheques. This is what I call discipline and keep more of your money in your pocket. Here are the bloggers that I would recommend in this category:

 

How To Save Money – Stephen Weyman is a 34-year-old family man with two kids, who loves to provide Canadians with different ways to save money. He often emphasizes that Canadians need to be selective and smart with their spending. He believes that everyone can achieve their financial goals while living better and experiencing more of the good things life has to offer by saving money without curing back. Discipline and superior knowledge are all it takes to get it done. Here are five of Stephen’s best reads:

Million Dollar Journey – FugalTrader, a married Canadian (with 2 young children) who was born, raised and currently resides in Eastern Canada. He began investing in mutual funds when he was 16 years old and the passion for finance grew from there. When he graduated from University (he was 23), he started getting more serious about the stock market and real estate investing. Starting with a net worth of $200,000 in 2006, he grew his net worth to a million dollar by the time he was 35 (end of 2014). If you want to learn to save a million bucks, he’s definitely worth following. Here are his five best posts that I recommend:

Goals And Budget Oriented
Figure #3: Goals And Budget Oriented
 

Goals And Budgets
If you are organized and like to follow a systematic way to manage your money, you’ll love the goals and budgets bloggers. They are the masters of setting saving and spending goals on a monthly, quarterly or annually basis and adhering to it. Every item on their personal finance budget is tracked, scrutinized and evaluated for the purpose of maximizing their net worth. It’s a great way to track your progress over time as you’ll have historical data to compare to and to set future goals – S.M.A.R.T goals. Here are the bloggers that I would recommend in this category:

 

Give Me Back My Five Bucks – Krystal Yee, a personal finance blogger and marketing professional based in Vancouver, British Columbia. One of the most expensive cities to live in Canada. She’s a former Toronto Star (Moneyville) columnist, author of “The Beginner’s Guide To Saving And Investing”, and the co-founder of the Canadian Personal Finance Conference. She’s a master budgeter, who’s very open, transparent and honest about her budgets. Every month, she’ll post her budgets and discusses the progress that she made toward achieving her financial goals and reflect on the goals that she did not achieve. If budgeting is your thing, you’ll want to check out some of her best reads below:

Canadian Budget Binder – A blogger goes by the alias CBB, who’s from the UK and now he’s a permanent resident in Canada and he loves life in Ontario. He bought his first house at the age of 21 and his second house at the age of 24. He’s always been fascinated with personal finance, learning how to make money and watch it grow while combating debts along the way. He’s now mortgage and debt free under the age of 40, just five years after purchasing his home. This is all done with a masterful and disciplined budget. I guess there’s a reason why he goes by the Canadian Budget Binder alias. Here are his top five posts:

Debt-Free Living
Figure #4: Debt-Free Living
 

Debt-free Living
To be financially independent is to be debt-free. This philosophy is to accelerate the repayment of one’s debt by aggressively eliminating one’s high-interest consumer debt and aggressively pay off one’s long-term mortgage debt. By paying off debt faster, one pays less interest to financial institutions and keep more of one’s hard-earned money. In addition, the interest rate on the long-term mortgage is the guaranteed rate of return. There’s not a lot of things in life that are guaranteed – except for death and taxes. Here are the bloggers that I would recommend in this category:

 

Sean Cooper is a personal finance journalist, consultant and speaker. He’s currently living a debt-free live in Toronto, Ontario as he had paid off his mortgage in about three years. He achieved this debt-free goal by renting out part of his house to make extra income, working on side hustles, free lance writing, living within his means and riding his bike to work. If mortgage free living or burning down your mortgage is your cup of tea, then Sean’s blog will be worth while for you to check it out. Here’s five of his posts that I find quite interesting:

Millennial Revolution – A young millionaire couple (FIRECracker and Wanderer) with no kids, who go against the home ownership crowd by renting their home and investing the rest of their income into the stock market. During the summer of 2016, they were featured in a CBC News article, which depicted them as a smart couple that became millionaires and retired in their early 30’s to travel the world on their $40,000 budget per year. If home ownership is not your cup of tea, you prefer to live debt free and travel, these two bloggers may stir your interest. Here are five of their posts that may interest you:

Investing
Figure #5: Investing
 

Investing
To grow one’s savings is to invest one’s money into income producing assets and compound those earnings. The three most popular ways to invest are buying fix income vehicles such as bonds or preferred shares, common stocks or real estates. This method requires the individual to first invest in oneself by acquiring the knowledge in the area that one wants to invest in. Secondly, formulating an investing strategy to manage one’s asset and money. In order to succeed with this philosophy, it’s best to know one’s risk tolerance and to only invest in assets that one truly knows. Here are the bloggers that I would recommend in this category:

 

My Own Advisor – Mark Seed is a personal finance and investing blog dedicated to chronicling his journey to financial independence. Personal finance and investing is a growing passion of his and he will be using his blog to post his thoughts, opinions and journey to financial freedom by being his own amateur financial advisor. His plan is to grow his investment portfolio to over $1 million to fund an early retirement. If you are interested to learn about savings, investing, travel, tax and insurance tips, he’ll be your go to person. Check out some of his posts below:

Ed Rempel – A financial blogger and a CFP Professional with a ton of real life financial planning experience. He is passionate about writing and driven to share his insights. He sees things differently. He sees from experience what does and what doesn’t make people successful with their money. Ed is also a fee-only financial planner that has seen the complete finances of thousands of Canadians. If you want to learn how to invest from a professional who had helped more than 600 clients to date, give him a try. Here are his best five posts:

All Around Balanced Approach
Figure #6: All Around Balanced Approach
 

All Around Balanced Approach
This philosophy is to incorporate the best of other strategies to fit one’s skill set, needs, and knowledge. One of the more time consuming and challenging philosophies to implement. It’s also the most rewarding. It requires continuous learning, exploration of new ideas and customizing it to maximize one’s net worth. With more time and effort being spent, the potential for increasing one’s wealth is only limited by what one is willing to try. (Just a caveat: this strategy is not for everyone.) Here are the bloggers that I would recommend in this category:

 

Canadian Finance Blog – Tom Drake, a Financial Analyst for a major grocery retailer in Alberta, Canada. he started his personal finance blog back in 2009 to share his money experiments. His background in budgeting and knowing the ins and outs of the grocery industry have helped him learn about how money works, and the financial changes he has been through since 2008 have provided plenty for him to write about. He made use of a re-advanceable mortgage and used the Smith Maneuver to reduce his non-deductible mortgage and increase his investments. These are some of the interesting — and Canada specific — financial experiments he write about on his blog in an effort to share money hacks that can help Canadians better their financial situation. Here are his best five posts:

I Saved $5KLeo T. Ly, a Canadian personal finance enthusiast and a Realtor living in Markham, Ontario. I built a net worth of a million dollar over a ten year period. I did it by being a disciplined saver, taking advantage of income tax rules, borrowing money to invest rather than for consumption, taking free money from employers and governments, and building extra passive income sources. After achieving the million dollar mark, I am now embarking on a second journey (Freedom 48) to make my second million dollar so I can achieve Financial Freedom at the age of 48. Here are five of my favorite posts:

My two cents
Regardless of which blogger that you choose to follow, you may choose one or two or all. You will definitely gain a wealthy amount of financial knowledge. You can, in turn, use that knowledge to help increase your wealth. The key takeaway is that there are no right or wrong methods. You don’t have to settle on one or two, just do what fits your needs and capability. As Warren Buffett said, “The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.” Okay, now it’s time for you to click one of my five posts and start learning and earning.

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Leo T. Ly, Money Coach, Personal Finance Blogger/Enthusiast and a Realtor Living in the Markam, Ontario, CanadaAbout Leo
I am a money coach, personal finance blogger/enthusiast and a Realtor living in Markham, Ontario, Canada. I built a net worth of a million dollars over a ten year period. I did it by being a disciplined saver, taking advantage of income tax rules and borrowing money to invest rather than for consumption. I am often excited to take advantage of free money from employers and governments in addition to building more passive income sources. After accumulating my first million dollars, I am now embarking on a second journey towards achieving financial independence. On this journey, I will strive to increase my net worth to two million dollars and retire by the age of 48 - Freedom 48. Come along and follow my journey on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google Plus.



There are 24 opinions expressed on this post.

    1. Thanks for dropping by Freedom 40 Guy. There are definitely quite a few great bloggers out there. Their ideas and perspectives are very interesting and educational. Take your time. I often read a few articles when I am commuting to work.

  1. Wow! Thanks for sharing the list, lots more to learn from experienced bloggers. Resource, writing ideas, creativity etc all important to build up our skills 😉 cheers, SiennyLovesDrawing

    1. Hi Sienny,

      The personal finance blogging community is great. Everyone loves to share. The great thing about it is that everyone has a different perspective and you can find one (or two) that fits your needs and you can learn at your own pace.

  2. Thanks for sharing this list and taking the time to recommend the posts. There seems to be lots of different ways to save money, not just living frugally.

    1. You are definitely right Raphael. There are lots of methods to save money and it doesn’t always have to be frugal life. Depending on what your philosophy is, you can always find a method to save based on your needs.

  3. Great list. Lots of money saving strategies and different ways to keep more money in my pocket. Do you really use all of the methods mentioned in the post?

    1. T.K., you read my mind. I’ve always been a huge advocate for keeping more of my money. Hence, I love reading about the tax rules and finding new ways to get more deductions to lower my taxable income.

  4. I really enjoy reading these financial bloggers contributions. Unfortunately I am not a natural with money and we don’t have a large income… but we do live within our means. I hope to be a better saver in 2017. thanks for the list, I think I have some reading to catch up on!

    1. Hi Lori,

      No one is born naturally good with money. We all learn how to handle our money with discipline as time go by. Not having a large income is not an issue as long as you spend less than your income. After that, the key is to take advantage of free money from governments and employers. Then you use those extra money to compound your savings. Once you get the hang of it, I can assure you that it’ll be very enjoyable and exciting to see your money grow.

  5. There are so many great bloggers out there. Thanks for sharing some more with me. I was familiar with a couple of them but will definitely check out some of the others I’m less familiar with. Thanks for sharing!!!

    1. Thanks for dropping by MSM. This is a pretty good list of bloggers to start with. I am sure that there are more great bloggers out there. Probably next year’s post will include more.

    1. @PassiveCanadianIncome, most of the blogs had been around for quite a while especially Million Dollar Journey. I definitely recommend that site as I follow FrugalTrader on MDJ myself. Take your time to chose what site benefit you most. Also, thank you for dropping by.

    1. @Tim, you’re just being modest. Thank you for joining in on the discussion. I am pretty sure that you’ll lots to contribute the the PF community.

    1. @Ed, glad to include you in this list. Did you know that you are the blogger with the second most clicks. Hence, you’re the second most popular blogger in the list. Number one goes to Stephen Weyman at HowToSaveMoney.ca

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