By Karin Mizgala, co-founder and CEO Money Coaches Canada
We invest to secure our future, and for years that predominantly meant securing our financial future. With that end in mind, a significant criterion for choosing an investment was its financial performance. But for many investors, there has been an evolution of what securing our future actually means.
More and more of my clients are looking for investments that are aligned with their values. The popularity of socially responsible investments has increased over the years. Even mainstream investment companies are including Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) filters when choosing stocks and bonds to invest in. Many use the research and scoring information from the company Sustainalytics.
But being socially responsible is no longer enough for many investors who are increasingly interested in impact investing. Continue reading
This is a hard time to focus on the future. If your employment or income has been impacted by COVID-19, understandably your short-term security and immediate bills are your primary concern. That makes sense, you need to take care of yourself, your family and your community and to make sure everyone is safe and healthy.
The most difficult thing for all of us is that no one knows for sure, and that includes our experts and leaders. Instead, we are being asked to sit tight, stay in the moment and wait. This is not comfortable for an action-oriented world where speed and growth have been our norms. 
Few people look forward to tax time, but with the help of a good software program it doesn’t have to take long or be painful. Most of the well-known options available to Canadians are quite similar, so how do you choose which one to use? The differences arise around support and which features are offered at what cost. Here is a quick overview of some of the most popular options. 
Most Canadians are very familiar with mutual funds. In simple terms, a mutual fund is made up of a collection of individual stocks, bonds or other securities carefully chosen by a fund manager, with the goal of generating returns for the investors while balancing risk. Investors pay a management fee, referred to as the Management Expense Ratio (MER), to cover the cost of the management, marketing and administration of these funds. In Canada the average MER is around 2%.
