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Calm Money Coach: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Brian Orlando
Money, markets, and mindset with CPA Brian Orlando. Helping Canadians build wealth through financial literacy, tax strategies, and smart investing, while exploring macro trends, business stories, fitness, and mental health. Because real wealth is more than just your portfolio.
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- Today6 min
Your RRIF when your partner dies, and when the last of you dies
In Canada, an RRSP or RRIF can lose close to half to tax in the year you die. For a couple, that tax can wait until the second death, and the forms decide how easy that is.First, Carol in Ottawa, 2 weeks after the funeral, with Dave's $400,000 RRIF: successor annuitant, beneficiary, or no one named. Then Carol at 85, widowed and still playing pickleball, with her son on the RRIF and her daughter getting the house. Looks fair, until about $185,000 of tax comes out of the estate.1. Name a successor annuitant or beneficiary, and do the form together.2. With no spouse, the whole RRIF is income on your final return.3. The money goes to whoever is on the form, and the tax comes out of the estate. Make the form and the will agree.4. Drawing it down on purpose, in the years you'll enjoy it, is my favourite fix.More at calmmoneycoach.com
- 2 days ago11 min
The Government Cheques: OAS, the Child Benefit and Pension Splitting
Four videos on the money the government sends you, and the ways people lose some of it.The OAS clawback, which only looks at 1 line on your return: line 23400, starting at $95,323 of income for 2026. The Canada Child Benefit you can lose when you take the raise, and the one move that gets some of it back. Why pension splitting on RRSP money doesn't exist until 65 if you retire early. And the one checkbox, form T1032, worth $7,196 a year to a BC couple in 2026.More at calmmoneycoach.comI'm Brian Orlando, CPA, in Halifax. Advice-only planning through Calm Money Coach. No products, no commissions.2026 thresholds. Education only, not tax advice for your situation.
- 3 days ago4 min
Budget 2026: what changed for your RRSP (RRSP for life, explained)
The federal budget wants to merge your RRSP and RRIF into one account, an "RRSP for life." No forced switch at 71. Minimum withdrawals after 71 stay the same. It's still a proposal: comments are open until 8 January 2027, and there's no draft law or start date yet.Also in the budget: one date to file and pay, 15 May, starting with the return you file in 2028. Quarterly instalments only if you owe more than $7,500 (up from $3,000), from the 2028 tax year. The foreign property form (T1135) only kicks in over $200,000 of cost, up from $100,000.1. The budget proposes an RRSP for life: no forced switch to a RRIF at 712. Minimum withdrawals after 71 stay the same3. A spouse could take over the account when the first of you dies4. One date to file and pay, 15 May, from the return you file in 20285. Quarterly instalments only above $7,500, and the T1135 form starts at $200,000Plain-English money help at calmmoneycoach.com
- 1 weeks ago14 min
You Can't Beat the Market, So Here's What Works
Five videos on investing simply, in one place.Since 1926, about 4% of US stocks created all of the market's net wealth, and more than half lost to a GIC. Over the last decade, 95% of Canadian equity funds lost to a simple index. So what do you actually do? DIY, a robo-advisor or a fee-only planner, and why the market you lived through shapes your fear for life (Malmendier and Nagel). Why you already own every AI winner in a plain global index fund, and why the people who borrowed to own them lost everything. And why your 80/20 is fine once you retire, whatever the all-equity crowd says.More at calmmoneycoach.comI'm Brian Orlando, CPA, in Halifax. Advice-only planning through Calm Money Coach. No products, no commissions.Education only, not investment advice for your situation.
- 1 weeks ago7 min
If Harry Potter had a financial planner: the full story
Harry Potter lost his parents as a baby, found a vault of gold at 11 and inherited a house at 15. Each one is a real estate planning question in Canada. I'm Brian, a Canadian CPA, and I walk through what happens to a kid, the money and the house when the plan falls apart, and what I'd have set up for the Potters.1. Name a guardian in your will, then name backups, in order. Ask each of them first, and write a short letter saying why you picked them.2. Split the jobs if you want: 1 person raises the kid, another handles the money. Leave money for the raising, like life insurance.3. Leave money straight to a kid with no trust and the province steps in. In Ontario, anything over $35,000 is paid into court, and it all lands at 18 or 19.4. A trust in the will lets you say what the money is for and pay the rest out in stages, like some at 21 and the rest at 25. Outside Quebec, you can name a trustee right on a life insurance beneficiary form.5. Canada has no inheritance tax, but at death a house is taxed as if it were sold that day. A home is tax free only for the years the owner lived there, plus 1.6. Inherit a house and wait before big decisions. Get it appraised, call the insurer, then price out a full year and compare living in it, renting it or selling it.Free guides and calculators at calmmoneycoach.com#estateplanning #canada #harrypotter #wills #trusts #inheritance #personalfinance
- 1 weeks ago10 min
40 With Nothing Saved for Retirement in Canada? Here's the Math
40 with nothing saved for retirement? You've got about 25 earning years left and a pension floor that's already building. A 2025 HOOPP study found 39% of Canadians have never saved for retirement, so you're in good company.Meet Jess. She's 40, rents a 1 bedroom in Halifax and earns $70,000. To retire renting there she needs about $41,700 a year after tax in today's dollars, including $6,000 for trips, dinners and gifts. Owning with no mortgage drops that to about $33,500. A renter needs about $35,600 in Saint John, $38,000 in Winnipeg and $45,000 in Toronto or Vancouver.CPP and OAS give her about $23,000 a year before she saves a dollar, so her savings only cover the gap. At $500 a month her money lasts in 63 of 100 market runs. At $750 it's 80, and at $1,000 it's 90. $750 and working to 67 gets her to 92. Even in the bad runs, CPP, OAS and the top-up for low-income seniors keep about $27,000 a year coming.TFSA or RRSP? At $750 a month both get her to about 80, as long as the RRSP refund gets invested. Spend the refund and it drops to 52. Closer to $45,000 of income the TFSA comes out a bit ahead, and at $100,000 the RRSP does.4 things I'd do at 40 with nothing saved1. Check your CPP estimate in My Service Canada Account, and your OAS.2. Build your number from what you'd actually spend where you live, and save toward the gap.3. Start with your employer match, then automate what you can, $50 or $300 a month, into 1 all-in-one fund. Raise it with every raise.4. Working a couple of extra years and starting CPP later both add guaranteed income for life.Growing your pay does a lot of the heavy lifting. A $6,000 course that takes her to $80,000 pays for itself in about a year or 2.My free retirement calculators come with my monthly email at calmmoneycoach.com.I'm Brian Orlando, CPA, in Halifax. Advice-only planning through Calm Money Coach. No products, no commissions.Run through my retirement planner, October 2026, in today's dollars. Spending from Statistics Canada's Market Basket Measure and CMHC rents. HOOPP 2025. Education only.#retirementplanning #retirement #tfsa #rrsp #personalfinancecanada
- 1 weeks ago4 min
Property Tax in Canada: Why You Pay It, and What's Inside a New Home's Price
Why do Canadians pay property tax every year on a home they've already paid for, and what are you actually paying for when you buy a brand new one?Part 1: property tax is one of our oldest taxes. Upper Canada's first assessment law in 1793 paid for a courthouse, a jail, bridges and destroying bears and wolves. Cities lean on it because it's one of the few taxes provinces let them collect: by their own count they look after about 60% of public infrastructure and collect about 10 cents of every tax dollar. Your bill follows your city's budget more than your home's value. On a fixed income, look for your province's help: Nova Scotia rebates up to $800 for low-income seniors, and BC and Alberta let older owners defer the tax until they sell.Part 2: take a $1,000,000 new semi in Toronto. $137,846 in development charges (about $83,000 less if the deal with Ottawa and Ontario goes through), $32,950 in land transfer tax with up to $8,475 back for first-time buyers, and about $130,000 of HST that's fully rebated for a first home at $1,000,000 or less. Approvals take about 25 months in Toronto and 31 in Hamilton. The same price in Belleville carries about $126,500 less in charges and tax.Buying new in Ontario? Have a lawyer check Schedule B of the Tarion addendum before you sign.Free guides and a simple retirement calculator, then one email a month, at calmmoneycoach.com.I'm Brian Orlando, CPA, in Halifax. Advice-only planning through Calm Money Coach. No products, no commissions.Sources: UNB British North America Legislative Database; Federation of Canadian Municipalities; novascotia.ca; gov.bc.ca; alberta.ca; IRS; City of Toronto; C.D. Howe Institute; CHBA; City of Belleville; Tarion. Education only.Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Oathill Crescent, Dartmouth by Ben MacLeod (CC BY-SA 4.0); Main Street, Picton by Doug Kerr (CC BY-SA 2.0); Downtown Belleville by Dillan Payne (CC BY-SA 2.0).
- 2 weeks ago11 min
Why Canada Feels More Expensive, and Whether the Math Still Works
Four videos on the bigger Canadian picture.Why the number at checkout keeps climbing: the dollar, climate, how few companies sell our groceries, and housing. Why 140,457 Canadians filed for insolvency in 2025, the most in 16 years. What 100 years of income tax actually built, since it arrived in 1917 as a temporary war measure. And whether Canada's math still works for the people now in the middle.More at calmmoneycoach.comI'm Brian Orlando, CPA, in Halifax. Advice-only planning through Calm Money Coach. No products, no commissions.Education only, not advice for your situation.
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About Calm Money Coach
Money, markets, and mindset with CPA Brian Orlando. Helping Canadians build wealth through financial literacy, tax strategies, and smart investing, while exploring macro trends, business stories, fitness, and mental health. Because real wealth is more than just your portfolio.
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