Tagged with Financial Literacy …

Social Assistance Review Webinars

With great thanks to the folks at the Income Security Advocacy Centre for putting this together, and to CLEO for making the content available. Ontario has recently undertaken a broadly-focused review of its social assistance (welfare) system.  These webinars were done to help people understand what was happening, and present a few ideas for ways … Continue reading »

Bankruptcy Blog

I’ve recently found a fantasic and very active blog that focuses on bankruptcy and consumer credit, called Credit Slips.  It specifies that it’s mostly run by academics, though there’s clearly a lot of links to other public resources.  I’m not sure how many non-profit people are reading it, but I’ll definitely plan to start sifting … Continue reading »

Credit Counselling: what it is and what it isn’t

I’ve been meaning for a long time to write a bit about credit counselling.  I think it’s often seen as a cure-all for people wanting to address their debts but afraid of bankruptcy.  Alternatively, going to credit counselling is sometimes painted as “just as bad” as filing for bankruptcy.  Realistically, I think credit counselling is … Continue reading »

Don’t Freak Out About Your Credit Score

Credit scores are a useful tool, and certainly have an important role to play in the granting and pricing of loans and credit.  But sometimes, getting new credit isn’t really the goal.  For people whose primary objective, at least in the short-term, is to pay down debt or even just to get through the month … Continue reading »

Taxonomy of Low-Income People and Finance

I recently spoke at an Osgoode Hall LLM course on Banking and Law, talking about how low-income people interact with banks.  This was my own observations, not presenting research or hard data.  (For those interested, some research has looked at low-income people’s access to bank accounts, a measure on which Canada scores remarkably high.  An overview … Continue reading »