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Still renting, living with family, or quietly wondering if buying will ever work for you?Most first-time buyers aren't s...
10/19/2026

Still renting, living with family, or quietly wondering if buying will ever work for you?

Most first-time buyers aren't short on desire. They're short on a plan.

The down payment, the accounts, the programs, the approval. Nobody hands you the order of operations. So we're going to.

Saturday, October 24, 10 to 11 a.m., online, no cost. One hour on what you can actually afford today and where you could be in two, three or five years. The programs that put real money toward a first home, from the FHSA and the RRSP Home Buyers' Plan to the Home Buyers' Tax Credit and Ontario's land-transfer-tax rebate. Which accounts to open, in what order, and how to make saving happen without thinking about it. And what lenders really look at, so your approval grows instead of stalling.

Hosted by Chad Harmer, Financial Planner and Mortgage Agent. Realtors and planners in the same room, which is how this should have worked all along.

You don't need to be renting right now. You don't need savings yet. You don't need to know your numbers. If you'd like to own a home and haven't yet, you're in the right place.

Registration is required, and it's free. Register and you'll get the join link, the reminders and the recording if the morning gets away from you.

Link in bio, or www.tinyurl.com/FromLeaseToPurchase

RRSP or TFSA. Same dollar, different tax year.The honest answer is that they are the same tool pointed in opposite direc...
10/09/2026

RRSP or TFSA. Same dollar, different tax year.

The honest answer is that they are the same tool pointed in opposite directions. An RRSP gives you the tax break today and taxes the withdrawal later. A TFSA gives you nothing today and lets everything come out tax-free later. So the question underneath the question is: which year do you expect to be in the higher bracket, this one or the one you retire in?

If you earn more now than you expect to draw in retirement, the RRSP usually wins. The refund is real money; put it to work rather than spending it.

If you’re early in your career, on a modest income, or you expect a pension to keep your retirement income high, the TFSA often wins. Paying tax now at a lower rate is the better deal.

If you’re a nurse, paramedic, or teacher with a defined-benefit pension, this is a genuinely close call and worth a conversation. The pension already fills the RRSP’s role in retirement, so the TFSA tends to carry more weight than people assume.

One more thing: the RRSP refund is not a bonus. It’s a loan from your future self. Treat it that way.

Tell us which you’d pick in the comments. We’ll share what we see most often in Durham households next week.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.



Chad Harmer, Financial Planner | ETFs and Mutual funds offered through Investia Financial Services Inc.

Your taxes are filed. That doesn’t mean they were planned.A tax return is a report card on a year that already happened....
10/07/2026

Your taxes are filed. That doesn’t mean they were planned.

A tax return is a report card on a year that already happened. By the time your accountant sees it, every decision that mattered was made months ago. Filing is essential. It just isn’t planning.

Tax planning happens in the year, not after it. A few examples from real files:

Which spouse holds which investment. Income splitting isn’t one trick; it’s dozens of small choices about whose name goes on what, and they compound.

When the RRSP gets used. Contributing in a high-income year and drawing in a low-income year is the entire point. Left on autopilot, most people do neither well.

What the refund does. A refund reinvested is planning. A refund absorbed into a March credit card bill is a missed year.

Whether the business owner should take salary, dividends, or a mix, and whether that answer changes as the RRSP room, CPP, and the mortgage change.

None of that shows up on a T1. It shows up in the numbers the T1 reports, years later, as either a smaller or larger bill than it needed to be.

Your accountant and your planner should be talking. If yours aren’t, that’s the first thing to fix.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.



Chad Harmer, Financial Planner | ETFs and Mutual funds offered through Investia Financial Services Inc.

Our clients' words say it better than we can.A mortgage renewal can involve a lot of back and forth, and we know how muc...
10/07/2026

Our clients' words say it better than we can.

A mortgage renewal can involve a lot of back and forth, and we know how much that process asks of you. Our job is to carry that weight, find the best option available, and keep you informed at every step, while remembering there is a person behind the file.

Thank you to C.E. for sharing this and for trusting us with your renewal. Your words reflect the relationship we aim to build with every client.

Planning a renewal, a purchase, or a broader financial strategy? Send us a message at [email protected] or visit HarmerWealth.com.

If something happened to you next month, would your family keep the house?It’s a hard question, so most people answer it...
10/05/2026

If something happened to you next month, would your family keep the house?

It’s a hard question, so most people answer it with a feeling instead of a number. The feeling is usually “we’d figure it out.” The number is often different.

Here’s how we actually work it out, without drama.

Start with the mortgage balance and any other debt. That’s the amount that has to disappear for the surviving spouse to stay put on one income.

Add the income gap. Not forever; for a defined stretch. Five years of the lost income gives a family time to grieve, re-plan, and decide about the house on their own terms rather than the bank’s.

Add anything you’d want guaranteed regardless: the kids’ education, a parent you help support.

Then subtract what already exists. Group coverage through work, which is usually one or two times salary and ends when the job does. Any existing policies. Savings you’d genuinely be willing to spend.

What’s left is the gap. Sometimes it’s zero. Often it’s larger than people expect, and cheaper to close than they fear, especially in your thirties and forties.

Disability works the same way, with one difference: it’s more likely to happen, and it comes with the mortgage still due every month.

Protection is not about fear. It’s about who gets to decide what happens to the house. It should be your family, not a lender.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.

Insurance products provided through Harmer Wealth Management Corp.

Your home equity can work while you're still living in the house. Here's how.For most Canadian homeowners, equity is idl...
10/03/2026

Your home equity can work while you're still living in the house. Here's how.

For most Canadian homeowners, equity is idle. It grows slowly and does nothing until you sell. That's not wrong. It's just the default, and defaults deserve a second look.

A readvanceable mortgage pairs a regular mortgage with a home equity line of credit. Each payment reduces the mortgage principal and frees up the same amount on the line. That room can be borrowed to invest in a non-registered portfolio, and because the money is used to earn investment income, the interest may be tax-deductible. Over time, non-deductible mortgage debt is converted into deductible investment debt while the portfolio grows. This is often called the Smith Manoeuvre.

Now the honest part. It is not for everyone.

It requires comfortable cash flow, because you're carrying interest on the line. It requires tolerance for market movement, because the investments will move and the debt will not. It requires a horizon of ten years or more. And it requires discipline: the line is for investing, and only investing.

If those fit, it is one of the more efficient uses of a mortgage available to an ordinary household. If they don't, we will tell you so in the first meeting, and you'll have lost nothing but an hour.

Same house. Same mortgage. Different balance sheet.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.

Chad Harmer, Financial Planner | Mutual funds offered through Investia Financial Services Inc. Chad Harmer is a Smith Manoeuvre Certified Professional.

For general information only; not legal, investment, or tax advice. Borrowing to invest involves risk, including the risk that returns may be lower than the cost of borrowing. Interest deductibility depends on individual circumstances and current tax rules. Review any strategy with the appropriate professionals to confirm suitability and compliance.

Asking for a second opinion on your investments isn’t rude. It’s what you’d do with any other professional advice that a...
10/03/2026

Asking for a second opinion on your investments isn’t rude. It’s what you’d do with any other professional advice that affects the rest of your life.

Most of the people who come to us already have investments, usually at a bank. They’re not unhappy, exactly. They just aren’t sure. Nobody has ever sat them down and explained what they own, what it costs, or how it connects to the mortgage, the insurance, and the will. So they stay, because leaving feels like an accusation.

Here’s what a Complete Financial Second Opinion actually is.

We look at the fees you really pay, in dollars, not percentages. We look at whether the accounts are doing different jobs or accidentally the same one. We look at what isn’t there at all, which is usually the protection and estate side. And we look at whether the whole thing points at a retirement income number you’ve agreed to.

Here’s what it isn’t. It isn’t a sales pitch dressed as a review. If what you have is sound, we say so in writing and you keep it. That happens more often than you’d think, and it’s still a good outcome, because now you know.

Your current advisor won’t be offended. And if they are, that tells you something too.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.



Chad Harmer, Financial Planner | Mutual funds offered through Investia Financial Services Inc.

The market dropped. Do nothing. On purpose.There’s a difference between doing nothing because you’re frozen and doing no...
10/01/2026

The market dropped. Do nothing. On purpose.

There’s a difference between doing nothing because you’re frozen and doing nothing because you decided to in advance. The first one feels awful. The second one feels like a plan working.

Here’s what a down week actually changes for most of our clients: nothing. Their retirement date didn’t move. Their monthly income need didn’t move. The money they need in the next two to three years was never in the part of the portfolio that just fell. That’s the whole point of building it that way.

What a down week does change is the urge to act. Selling after a decline locks in the loss and then asks you to guess the day to get back in. Almost nobody guesses well, including the professionals who are paid to.

If you find yourself checking the balance every morning, that’s worth talking about. Not because the market is wrong, but because the portfolio might be carrying more risk than you’re actually comfortable with. That’s a design problem, and design problems get fixed calmly, not on a red day.

Volatility is the price of the return. Panic is optional.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.



Chad Harmer, Financial Planner | Mutual funds offered through Investia Financial Services Inc.

Most people have investments. Very few have a plan. Here’s the difference.A plan is not a portfolio, a mortgage, or an i...
09/29/2026

Most people have investments. Very few have a plan. Here’s the difference.

A plan is not a portfolio, a mortgage, or an insurance policy. It’s the document that decides how all of those should behave together, and in what order. When we say Inside the Plan, this is what we mean.

Where you stand. Net worth, monthly cash flow, your tax position, every debt and its rate, and what each account is actually for. Most households have never seen this on one page. It is often the most useful hour of the whole process.

Where you’re going. A retirement income target in real monthly dollars, not a lump sum. Education funding if there are kids. What you want to happen to the house, the cottage, the business. What you’d like to leave, and to whom.

What could break it. A disability that stops income for two years. A death that leaves a mortgage and one salary. A market decline in the first three years of retirement. A renewal at a higher rate. We run these before life does, and we size the protection to the actual gap, not a sales target.

The order of operations. Written recommendations, sequenced: which debt first, which account to fund, what to insure, when to update the will. Then implementation with the team that does the work, so it doesn’t become homework you never get to.

A plan is a decision you made in advance.

Visit HarmerWealth.com to book a consultation.

Chad Harmer, Financial Planner | ETFs, Funds, and Mutual funds offered through Investia Financial Services Inc.

The will is chapter one. Well-built estates have five more.Named beneficiaries that move money outside probate. The prob...
09/25/2026

The will is chapter one. Well-built estates have five more.

Named beneficiaries that move money outside probate. The probate math itself — roughly $29,000 on a $2M Ontario estate. Life insurance sized to the final tax bill so the family keeps the cottage instead of selling it. Trusts, in one honest sentence. Donating securities instead of cash. And the chapter almost everyone skips: the family meeting.

Documents distribute assets. Conversation transfers understanding.

Book an Estate Review — one hour now saves your family a year of friction later.

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