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Everything we publish is built to be read on its own. But money topics stack, and some orders work better than others. If you're new here, or catching up, this is the path we'd walk in.

The retirement series, in order

Three machines sit at the same kitchen table, and we took them apart one at a time. Read these in sequence; each one picks up where the last ends.

1. CPP and OAS: one you paid into, one you didn't
Canada's two public pensions, the timing window that sets the payment for life, and where the clawback actually bites.

2. Your RRSP has an expiry date
The age-71 deadline, the forced-withdrawal math, and the levers that soften it, including one almost nobody knows about.

3. Canada has no inheritance tax. Your estate can still owe six figures.
Death is a deemed sale of everything you own, on one final return. How the bill is calculated, and what escapes it.

The two accounts that decide most questions

RRSP vs TFSA: what each account actually does
Not rivals. Two tools for different jobs, and the one question that picks between them.

The FHSA, explained
The first-home account that borrows the best feature of each of the other two. If a first home is anywhere on your horizon, read this first.

The foundations

How tax brackets actually work
Marginal versus average, and why a raise never "puts you in a higher bracket" the way people fear. Most of what we write leans on this one.

Where to keep your cash: HISAs, GICs, and the cost of chequing
What each one earns, what each one locks up, and how to match the money to the account.

How big your emergency fund actually needs to be
Where the months-of-expenses number comes from, and how to read your own.

When a credit card's annual fee is actually worth it
The break-even math on fee versus rewards, and the one rule that makes any rewards card pointless.

The fund fee you'll never see on a statement
The MER, the break-even against a cheap index fund, and what a percentage point costs over decades.

Couples, kids, and the house

What marriage does to your money
How the system treats couples: the credits, the transfers, and the rollover that shapes estates.

The RESP and the 20% grant
The one account where the government matches your deposit, and the rules for collecting all of it.

The mortgage renewal wave
What happens when the rates of a few years ago meet today's, and how to walk into a renewal ready.

If you're incorporated

Salary or dividends
How the way you pay yourself changes tax, CPP, and the RRSP room you build.

Then, every Tuesday

One issue a week, one idea per issue, figures checked against the CRA and Service Canada before we hit send. If you're not on the list yet, sign up at ocmlife.ca. And the fastest way to shape what we cover next is to reply to any issue; the last three articles all started as reader questions.

This page is updated monthly as new pieces publish. Last updated August 2026.