Where to get the straight goods

Sometimes I get asked a question I can’t answer. Well, actually, I get asked a lot of questions I can’t answer of course, but I am referring to financial questions. When I don’t know something, I do some research and get back to my client with an answer.

The internet is an amazing place, but as we all know, there’s a lot of misinformation, bad advice and misleading statements out there. I’ve been reading, researching and learning online for years and have become pretty good at figuring out where to get the right answers to financial questions.

Here are the resources I like to refer to that you might also find useful.

Go straight to the source: Whenever possible, read the original source of the information. A lot of the questions I get asked can be answered by going to the Canada Revenue Agency website. Now, you may think that the CRA is super boring and uses gobbly-goop language, but actually the CRA really tries to make their information readable. They break down long topics into sections, which makes it easy to hone in on your answer. The CRA website addresses questions related to the various savings accounts (RRSPs, TFSAs and so on) and everything to do with taxes. Give it a try – you might be surprised how readable it is.

When it comes to questions about investments, my first stop is the website of the company offering the product. There’s a good amount of required disclosure about investments, so if you want to know more about a specific ETF or mutual fund, you’ll find quite a lot of reading material like Fund Facts, ETF Facts, Factsheets, and the Quarterly Portfolio Disclosure. I wrote a blog post on this a couple of years ago – check it out here.

Economics departments of the banks: When I’m looking for historic information about interest rates and economic data like housing stats and consumer debt levels, I go to TD Economics. The other banks are also good – I just have a long history with folks at TD Economics, so it brings back fond memories to visit their website. Although I don’t put a lot of faith in economic forecasts, reading notes put out by economists can give you a good flavour of what’s going on with the job market, economic growth, interest rates, housing and other interesting indicators.

Trusted writers: I have a short list of financial writers that I trust to give the right information. I refer to their writing to translate complex ideas into simple terms. They act as a double check to make sure I interpreted information correctly. I also use bloggers to validate an idea I have – is what I’m thinking out to lunch? Blogs that I tend to refer to the most often are Ed Rempel and Million Dollar Journey. Related, but not a blog, is MoneySense Magazine. MoneySense has a number of good writers, and if I often find that obscure questions are addressed by Jason Heath in the Ask a Planner column. I trust Jason’s knowledge – he’s been a financial planner for a while and has a ton of real-life experience.

RBC Navigator: This might seem like a surprising choice. A bank's wealth management arm giving information? Often when I Google a complex topic related to investing, this RBC newsletter comes up. Every time I read it, I learn something and am impressed. They give enough detail to make it helpful but it doesn’t overwhelm you with useless stuff. And it’s really readable.

Legal websites: I find that blog posts written by law firms are also good. I can’t say exactly why. Maybe it’s that they don’t have an angle – they are just telling you the facts. There’s no incentive to give you wrong facts, and they generally have real-life experience dealing with the issue at hand.

You Tube: Yes, You Tube. Sorting the good from the bad can be tricky but there are a number of really good channels. Having a look at Ben Felix, who breaks down all kinds of topics. He also has a podcast called Rational Reminder, which I don't listen to but is probably really good. Ed Rempel (mentioned above) does a lot of videos and although they aren't eye-catching, I guarantee you'll learn a lot from him. I don't watch a whole lot of You Tube so I don't have other specific suggestions, but look for videos that are not too flashy and that focus on the basics.

Other great resources: The menu bar on my laptop has my most-visited websites bookmarked. These include:

• E&Y’s personal tax calculator, where you can enter your income and see how various types of income are taxed.

• Tax Tips’ table of income tax brackets. Here you can see what the tax brackets are, which is really helpful for deciding how much of an RRSP contribution to make. Be sure to choose the right province.

• Yahoo! Finance,[AB1]  which I use to check how stock markets are doing and to check on the prices of stocks I care about. (Oops – you caught me! Yes, I follow a few individual stocks even though I preach using just ETFs.) You can also see the historic performance of the Canadian, US and other stock markets using the stock market charts. I also use this site to check on bond yields and currencies – and even bitcoin, just for the fun of it.

• Tax Tips’ calculators are great. They have a ton of them. I don’t use them (I build my own) but you will probably have fun playing around with them.

• MoneySense Best ETFs list, which I refer clients to quite regularly to help them narrow down the ETF universe.

• The Clarity Blog - yup, that's me of course.

Personal finance and investing can feel overwhelming, so it's good to have just a few trusted sources to learn from. Feel free to share your sources with me so I can discover new people and websites. And if you come across something that you're not sure you can trust, send it over to me and I'll have a look.

Most of all, keep learning. The more you know about finances, the greater your confidence will be.