Finance
Top 4 Tips to Improve Your Financial Wellness
It’s the favourite time of year for most financial advisors – January. Also known as, Financial Wellness Month. A time to look ahead and plan out the 2024 budget, but also a time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t in 2023.
And it’s fair to say that it’s been a tricky or even tough year for many Canadians. The government has pledged to keep a lid on budget deficits and avoid exacerbating central bank efforts to slow inflation back to its preferred 2% target, as outlined in their Fall Economic Statement.
In the meantime, many of us have higher mortgage payments and bills to worry about. So, what can we do? I spoke with Steve Bridge, Certified Financial Planner and Alim Dhanji, Senior Wealth Advisor and here are their top four ways to improve financial wellness this year:
Budget Strategically
“Adjust your budget to accommodate increased living costs. And prioritize essentials and identify areas where expenses can be trimmed; this can help maintain financial stability during economic fluctuations,” says Dhanji.
Bridge refers to this as ‘clarity.’ He says that few people know exactly where all their money is going, only about 3-5% of people truly know. The big question is:
Is your money going where you want it to?
He says there are four categories when budgeting:
Fixed monthly costs – Mortgage, cell phone bill
Variable monthly costs – Groceries, gas, restaurants, toiletries, pet food
Yearly costs – Property tax, Costco membership
Random costs – Clothes, gifts, travel, car repairs, house repairs
“Being clear about where the money is going puts the power of choice in your hands,” adds Bridge.
Have an Emergency Fund
Year in and year out people get caught up financially when they must pay for emergencies.
Dhanji says to build and maintain an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses; it should ideally cover six to twelve months of living expenses.
“The emergency fund acts as a financial buffer, providing a safety net during uncertain times and reducing the impact of sudden financial shocks,” he adds.
Stay on Top of Taxes
Bridge sees clients tripping over taxes frequently. He says to ask yourself: How can you minimize the amount of tax you pay? Consider the use of RRSPs, FHSAs and RESPS (not a tax break, but free money).
“Tax planning is not a one-size-fits-all exercise,” he says.
The best use of a TFSA is for long-term investing – even though it says Savings Account in the name. Ideally, you invest in there. (This is one financial faux pas we continue to see).
Here’s an example:
Ali, 31, starts off with $5,000 and starts investing it this year in her TFSA. For the next 20 years she adds $5,000 a year. She maintains a 6% rate of return. Inflation hovers around 2%. In 2044, she’ll end up just shy of $200,000. Not bad.
If Ali did the exact same thing with cash – she may end up saving an extra $20 on top of her $105,000 in contributions. Maybe.
Goals
“I was never a big goals person,” says Bridge. Today, it’s where he starts with clients because goals are so important.
A good place to begin is with short-, medium-, and long-term goal categories. Some common ones are earlier retirement, paying off debt and maxing out RRSPs; where they fall within goal categories depending on a person’s life stage.
Another popular topic right now is mortgages because of higher interest rates.
Some mortgage-related considerations are lump sum payments, moving to accelerated biweekly payments, and the pros and cons of mortgage renewal. How do your goals align with paying down your home?
All the above are excellent talking points for your next meeting with a financial advisor to discuss this year’s budget.
Because in the end – what is a budget really? “A budget is telling your money where to go, instead of wondering where it went,” says Bridge. He adds that that’s his new favourite quote.
When Colangelo College of Business students step into the Charles Schwab Foundation Finance Center this fall, they might feel like they’ve stepped onto a trading floor instead of into a Grand Canyon University classroom.
Renovations, which will begin this summer, come just two months after the announcement that students will be providing research for a stock exchange-traded fund as part of the college’s partnership with Christian financial firm Faith Investment Services.
Plans for the finance center’s remodeling are to incorporate a large ticker board in the center of the room, flanked by two smaller ticker boards that will scroll stock exchange listings.
“The Schwab Center not only has the look and feel of Wall Street, but the latest Bloomberg technology for our students to execute their research assignments,” CCOB Dean John Kaites said.
The frosting on the glass wall along the main corridor of the first floor of the CCOB will be lowered enough to allow tour groups to see inside the room while not distracting students during class.
The space, which will accommodate 34 students, serves as a finance learning center and lab for exams designed to help students get certified for the finance industry.
Business college leaders see the changes as a way to raise the profile of the CCOB and Schwab Center.
“As our students experience real-life research for the New York Stock exchange traded ETF: FTHB, they will have a learning environment that is compatible with their work,” Kaites said.
GCU earned national attention when the FIS Faith Income exchange-traded fund was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange (FTHB). This fund is believed to be the first ETF – a tradable fund containing a mix of investments organized around a strategy – that provides educational opportunities to students.
CCOB and College of Theology students research high-quality funds as part of that partnership. They are not paid for their work but receive valuable experience.
The CCOB lobby, used frequently for the T.W. Lewis Speaker series and club meetings, also will be remodeled. The northwest corner of the lobby, used often for studying and small gatherings, will be transformed into two offices. Space will remain so students can continue gathering and studying in that area.
The reception desk – where student workers often direct foot traffic at the busiest part of the four-story, 150,000-square-foot building – will be repositioned so it will face the college’s entrance.
The CCOB was revamped last summer to add the T.W. Lewis Center for Student Success, a multifaceted facility that features a broadcast studio with a stick ticker, a podcast room and a broadcast control room.
A Career Services Center also was added on the first floor.
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
In Q1 2026, EfTEN United Property Fund earned 461 thousand euros in net profit (Q1 2025: 703 thousand euros). The decline in profit is primarily related to the Fund’s investment in EfTEN Real Estate Fund AS shares, whose price on the Tallinn Stock Exchange increased 2.9% in Q1 2026 compared with 4.5% in the same period of 2025. In addition, interest income from the investment in the development company Invego Uus-Järveküla OÜ decreased year-on-year, as the development company repaid the principal and interest of the shareholder loan to the Fund in full in mid-March.
Despite the decline in profit, EfTEN United Property Fund AS received record owner income from its underlying funds at the beginning of 2026. This forms the basis for the Fund’s first distribution of the year to investors in Q2 2026, in the amount of approximately one million euros. The distribution is based on dividends and income received from all underlying funds, as well as interest from the Invego Uus-Järveküla OÜ and the Menulio 7 office building shareholder loans. The distribution does not include the profit from the Invego Uus-Järveküla development project, which the Fund plans to distribute largely in the second half of the year.
Since EfTEN United Property Fund’s portfolio is diversified across nearly 50 different properties in the Baltic states, developments across all segments of the regional real estate market affect the Fund’s results. There have been no major changes in the Baltic commercial real estate market over the last few quarters. In the residential real estate market, however, sales of new developments have improved in all Baltic states. In Tallinn, monthly sales of new developments grew to approximately 160 units per month in Q1 2026, compared with an average of around 100 units in 2024 and the first half of 2025. The biggest jump in the Baltic states was made by the Vilnius new-development market, where — partly thanks to expectations of funds being released from the second pension pillar — Q1 2026 sales volumes reached all-time highs, at times reaching up to 700 units per month.
The pace of sales also remained strong at the start of the year in Invego Uus-Järveküla OÜ, the development company for the Uus-Järveküla residential district in which EfTEN United Property Fund holds an 80% stake. In the first quarter, 22 units were sold (real rights contracts signed) and reservation agreements were concluded for three terraced houses. As of the end of the quarter, 8 terraced houses in the development remain unreserved. In March, Invego Uus-Järveküla OÜ repaid its entire bank loan and returned the shareholder loan to the Fund in full (1.51 million euros) along with the accrued interest (56 thousand euros). EfTEN United Property Fund invested a total of 3.52 million euros in the Uus-Järveküla development project in 2021 and 2023, and has to date received 4.8 million euros back.
Today, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water, and 3.5 billion people live without safely managed sanitation (UNSD, 2024). Action is urgently needed. AIIB’s recent Where the Water Flows report offers clear pathways for addressing these challenges in an increasingly destabilized hydrological environment. Yet, financing remains insufficient: an additional USD 140.8 billion in investment is needed annually to meet SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2 by 2030 (World Bank, 2024).
Traditional water funding modalities – tariffs, taxes, and transfers – are under strain, jeopardizing sustained investment and potentially widening the funding gap. Innovative governance models and financing solutions have a critical role to play in this evolving landscape. As the World Bank operationalizes its new global initiative Water Forward, there is a growing need for alignment and dialogue on the strategic allocation of capital for water, alongside the potential of new financing and governance models.
This event, held on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, convened water finance practitioners actively leveraging innovative governance and financial approaches to fund water in emerging markets.
Opening remarks were delivered by Zou Jiayi, President and Chair of the Board of Directors, AIIB.
Speakers included:
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