Blog Posts by Gail Johnson

Jennifer Mah has vivid memories of a friend’s wedding from many years ago—not because she had the time of her life on the dance floor but because the event nearly drained her bank account.

Then living in Edmonton, Mah had to travel to Vancouver for the wedding. She had to take time off work from her part-time job as a waiter, which meant giving up earnings. There was the cost of a hotel room and of course the need for a wedding present. Then there was the girls’ dinner out two nights before the big event.

“I was putting myself through school and spent a fortune to be at her wedding,” Mah says. “I couldn’t believe it when I added it all up.”

As Mah knows first-hand, the bride and groom aren’t the only ones who have to fork out big bucks for the big day. According to new data from American Express, the average cost of attending a wedding this year will come to a whopping $539. That’s up nearly 60 per cent from 2012, thanks to rising costs of gas and hotels.

Guests spend, on average, $144 on

With a daughter who graduated from university last year and landed a job in mass media arts, Robert Stammers is one proud father. He’s also quick to acknowledge that she’ll be paying for her education for years to come.

“She has a job, and it’s wonderful,” says Stammers, director of investor education at the nonprofit CFA Institute. “But we have been talking about student loans for a while; her debt is a fairly hefty amount. You need to have a plan to pay them down, because they can become an anchor. You don’t want to be paying it off for the next 30 years if you don’t have to.”

With a new batch of university grads about to enter the working world — whether it’s in their chosen field or as a barista — student debt has never been a more pressing problem.

Federal student debt has now surpassed $15 billion, rising at a rate of nearly $1 million per day, according to the Canadian Federation of Students. That figure does not include the credit card debt, lines of credit and provincial student

Adrienne Down Coulson knows exactly what she wants for Mother’s Day, and it’s not bubble bath or new earrings.

“I would love some time to myself,” says Down Coulson, a mother of two kids aged 11 and seven and the general manager of eBates.ca, a Canadian cash-back shopping site. “I usually get flowers and hand-made cards, and those are great. But to have some time to yourself doing something of your choice would be ideal — not on Mother’s Day itself. On that day, I want to spend time with my family and have brunch or dinner or go for a bike ride.”

It may well be that the best Mother’s Day gifts are the ones that don’t have price tags — think quality family time, along with some peace and quiet. But a new eBates survey reveals that there are certain tangible items that are more likely to earn bonus points with Mom than others.

Nearly 50 per cent of the 1,056 moms surveyed by said they wanted spa treatments, followed by vacations (44 per cent) and jewellery (31 per cent). Just 7 per cent

We all know that life’s only certainties are death and taxes. What’s less clear is the answer to this question: What happens to your debts when you die?

Some of them go to the grave, too.

“If you have unsecured debt, the debt’s going to die with you,” says insolvency counsellor Margaret Johnson, president of Solutions Credit Counselling Service Inc. “Nobody has to take it over and pay it. Debts don’t transfer by virtue of death or marriage.

“However, if you leave an estate, the executor of your estate will have to deal with any debt before assets are distributed to any beneficiaries,” she adds.

So let’s start with that unsecured debt, meaning anything that’s not backed by an underlying asset. Think credit-cards and utility bills.

The power of your signature

“Unless you have signed a contract or co-signed for something, you do not need to take over someone’s debt when they die,” Johnson says. “No one can leave their debts to you or to their spouse. Unless you have signed for the debt, it is

Like so many women, Cecilia Nakatsui dreamed of one day being a mom. So after she got married in 2010, she went off the birth-control pill and was ready to start a family. It never occurred to her that she’d have trouble getting pregnant. After a year of trying unsuccessfully to conceive, a doctor told her that she’d never have children. The news devastated her.

“There were a few months where I was really angry,” Nakatsui says. “I didn’t want to be around kids or pregnant people.”

She went to see a specialist at a private fertility clinic, who acknowledged that her chances were indeed slim, but that there were various treatments they could try. The efforts paid off.

“We got pregnant!” says Nakatsui, who’s thrilled despite some serious nausea. Aged 39, she’s due in October. Her case was a little more complicated than what’s involved in the already complex process of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), because Nakatsui had to obtain an egg from a donor in the U.S.

Her becoming pregnant also cost

Annette Klein and Stephanie Fraser have made smart moves when it comes to their finances. The married Vancouver parents have designated each other as beneficiaries on their registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) and drawn up wills. And while same-sex partners have all the same rights as other couples, there are distinctions when it comes to where Klein and Fraser choose to do their banking.

“If anything, they have to have an organizational culture that commands respect for all differences,” Fraser says. “We bank at Vancity, which is very progressive. We’ve never had any issues or any difficulty. It’s obvious they’ve instilled a culture of respect.”

The 2011 Census showed that the number of same-sex married couples nearly tripled between 2006 and 2011, reflecting the first five-year period for which same-sex marriage has been legal across Canada.

The Census counted 64,575 same-sex couple families, up 42 per cent from 2006. Of these couples, 21,015 were same-sex married couples and

As the creative duo behind Johnson + McLeod Design Consultants, Ian McLeod and Kerry Johnson have seen all sorts of homes in need of serious makeovers. But nothing could have prepared the Vancouverites for the horror they encountered when looking at a Gulf Island cabin they wanted to purchase for themselves. It wasn’t just the dilapidation that shocked them. It was the fact that it reeked.

The owners were lifelong chain smokers, plus after they died, the waterfront home sat empty for years without any heat on, resulting in rampant mould growth.

“The smell was very, very, old, strong cigarette smoke combined with Limburger cheese,” McLeod says. “You could see the orange nicotine on the walls. These people smoked themselves into the grave. It was a level of degradation that you’ve never seen before.”

Despite the stench, Johnson and McLeod bought the place anyway, transforming it into a dream cottage. It needed months of hard labour to clean it up, but the place was a steal.

In fact, smoking

Even though the roof on their home was about 10 years old when Marion Johnston and her husband bought their place in 2010, she was still caught by surprise when it started leaking in her living room last year. She was even more startled by the bill from the roofing company, which came to $11,000.

“It was such a financial hit,” says Johnston, a Vancouver stay-at-home mom with two kids. “I know it’s just the reality of home ownership, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon. Plus, it was right before Christmas, so we were already way over budget. It really stung.”

The roof on your house caving in is one example of an unexpected expense; there are countless others. Think having to hop on a plane to see an ailing relative, paying the bills after losing your job, footing the bill for an emergency root canal when self-employed and and without dental insurance, paying the vet who cared for your injured pet, forking out money for an insurance deductible after a car accident, replacing the