Neon lights flicker and heavy bass echoes from the speakers while teens scream and watch the stage with hungry eyes. They’re waiting to be enraptured by a tween pop sensation.

“Drumroll, please…” shouts the DJ into the microphone. “Introducing… the bar mitzvah boy!” The crowd erupts in cheers.

A bar mitzvah is a Jewish religious ceremony marking a boy’s transition to manhood. For many parents, it’s also the perfect time to throw a party, which can be a costly affair.

“You definitely have to budget ahead of time,” says Audrey Pancer, who organized a party for her son a few years ago. “You can do it like a wedding. You have your DJ, your have your photographer and your have your video guy.”

Unlike a wedding, bar mitzvah boys have to spend a year learning how to read and speak Hebrew so that they can recite passages from the Torah. An evening party often follows the religious ceremony. These parties are a lucrative business for event planners.

“We throw bar mitzvahs where they spend $150 a head and then there are bar mitzvahs where they spend $1,500 a head,” explains Lorne Levitt, manager of Total Entertainment, a Montreal-based event planning company that often travels to Ottawa to throw bar mitzvahs.

“The cost variable depends on the location. A synagogue requires an investment because it needs a facelift with lights, drapes and a stage,” says Levitt. “Then there’s the empty halls where you have to bring everything like tables, chairs, and lights. The bill can range from $5,000 to $15,000 in just rental fees.”

Weddings usually feature budget lines for rentals, décor, food and photography, but it’s the entertainment for children that can make or break a bar mitzvah party.

“I have parents who get a package that includes a DJ, two trained dancers to get the kids on the dance floor and boxes of prizes with flashy necklaces and glow in the dark bracelets,” he says.

But that’s the bare minimum compared to some of the lavish parties Total has thrown.

The bar mitzvah boy’s entrance into the party room marks the beginning of the night. Levitt has organized parties where a boy harnessed to the ceiling, rappelled down doing flips. Another child arrived by helicopter on top of a building while another came into the party room on an all-terrain-vehicle.

“Part of the rules are that there are no rules. People like to get crazy, have fun and go all out.”

Going all out could mean hiring hip-hop sensation Flo Rida to perform for $80,000 or K’naan for $35,000.

According to Levitt, if parents consider spending beyond their budget, they can hire Justin Bieber to perform for $1.2 million or Beyoncé for $800,000.

“It’s the minority who make the party to show off. It’s the majority who make the party to celebrate the bar mitzvah,” Levitt says. “It’s known as a very important moment in a Jewish child’s life.”

This important moment is often dictated by a family’s budget.

“I was on a very tight budget so I didn’t have an open bar. I put a bottle of wine on each table and I made my centerpieces,” says Pancer. “We held it at a restaurant for 125 people and it cost me roughly $8,000.”

Pancer’s expenses fall in line with the fees charged by Professional Entertainment Group in Ottawa.

“You can book a DJ, a dancer and lights for around $2,500. But a photographer is not included,” says Helen Viva, the manager of Professional Entertainment Group.

Viva has been working in the Ottawa bar mitzvah event planning industry for 10 years. She says that clients often forget they are receiving a service.

“It’s not just about the five to six hours we’re at the party,” she says. “It’s all the work ahead of time that we have to do set up – making a music list of top requests and making sure the night’s schedule is in tune with the caterers.”

Heather Mechaly is an experienced party planner. Two of her three daughters had a bat mitzvah, but now she’s faced with planning a bar mitzvah for the first time.

“I had to pay $1,500 for my son David to start reading from the Torah and now I’ve got to budget $10,000 for a party in a year from now,” she says.

Mechaly says that she’s amazed by how much money families spend on what’s supposed to be a children’s party.

“It’s crazy that it’s that expensive. I would like to keep my guest list down to 100 people,” she says. “But my son wants a party so he is going to get a party.”

Oy vey.

For most homeowners, paying off the mortgage is the top priority. It’s almost counterintuitive to refinance a mortgage-free property and invest in another, but that’s exactly what self-proclaimed money and life consultant Noreen Kho prescribes.

“Everybody has a dream of paying off their home, and I never understand,” says Kho, a Home Loans Canada mortgage broker in Richmond Hill, Ont.

She’s seen it time and again. Homeowners eagerly pay off mortgages while credit card payments, car loans and student debt pile up.

“Mortgage is actually something good,” says Kho.

With relatively low interest rates, mortgages force people to save through regular payments. By overcoming the fear of having a mortgage, Kho says people can put their money to work, rather than letting it sit in a mortgage-free home. It’s an investment strategy she boasts as “bulletproof.”

The plan in action

For unemployed single parents like my mother, Eva Sze, a bulletproof money-making plan is hard to pass up. Sze was completely debt free and stopped working in 2000, but a divorce in 2005 made it harder to pay the bills. She says Kho’s method of refinancing her house and investing in secondary properties sounded “quite safe.”

“Money won’t come by itself,” Sze says. “It sounds right to use your money to generate more money.”

So began her five-year plan with Kho, taking out a $300,000 mortgage in 2007 to invest in stocks and real estate.

Secondary properties are the way to harness market gains, insists Kho. Through time, she says home values rise, but homeowners only benefit if they have properties to sell.

Riding out the market

Sze hired Joyce Wong, her longtime friend and a Toronto-based broker with Right at Home Realty, and purchased a townhouse and a pre-constructed condo unit.

Although secondary properties can help build equity, says Wong, it only works with market upswings. A TD Bank report released in March however forecasts flat home prices for the next decade. Prices climbed seven per cent per year in the last 10 years, but are projected to grow just two per cent in the next decade. During downturns, as TD predicts will be the case until 2015, Wong says investors must be mentally strong.

“This is quite stressful,” says Wong. “It’s your money you’re playing with.”

Kho’s plan relies on real estate appreciating two per cent annually, but it took Sze’s townhouse three years to gain two per cent.

Making matters worse, Sze struggled with a high tenant turnover. She had eight renters in five years between her two properties. Each stayed barely a year. Even then, rental income barely covered expenses. With every change, Sze paid thousands of dollars in closing costs, land transfer taxes and commission.

Calling it quits

Sze sold the townhouse after just three years. At $310,000, it was $13,000 more than she paid in 2007, but numbers can be deceiving.

“People always say, ‘Yeah, I made a profit. It looks good,’ ” says Wong, “but they don’t tell you all the little fine print, all the other expenses you had to pay.”

After paying taxes and commission, Sze didn’t even break even.

The condo unit fared better. Sze kept it for the full five years before selling it in March 2013 for a $55,000 profit. But after paying off her own mortgage, Sze says she’ll be lucky to make $25,000 in actual profit.

Kho considers Sze’s investment a “half failure,” and says she should have kept the properties. Standing by her bulletproof strategy, Kho argues that Sze panicked and killed the plan too soon.

“We are not flippers. We don’t sell,” says Kho bluntly.

Given 10 or 15 years, she insists property value rises. Eventually, Sze would make enough money to refinance the properties and repeat the process with new houses.

As a realtor, Wong also sees clients investing in secondary property for extra income. Her advice? Use extra money for investments instead of getting funds through refinancing.

“If you keep refinancing,” says Wong, “you’re basically taking away from your property . . . You’re always in the hole.”

Worth the worry?

While Wong agrees the market may recover given time, Sze isn’t willing to wait and see. She lays her five-year plan to rest this year, saying the potential gain isn’t worth the worry.

“What I’m afraid of is after the whole plan, I will have a mortgage . . . instead of being mortgage free in the beginning,” says Sze.

In the end, Sze says the plan is only bulletproof for those collecting commission and taxes. Though Sze says she’s happy to pay professionals for a service, she won’t be taking another stab at property investment anytime soon.

“It’s always easy to see other people make money,” says Sze wistfully. “Seems easy. But when it’s you, then it’s not.”

Just 11 months ago, Gamage and her husband, both originally from Sri Lanka, made the decision to leave their adopted home of Dubai and make another international transition to Canada. The opportunity for a new start has been exciting, but Gamage – an electrical engineer with an MBA – still hasn’t found a job to match her skill set. With work experience in two countries, she didn’t anticipate that the search for her dream job in Canada would last as long as it has.

“As an immigrant, it takes a lot of courage to go through this process. You don’t expect this to happen when you come here,” she says.

When funding a moving to Canada, waiting for a job is

one of the biggest financial hurdles faced by immigrants like Gamage. Many Canadian employers are looking for candidates with Canadian experience, which most newcomers simply don’t have.

“Any immigrant that comes into the country is facing a vicious circle – no Canadian work experience, no job,” says Gohar Agaanalian, who emigrated from Armenia five years ago.

It’s an obstacle that Michelle Iseman, a business development officer with Ottawa’s International Talent Acquisition Centre, or In-TAC, is helping immigrants overcome. In-TAC helps newcomers interested in IT or accounting connect with potential employers in the city.

“You will find a lot of people coming in, and they get frustrated because they can’t find a job right away,” Iseman says.

“It’s full-time work to find a job, and if you’re not working at it all the time, it’s really difficult.”

The problem faced by many immigrants in getting Canadian job experience is also compounded by the challenge of obtaining recognition for foreign credentials.

Manoj Varghese, an engineer born in India, immigrated to Canada from Kuwait in 1999. He was surprised to discover that his educational background and work experiences weren’t getting him any interviews with Canadian employers.

“Based on my discussions with employment centres and career coaches, it was getting down to getting a Canadian [work] experience – and obviously without a job you can’t get experience,” he says.

Although he’d already been in the field as an engineer, Varghese’s solution was to enroll in a graduate certificate program at Sheraton College in Toronto. Fortunately, he had planned ahead by saving up to support himself for at least six months before immigrating. Without the money he spent on adding Canadian credentials to his resume, he says he might never have been hired at Nortel back in 2000.

“That was sort of a blessing for me,” he says.

“Because that was a post-graduate certificate program, and got you prepared for work life – [it was] more in tune with the requirements of building a career.”

If you’re getting ready to move to Canada, it may be wise to follow Varghese’s lead and set aside funds for retraining or adding Canadian credentials to your resumé. According to University of Ottawa professor Patti Tamara Lenard, Canada’s federal and provincial governments have been debating for years over a system that would allow for foreign credentials to be assessed quickly, perhaps in the same way as international school transcripts. So far, they haven’t come to any agreements, which makes retraining a more likely requirement for immigrants.

“We are not doing enough to make sure that foreign credentials are recognized efficiently and quickly,” Lenard says.

“But the federal government and provincial government have certainly recognized that this is the single most unfair challenge that immigrants face in getting jobs in Canada.”

Iseman says in order to survive, many new comers end up taking temporary positions or accept jobs that are below their skill level until they can find something in their field.

Gamage recently took a small three-week contract as a project manager for Algonquin College, and Agaanalian has accepted a few positions as an office administrator. While the positions aren’t related to their fields, both women say there has been value in slowly getting to know the Canadian work environment.

“Even at those jobs there is a lot to learn, so I highly appreciate the opportunity,” says Agaanalian.

“I gain skills, I’m meeting interesting people, so it’s good.”

Besides being financially mindful, and seeking out help from others, Gamage, Agaanalian, and Varghese also recognize the power of attitude in making the challenging transition to a new country. And having at least a small nest egg is almost essential.

“If you come here, you have to be totally prepared, because many of the people coming here are professionals, well-established in their countries. So the transition is not easy, it’s going to be very difficult,” adds Varghese.

“It’s just preparation, and accepting that it’s going to be tough in the short term.”

But three or four cups each weekday at stores such as Starbucks adds up quickly.

“I just wish I had been more intelligent and thought about the fact that if I hadn’t been spending all my money on coffee, I could have been saving,” says the fourth-year Carleton University journalism student.

The beverage accounts for more than 80 per cent of the caffeine adults consume, according to a 2008 Statistics Canada study. The same study found women between the ages of 19 and 30 drink more than 470 millilitres of coffee a day. Men the same age drink almost 580 millilitres.

This is a combined daily average of about three cups of coffee, considering that the Specialty Coffee Association of America says a cup is 175 millilitres.

Big spending

But the caffeinated drink isn’t cheap. The least expensive option among popular stores is an extra-small cup from Tim Hortons, which is $1.30 with tax.

However, lattes and mochas at shops such as Starbucks and Second Cup can be more than $7 each with additions like whipped cream and shots of espresso.

Contrast this expensive beverage habit with the cost of a postsecondary education. The Canadian Federation of Students says students such as Gerster enter the workforce with an average debt load of almost $27,000.

In fact, Gerster says she had to borrow $1,000 from her parents in August. But as she found out, there were ways to quench her thirst for coffee without going bankrupt.

Ways to save

“I just realized it’d be much cheaper to carry around a mug filled with coffee I make at home in the morning,” she says. “Now, I only occasionally buy (pre-made) coffee in afternoons when I really need it.”

Luckily for students, Wal-Mart sells coffeemakers that are as cheap as $12. The least-expensive brand of instant coffee it sells, Folgers, costs less than $10 for more than 900 grams. That amounts to 200 cups.

This is the equivalent of 50 extra-large Tim Hortons coffees, which would cost $100. The fast food restaurant’s customers could also spend $195 on 150 extra-small cups for the same amount of coffee.

Bringing home-brewed coffee to school is the easiest way for students to save money while treating their cravings for caffeine, says Marta Plaustza, a sales manager at Sun Life Financial in Waterloo, Ont. who has Conestoga College students as clients.

Buying large quantities of any item at once is ideal to save money, says Tyanna Mumby, a Carleton commerce student and vice-president of finance for the university’s business students’ association.

“If you buy in bulk, it’s always going to be cheaper than it is if you’re purchasing three individual coffees,” explains Mumby, who also works in customer service for the Bank of Montreal.

Students won’t find money evaporating from their wallets if they make their own coffee, she says.

“It’s hard to spend $50 a week on caffeine, which many students do, if you rely on coffee you make yourself.”

Even buying luxury coffeemakers such as a Tassimo, which typically costs more than $100, is financially worthwhile, she says.

The difference between purchasing pre-made coffee and brewing her own has been obvious for Gerster, she says. She’s cut down her spending by 86 per cent and now satisfies her coffee craving with only $28 a month by buying beans at grocery stores.

But this doesn’t mean Gerster has had to drink less coffee.

She says her Bodum brewer, which can cost between $30 and $50, gives her about four cups of coffee in each pot.

“I usually make a pot in the morning, which I drink half of at home and take the rest to school. I don’t drink as much at night anymore, so it’s easier to sleep,” she says. “I guess making my own coffee has worked for me in more than one way.”

But for the students laden down with debt and trying to find ways to fund their life-changing trip, it’s not easy.

Websites, travel agents and even specialized graduation trip companies all scramble to have you book your travel arrangements through them.

For students on a budget, companies now offer far more opportunities than those afforded to our parents 20 or 30 years ago.

Some fund their trip abroad by working before, others by working while they’re abroad.

But which way is the most popular, and how can students save money?

Ariane Klassen graduated from the University of Western Ontario last year, and spent three months travelling across Europe. She touched down in Iceland, Germany, France and Italy.

How did she manage it? She worked throughout the school year.

She worked through the summer at the Deaf Culture Centre in Toronto, saving about two-thirds  of her paycheque, after her final year of schooling and also took out a line of credit.

“I had a line of credit that I took out during university and never touched,” she said. “I was fine racking up a bit on my line of credit during the trip. Some people aren’t, but I was fine coming out of it with debt.”

Happy to hunt for deals online, she trawled through pages of airline fares to find a ticket. She ended up buying one from Iceland Air, which offers discounts to passengers if you’re willing to have a stopover in Iceland.

Spending $8,000 for the trip, budgeting roughly $1,000 a month for food, she and her boyfriend cut down transportation costs by using ride shares.

While Klassen was happy to shop online for her travel needs, the concept of cheap flights only being online might be not as true as we think.

“It’s a bit of a misnomer that online is always cheaper,” said David Coffey, the director of sales and business development with Merit Leisure Group. “We contact directly the airline and we have a long history with major air carriers.”

Merit owns Travelcuts, which is a travel agency run in universities across the country. They specialize in trips based around students’ needs, providing travel insurance as well as getting students in touch with local employers in their final destination.

The bonus of using an organization such as Travelcuts is the added security it provides.

“There can be good deals through Hotwire for a specific customer who wants a last minute getaway and can take a risk,” said Coffey.

One trip through Travelcuts, through Contiki Tours, lists a 39 day trip from England all the way to Greece as roughly $5,085 per person.

The prices are nearly the same, with a travel agent supplying travel insurance and the security of a guaranteed room.

“Most students want to travel in a meaningful way,” he said. “[Travelcuts] allows students to stay up until 12 months on one ticket, for possibly no price change.

While Klassen saved money for the trip, Eric Balnar took the opposite route

He graduated last year. As a graduation gift from his grandparents he was given money to buy a plane ticket abroad.

He turned that one-way flight in to what has been nearly a year abroad working and travelling.

For him, the most expensive part of the trip was the flights.

“If you’re happy doing it last minute then you’re fine,” he said.

He has worked in pubs, hotels and most recently moved to Paris to work. While he admits his family has helped support him to come home for events such as a family wedding, he’s on his own while abroad.

While Balnar has made his experience work through hard work, there are opportunities to take advantage of student discounts.

For any enterprising student, Coffey suggests they sign up for an International Student Identification Card.

The card provides discounts for travelling, as well as visiting museums and going on tours.

When leaving from Ottawa, it can give you a five percent discount on tours and four per cent discount on airfare.

While Klassen was able to cope piling up debt, and Balnar worked to balance it off, both suggest budgeting for the little things.

Klassen says if she was to do it all over again, that unplanned expenses such as laundry (which is a necessity when you’re out all day) can add up very quickly.

“Laundry, when you’re abroad can get expensive and if you have a kitchen and you can make food” she said. “It’s something no one thinks of.”

Staying in an apartment, instead of a hostel, and travelling with friends can also cut down on prices.

In the end, the trip – according to all – is about the experience.

“I loved every minute of it,” Klassen said.

Joe Hamadi is pictured with his wife Samar. In 1991, Hamadi gambled on a business idea, hoping it would pay off so that he could provide a comfortable life for his family. Twenty-one years later, Joe enjoys the freedom of being his own boss.

The thing about good business ideas is that they don’t always come to people when they’ve had years to save, when they’re free from debt, or when they’re in an ideal financial position. Most successful business people however will tell you that the longer you linger on an idea rather than act on it, the less chance you will have of success.

“If I have a business idea and I believe in it very strongly, I wouldn’t wait. I would never hesitate in starting a business. Hesitation kills a lot of projects.” Joe Hamadi is the president and CEO of Sora, a group of construction and development companies.

In 1991 Hamadi, a civil engineer by trade, was managing a construction company. A sub-contractor approached him, he had some machinery and a strong work ethic, but he had a hard time managing his business and needed some help. Hamadi saw an opportunity.

He became one of three partners in the business. They started with a handful of employees and they “worked really hard.” By 1992 the business had doubled, and continued to grow exponentially in the first few years. By 2007, Hamadi says Sora had about 100 employees.

But in 1991, Hamadi couldn’t have known that the business would be successful. He had a toddler at home and a baby on the way. He had a year’s worth of salary saved up for his family to live off of. For Hamadi, it was double or nothing.

Like any business, at the time it was a gamble. “I could lose about a year of income and get some debts from the business that I had to repay,” Hamadi says. “But what’s the worst thing that can happen? If you try for a year and it doesn’t work out, you can always go back and work for somebody else.”

Hamadi says his success is thanks to his risk-taking, outgoing personality guided by his “gut feeling.”

Yet, while Hamadi’s business continues to thrive after 21 years, in about the same time over 11,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, according to Statistics Canada’s Key Small Business Statistics 2012. According to the same report, only about half of businesses survive more than five years.

With such uncertainty behind starting a business, it becomes difficult to assess the validity of your “gut feeling.”

James Bowen is an instructor at the University of Ottawa. He teaches entrepreneurship courses and is a successful business man having started his first technology-based company at the age of 21 while still an undergraduate.

Bowen says over the years, he’s come to see some common factors, beyond a strong gut feeling, that can make or break a person’s chance at a new venture.

“The worst reason a person can go into business is if they expect to get rich quickly,” says Bowen. People who enter a venture with a short-sighted focus on profits, he says, are likely to fail or be disappointed.

Bowen says his students and mentees are often surprised at the level of competition in the world for new ideas. He says entrepreneurs starting out usually struggle with two things. “First, it’s the amount of time involved. Second, it’s actually finding an idea that 10 million other people aren’t already working on.” For Bowen, being too rash can actually lead to a business downfall.

Hamadi’s safeguard against pursuing an exhausted idea is taking some time to study the business case carefully and ensuring it’s viable. This is different than hesitating, he says.

Arnold Leung knows taking an opportunity the moment it arises. Straight after graduating with a commerce degree from the University of British Columbia in 2007, he immediately launched Appnovation, a web development company. His business profits  from customizing open-source software, software that is free for users, in order to suit business needs.

Appnovation was on Profit Guide’s Profit Hot 50 list in 2010 and 2011, an award granted to extremely high-growth new companies.

Like Hamadi, Leung says the sooner you act on a business idea, the better. He says as a younger business person, he has an advantage when it comes to taking risks.

“Being young means that I have the ability to recover more easily than if I had family, kids, a mortgage. Things like that really chain a person down. When you’re young, if worse comes to worst you can move back in to your parents house while you get back on your feet.”

Leung however, cautions that business is not for everyone. He says the key is being able to focus on one thing, and having the perseverance to succeed.

“Focus on starting something that you know how to sell. It doesn’t need to be the most glamorous thing on earth. Not everyone can start Facebook.com.”

Ultimately, Bowen, Hamadi and Leung say that entrepreneurial success is possible for those who are motivated enough to see a good idea through, but those who wait might miss opportunities for lifetime success.

Some of the biggest decisions people ever make are financial ones: which house to buy, when to retire, how to pay for the kids’ tuition. Money links everything, and bleeds into life all the time.

What people know about money, their financial literacy, affects how they approach and make these decisions.

Canadians learn how to take care of their money from their family and friends, says Adam Fair, Director of Programs at the Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy, a group that trains community groups to teach money managing seminars.

Is that enough though? Canadian debt levels are climbing. People’s savings accounts are low. Since the 2008 financial crisis, it’s clear everyone needs to be aware of what happens in the economy – and how that affects investments.

We need to be financially literate, but who’s teaching us?

Perry Quintin is the vice president of marketing for the Investor Education Fund. On its website the IEF says it is the “leading independent authority on financial literacy, education and research.”

The IEF reports to the Ontario Securities Commission, the province’s financial regulator, and is funded completely by fines and settlements collected by the OSC, says Quintin.

Every second year, she says, her group does a survey to find out just what Canadians know – or don’t know – about managing their money.

“General Canadian financial literacy is pretty low,” she says. “People aren’t saving, even though they think it’s a good idea.”

So the IEF has put together a range of tools, including an online game, to help people improve their skills. In 2010, they helped Ontario’s education ministry build a brand new elementary and high school curriculum to teach kids financial literacy.

“The number one financial concern during high school is saving for school,” says Quintin. “They’re actually saving for clothing, entertainment, technology and then school, in that order.”

But broad, sweeping curriculum doesn’t always work for everyone, says Fair. Not all students can afford clothing, entertainment and technology. Curriculum that makes assumptions risks alienating those who need financial literacy training the most, says Fair.

He says the same problem exists with the federal government’s “financial toolkit,” an online resource that tries to help Canadians learn about banking, mortgages, saving, taxes and investing.

The toolkit tries to be accessible and helpful to as many people as possible, says Fair, but it misses the specific needs of specific people in its bid to stay relevant to all.

Socially responsible investing

Another problem with the kit, says social researcher and entrepreneur Brenda Plant, is that it skips the concept of socially responsible investing.

Plant started two websites – ethiquette.ca and ethipedia.net – that work to teach people how to invest their money in an ethically and environmentally-friendly way.

Socially responsible investing means putting your money only into projects that do not have negative environmental or social consequences. “Money is not neutral,” says Plant. “It takes on the value that you give it.”

Elementary and high school students need to know about these options, she says. Plant says she’s tried in both Ontario and Quebec to get her research on socially responsible investing included in curriculums, but has been rejected both times.

But provincial governments and the IEF aren’t the only ones who don’t put out a lot of socially responsible investment material.

Financial advisors often have misconceptions about what socially responsible investing is, says Sarah Thomson. It’s her job to convince them otherwise.

Thomson is an Associate Director at the Social Investment Organization, an umbrella group for investors, advisors and banks interested in socially responsible investing.

When people hear about investing responsibly or ethically, they like the idea, she says, but financial advisors often shoot it down because of their own biases.

“The individual doesn’t feel empowered enough to plow through and say, ‘No I really want this.’ They’ll defer to the financial advisor,” says Thomson,

Missing out

Low-income Canadians get left out when it comes to personal finance in general too, says Fair. A lot of the curriculum is designed for middle and upper-income Canadians, be it the kind of words used, the reading level, or the sort of product and price range examples, he says.

Fair and his group say the most important thing when it comes to passing on financial literacy to someone else is trust.

“We actually identified community organizations as being a really good avenue to translate something that’s quite complex and something that they don’t have a lot of access to information and provide it in a way that’s respectful to their circumstances and tailored to their needs,” says Fair.

The consequences of financial illiteracy are real.

“If you’re someone with a middle or high-income you’ve got potentially a bigger buffer to make mistakes. When you’re living in poverty you’re living closer to the line. Every mistake is a big deal,” he says.

Regardless of point of view, Thomson, Fair, Plant and Quintin all say they agree Canada needs to meet the problem of financial literacy head-on.

“There’s a gap between knowledge and behaviour,” said Quintin.

More and more people are taking financial literacy programs: at public school, at colleges and universities, in the workplace and throughout adulthood.

“But on the whole across the country there is still a lot of work to do,” said Fair.

Stirling Prentice built a bike trailer to turn his T-shirt business into a mobile pop-up shop.

An Ottawa artist and screen printer is taking one of the hottest retail trends on the road with his new mobile pop-up shop.

Businesses around Canada and across the globe have been using pop-up shops to hawk their wares and attract attention for years. With a traditional pop-up shop, a retailer moves into a vacant space for a short period of time and shoppers come a-calling when they hear buzz about the temporary venture. Pop-up shops can be a way to draw attention to a new product, while they can give start-ups a place to test the waters for their wares.

But Stirling Prentice, the creative mind behind Winged Beast Outfitters, is putting a spin on that idea, taking his T-shirts and art to the street.

“I wanted to build something that was custom made to do what I do,” Prentice says.

Last fall he started work on a pop-up kiosk, building a large wooden storage box onto a bike chassis. Once the snow melts, he’ll load his racks and product into the creation, and peddle to art and craft shows around town. When he arrives, the trailer folds out into a four-foot by two-foot display table.

The kiosk will simplify Prentice’s business and reduce his environmental impact, but it also gave him the opportunity to work in a new medium.

“Generally I’m working with two-dimensional things in an environment where there’s take-backs and erasers and undo,” Prentice explains. “But building a thing like the trailer is kind of exciting. You just kind of have to roll with it and see what happens.”

This summer, Winged Beast Outfitters will be rolling to outdoor shows around Ottawa. Prentice is also reaching out to local businesses, hoping to strike arrangements where he can set up his kiosk in front of their stores.

But bylaws are an issue Prentice has to navigate that traditional pop-up stores rarely worry about.

“The law is vague,” he says. “It’s very clear if you’re a food vendor. It’s not so clear if you’re an artist.”

Last fall, the City of Ottawa approved a new street food vending program after criticism over a lack of food trucks in the region. Now 18 new mobile food vendors have been approved to hit the city streets in May.

The city also requires “itinerant sellers” to have a business license, though it’s unclear whether pop-up shops fall into that category.

There is a similarity, however, between Prentice’s project and stationary pop-up shops: shoppers remember retailers who try something unique.

Michael Macintyre, director of online marketing for Indochino, says pop-up shops have given the online custom suit shop a great way to market itself.

“The pop-up shops give us a showroom platform to invite and engage with journalists and influencers,” Macintyre explains. “Previously being a pure play online company, it was difficult to have journalists interact the brand.”

A physical shopping place also allows people to see and touch their suits, as locals did when Indochino brought their pop-up shop to Slater Street in April.

“One of the goals of the Traveling Tailor events is to get customers who might not be initially comfortable buying online comfortable with the brand and the products, with the goal to get them to repeat purchases online,” Macintyre explains.

Indochino has also taken the Traveling Tailor pop-up shops to Vancouver, Calgary, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. The visits have been so successful that plans are currently underway to pop-up in several locations along the east coast of the United States.

Prentice isn’t planning on taking his bike kiosk that far, but he is thinking about events in Toronto and Hamilton.

“Ironically I’ll have to load it into a trailer to take it down there and set it up,” he notes.

And everywhere he goes, people will see “Winged Beast Outfitters” painted on the trailer’s side.

Prentice says he thinks the mobile pop-up shop will give his quirky, whimsical T-shirts (including a dinosaur riding a whale) an interesting hook in a market full of clothes splashed with Chuck Norris slogans.

“I wanted to have a way to sort of express my creative vision in a way that wasn’t just: Table. Rack. Sell,” he says. “I really wanted to rethink that.”

Hockey can be a prohibitively expensive sport. Along with time commitment and health concerns, high equipment costs and league fees are reasons many give to explain Canada’s declining number of minor hockey players.

The key to saving money on hockey equipment is to determine when to buy it and what pieces to splurge on.

A new, just off the production line, one-piece composite stick, such as the incoming CCM RBZ, retails for $299.99. The new Bauer Vapor APX2 skate, the hottest skate on the market and available for pre-order, is $849.99. Even by skimping over the high-end products, racking up over $1,000 for a full set of hockey equipment isn’t out of the ordinary.

Buyers have to understand the hockey equipment market is an oligarchy. Bauer Performance Sports Ltd., Easton-Bell Sports and Rebook International Limited dominate the market. (CCM, one of the most well known brands, was acquired by Reebok in 2004.) There is little discrepancy in price between the different brands but certainly in models within those brands.

But going cheap doesn’t mean strapping on steak knives to your sneakers and calling it a day. There are full equipment kits for children just starting hockey available for less than $200, but it’s generally not recommended.

“As a rule of thumb, it’s better to go piece by piece,” says Ralph MacLean, the manager of Valiquette’s Source for Sports in Ottawa. “There’s always something in the kit that does not fit. Always. Never fails.”

The business of price points

Another tip MacLean gives is to be wary of what you should spend most of your money on. The most important pieces are helmet and skates. If they don’t fit properly, it may hinder a child’s hockey development or cause injury.

“I compare hockey gloves to buying a car,” says MacLean. “It’s the Cadillac and you’ll always tend to spend money on hockey gloves [to show off]… when they should be spending the extra money on the skates and helmet.”

Hockey equipment prices are based on price points, a price set to keep the demand high. In the past, skates have only been available at two or three prices, but with a wider selection of equipment than before, it allows for more price points.

Bauer’s “A Fit for Every Player” campaign was designed to give consumers a wider breadth of products. Bauer has three skate models, Supreme, Vapor and Nexus, and within each model there are five or six different price points.

“In most cases, the price points have been around for awhile and are somewhat dictated by the marketplace,” says Craig Desjardins, the general manager of equipment at Bauer. “The reality is, we fully understand that there’s different levels of play.” For the most part, the price points have not changed over the past 15 years, says Desjardins.

Nexus, Bauer’s newest line, comes in five different models, all at different price points. Bauer’s wide selection, as well as its emphasis on research and development, has pushed other brands off the shelf. More than half the players in the NHL wear Bauer skates. MacLean no longer stocks Easton skates on his shelves anymore.

Production cycle and sales

Hockey sticks, of which MacLean estimates he sells around 3,000 per year, are the most widely purchased hockey equipment because of the relatively short shelf life. There are many more price points for sticks than there are for other pieces of equipment.

“$179 is the rule of thumb [for price points in sticks],” says MacLean. “It doesn’t sell. People will jump from $159 to $199, but $179 is in the middle of nowhere. Although sticks usually come at price points in $20 increments, the quality between a $159 stick and a $199 stick is large enough for people to splurge on the $199.

New models of hockey equipment are usually released in early summer and put in production for two years. Once a stick is in its second year of release, it becomes much cheaper, usually by a third of the price, going from $299 to $199. And, unlike old wood sticks, composite sticks don’t deteriorate, meaning that even if the stick has been on the shelf for more than five years, it will still feel like a brand new stick.

“April 15 is usually our target date to launch,” says Desjardins. “Either you have a lot of leagues ending or summer hockey’s about to begin. As you get back to school, you have that focal action available at the marketplace.”

There are no “summer sales” when it comes to hockey equipment. Sales are usually determined store to store, not by season.

“We tend to sell the most from the second week of August right through the whole month of September, and then again from December 10 right through to the end of January,” says MacLean. August and September coincide with the start of the minor hockey season, while December and January is usually the time when elite players often invest in a new pair of skates. Because of the high traffic, it’s when MacLean has most of his sales.

Like any business, the hockey equipment market has had to adapt to online shopping. “There’s been a big discrepancy in pricing, for a number of years, between Canada and the U.S.,” says MacLean. In the past, due to Canada’s taxes, hockey equipment was cheaper in the U.S. Many Canadians were buying equipment online from American sites and getting it shipped to the border where they could pick it up, saving them sales tax in the process. That practice will likely soon by changing.

On March 21, the federal government announced in its 2013 budget that tariffs would be taken off hockey equipment. Though the change is unlikely to affect retail prices for hockey equipment, it’s still too early to see what impact will have.

For Stephen and Amelie the decision for Stephen to become a stay-at-home father to their two year-old son was mostly financial. Both parents are federal government employees living and working on the Quebec side of the national capital region. Amelie has the higher government salary of the two; Stephen also earns income running a computer support business, which he will be doing while caring for his son.

“The decision to work from home is a risk because the computer money is not stable and in the government you always get a pay cheque,” says Stephen.

Rob Dempster, a certified financial adviser at Carleton Financial Services Inc., says the family needs to examine how much income will fall with one less income.

“You have to look at what the costs of maintaining the family unit for the twelve months are going to be or what the revenues are going to go down by”

“There is a financial calculation that needs to be done,” says Dempster. “There is typically a strain on the finances.”

Their ability to live off Amelie’s income alone was a major factor in their decision. Stephen says paying off most of their student loans and having regular mortgage payments were important.

“I decided that I do not care about money,” says Stephen. “It is the one time in your entire life that you can spend time with your child.”

“Men staying at home with the child in the first year is a decision between mom and dad. It is sometimes premeditated and thought through from a financial perspective, which I like to think a financial adviser should be brought into the equation,” says Dempster

Stephen says paying off most of their student loans has helped and that they do not carry much debt except for their mortgage payments. They plan on cutting back on utilities.

He says the change will make them think more about finances but that there should not be a cash flow issue. He will continue to work on computers while staying home with his son but the workload is more flexible.

Stephen and Amelie chose to live in Quebec, and not Ottawa, because house prices and transportation costs were cheaper at the time they were looking for a house. Financially, the differences for the family are higher income taxes, transportation costs, and provincially subsidized seven dollar-a-day daycare.

“The actual cost of living in Quebec without a child as versus living in Ontario without a child were about the same,” says Stephen. “With a child we came out well ahead.”

The ball started rolling for Stephen to stay at home after there was an issue with Wilfrid staying in subsidized daycare. Stephen took time off from his work to look for a new daycare. Eventually Stephen negotiated an alternative work arrangement with his manager, which allowed him to work from home for three days a week. Amelie and her mother each covered one of the other two days.

His advice to parents thinking of staying at home is to keep debt low and when at home with your kids, get out of the house.