Canadian finance, explained

Canadian money, without the sales pitch.

Most money advice tells you what to choose. Rethink Normal explains how it actually works, so you can understand it first, then decide.

Start with credit cards Watch the videos

Start with the mechanics, not the marketing.

Paying in full does not protect your utilization. Paying in full and your utilization.

What counts as a cash advance is not only cash. Cash advances, and what they cost.

A card that pays four percent on groceries can pay one percent at the checkout. Why the category never matched.

The Amex Cobalt is a specialist card, sold as a general recommendation. The Amex Cobalt’s break-even.

New: A 5% grocery card pays 5% only on the spending below its limit. What does 5% back pay?

See the whole path

Where the number comes from, and what actually moves it.

Five things build a credit score, and payment history is the largest of them. How a score is actually built.

The score in your app may not be the score a lender sees. Why yours looks different everywhere.

A file with nothing in it is not a bad file. Building from zero.

Your first limit is the issuer’s choice. How much of it you use is yours. What a thin file costs.

How a score is built, which score a lender sees, starting from zero and a first limit, taken in order. See the whole path.

Where the system actually starts for you.

What you set up in your first month in Canada keeps running after you stop looking at it. Five that keep running.

A newcomer account’s free period ends on a set date, and cheaper accounts exist after it. What happens when the free period ends.

Each of these five bank fees depends on a choice you can make. Five you do not have to pay.

On a new credit file, asking for a higher limit and applying for a new card are different moves. The mistake in the middle.

New: Desjardins is a cooperative, not a bank. Banking in Quebec.

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No affiliate linksNo sponsors. Nothing for sale. Just the math.

Primary sourcesFCAC, Equifax, TransUnion, CDIC, the CRA, and the card issuers' own pages.

One person writes itResearched and written by Aman Sabarwal, in Winnipeg.

Checked against sourceEach step page lists its sources and the date they were checked.

Checked against source

Helping Canadians see money differently, so they make better financial decisions.

No affiliate links. No sponsors. Nothing for sale. Just the math.

Every step page has a Sources section at the foot: the public documents its claims were checked against, and the date they were checked. Where a page and its video disagree, the page says so.

For settlement agencies, credit unions and employers

The same explanations, licensed for your programs, or built to your brief. Independent, sourced, and safe to hand a client, because there is nothing in it selling them anything.

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