Canadian money talk without market theatrics.
Free Lunch is a Canadian money show built around calm explanations, everyday examples, and the occasional sideways joke. Recent episodes move from DIY investing mistakes and RIF withdrawal fears to taxes, happiness research, war-driven volatility, and long-term discipline.
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Free Lunch is a Canadian investing and financial planning show with a conversational, practical centre of gravity. It sounds less like a finance lecture and more like financially experienced people sorting through a real client question at the table. The show’s recent run covers retirement income, RIF meltdown strategies, RSP and TFSA decisions, Canadian taxes, investment discipline, market volatility, and the emotional traps that come with managing money. It likes a plain analogy. A do-it-yourself painting project becomes a way to talk about mistakes, fatigue, and the limits of confidence. A cancelled trip after cartel violence in Puerto Vallarta opens a discussion about risk, reward, probability, and war-related volatility. St. Patrick’s Day jokes and family-history asides lead back toward luck, discipline, and what investors can actually control. The show is comfortable with acronyms, but it usually translates them into consequences. RSPs, RIFs, LIFs, TFSAs, DSCs, tax rates, employer costs, and after-tax dollars are treated as working tools rather than status signals. The recurring argument is careful and conservative: structure matters, costs matter, taxes matter, and emotional decisions can do lasting damage. It does not frame investing as a hunt for genius moves. It frames it as a long game where avoiding leverage, panic selling, and concentration risk may matter more than chasing upside. Blair’s financial planning lens gives some episodes a more technical spine, especially when retirement withdrawals and account choices are on the table. Colin and Greg bring a more anecdotal rhythm, with jokes and detours that make the concepts easier to hold. The show also occasionally broadens beyond portfolios into happiness, public services, social supports, and how countries fund the systems people say they want. Those moments are still money conversations, just widened to include tradeoffs. Free Lunch is best for Canadians who want calm financial context before making big choices. It will not provide personalized advice, and it repeatedly makes that boundary clear. Its value is in showing how the pieces fit together before fear, marketing, or overconfidence takes over.
Made for: For Canadians who want clearer thinking around investing, retirement income, taxes, and account choices. It suits listeners who prefer practical examples and measured discussion over stock tips or hype.
What sets it apart: Free Lunch makes technical Canadian planning feel tactile, using household stories and dry banter to explain risk, tax structure, and investor behavior. Its strongest habit is slowing down financial advice that sounds urgent and asking whether it actually fits.
Join us on the Free Lunch as we discuss educational content on investing, savings strategies, financial planning, and all of things that are important that require planning, money and time. The Free Lunch Podcast is hosted by Canvas Wealth, a wealth management team that has been working with investors since 1985. At the core of our investment philosophy, you will find these principles: -Markets Are Efficient and Work over Time -Successful Investing Results from a Long-Term Disciplined Approach -Fear and Greed Degrade Portfolio Returns -Costs Make a Difference -Portfolio Diversification Reduces Risk To learn more about Canvas Wealth, visit our website...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Free Lunch makes financial choices clearer by connecting investment mechanics with taxes, behavior, housing pressure, and the consequences of avoidable mistakes.
Free Lunch turns financial planning into a working conversation, with Colin Andrews, Blair Howell, and Greg Kraminsky testing broad principles against taxes, account choices, housing costs, investment fees, leverage, and emotional decision-making.
Colin's condo paint job becomes a lesson in panic selling before you can put down the roller.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A kitchen-table reminder that the biggest investing risk is the mistake you cannot unwind.
The episode opens with Greg painting his son's condo, and that ordinary job gives the discussion a low-key, lived-in start. A blizzard, a paint roller, and a reminder about DIY investing mistakes set the tone.
A clear conversation about wealth, happiness, and the tradeoffs behind prosperity.
This episode treats wealth as a lived question, not a slogan. Greg and Colin begin with the familiar split between being rich and being wealthy, then widen the frame to happiness, public services, taxes, and the tradeoffs that sit behind prosperity.
A calm wrap-up on how account structure can make retirement money harder to dip into.
Free Lunch ends its financial planning mini-series with a plainspoken set of rules of thumb. It lays out when an RSP can make sense, when a TFSA may be the cleaner fit, and why the structure of the account can matter as much as the raw numbers.
A macro-to-micro look at Canadian financial planning, anchored by housing pressure and the gap between paper wealth and cash flow.
Canadian financial planning is treated as a working system, not a slogan. Colin Andrews and Blair Howell move from broader context into the pressures that matter day to day: housing costs, cash flow, savings, investing, retirement, and the gap between paper wealth and monthly…
A practical look at cheaper investing and the changing role of the advisor.
Greg and Colin settle into an easy reunion and use it to trace how investing moved from mutual funds to ETFs and liquid alts, with the advisor's role shifting along the way. The strongest stretch is the plainspoken talk about diversification and the old MERs near 3 percent.
Trial craft, verdict stories, and lawyer reps.
Queensland estate planning, made concrete.
DIY investing.
This episode discusses RRIF meltdown strategies, exploring how retirees should approach withdrawing money from their retirement savings accounts like RSPs and RIFs, and addressing common misconceptions about urgency in these decisions.
The hosts announce that Canvas Wealth has acquired TD Bank and Scotiabank, forming a new entity called CWTDBNS, with plans for operational changes.
The hosts discuss personal risk assessment through a travel cancellation story and connect it to financial concepts like volatility and probability theory, referencing Blaise Pascal.
The hosts discuss St.
Money isn't the whole scoreboard.
Colin and Blair start with a couple of coughs and some cold-season banter before circling back to the final chapter of their four-part financial planning mini-series.
Free Lunch uses this episode to step back and look at financial planning in Canada from the top down.
Greg and Colin are back.
The hosts continue a conversation about reflecting on significant changes in the financial industry and other professions over the past 30 years, comparing it to fields like law where technology has transformed practices.
Greg Kraminsky discusses retirement preparation and expectations based on his experience advising clients on investments and financial planning.
This episode features an interview with lawyer Marty Birky, who shares his career journey from corporate law to family law and discusses his background and experiences in the legal field.
This episode discusses the differences between individual bonds and bond funds, focusing on current yields and investment strategies for fixed-income assets.