Good morning. AI is making it harder than ever to know what (or who) to trust, to the point where it could push some people away from online sources of information. However, one corner of the internet continues to attract Canadians looking for answers to some of their biggest financial questions: Reddit. But should you trust strangers on the internet for money advice? That’s what I wanted to find out.

With more than one million weekly visitors, the r/PersonalFinanceCanada subreddit is one of Canada’s biggest forums for money conversations. Every day, people turn to it to ask questions they might never ask a financial adviser, family member or friend: Can I afford a home? Am I saving enough? Should I invest or pay down debt?

Its popularity is an anomaly in the age of Google and AI summaries. But alongside thoughtful advice comes social comparison, trolling, snarking and AI video-generated content (despite rules against it).

I interviewed some folks who use the subreddit. Here’s a glimpse of what they had to say:

Miller Kriese (a 23-year-old who got a job that allowed him to start saving for the first time): “The advice that sort of succeeds and gets to the top is generally quite sound and less polarized, which I think you compare to a platform like TikTok, where a really big percentage of personal finance content is essentially directly affiliate promoted content.”

Lienke Abdeen (a 29-year-old who felt negatively about her own money situation after she compared herself with those on the subreddit): “I’m working so hard, and my salary is maybe 10 per cent of what these people seem to be making.”

Katherine Wong Too Yen (a 35-year-old who joined the subreddit in her early 20s to learn more about money): “When I initially joined, it was a community that felt safe to post. ... As the subreddit has grown, you will see more people who are more judgmental. You will have some answers that are more sarcastic, people who are trolling, and you will see people make posts where you’re like, ‘Okay, all of this was clearly ChatGPT-generated.’”

Allison Dubé (a 40-year-old who thinks that people are drawn to the platform because of their distrust in traditional financial knowledge-holders): “I think it reflects kind of our relationship with financial institutions, because we don’t view them as a trusted source entirely, because we do recognize that they’re selling a product, right?”

Here’s the full story (which looks incredible, thanks to The Globe’s visual and digital teams).

Workplace pension plans hold more than $2.1-trillion in assets, but those savings are far from evenly distributed. Frederick Vettese, former chief actuary at Morneau Shepell, writes that the average public-sector worker has access to hundreds of thousands of dollars more in workplace pension assets than the average private-sector worker.

How this investor built a TFSA worth $875,000

The numbers: Albert, 40, has has built a TFSA worth about $875,000 while holding a diversified portfolio of roughly 50 stocks, with no single position making up more than 5 per cent of the account.

The strategy: Rather than concentrating his bets, Albert built his portfolio by following the stock purchases of top asset managers, buying companies he liked after price pullbacks. He also boosted his TFSA’s growth by making carefully timed in-kind transfers of stocks and call options from his taxable account.