I spend a lot of time thinking about personal finance and, as the decade draws to a close, am feeling retrospective. Ten years ago I was getting married and working at a dot com startup. I had little personal equity, though I had diligently saved my earnings from part-time work during university, and my husband-to-be came saddled with a large student debt load.

That startup got burned in the dot com meltdown of 2000, my thousands of options up in smoke with it. But, since then, my husband and I have managed to pay off the student loans and build our net worth through slow but steady investments in our RRSPs. We were also fortunate to get into the housing market early in the decade and benefit from the real estate boom.

Timing is everything in the markets, as in life. I have friends who, a few years younger than me, emerged from university with high hopes only to meet a tight job market and an inflated housing sector. Couples who were on the verge of retirement before the recession now face portfolio losses and have had to expand their employment horizon.

Although many consider the aughts a lost decade for the broader economy, it was also a decade that begat innovations for small investors and families trying to manage their finances. Here are a few of the advances I find most notable in the world of personal finance.

Online tools:
From discount online trading accounts to web-based home budgeting tools, we now have more autonomy when it comes to managing our personal finances. We can update our own portfolios and access investment research reports online. There are programs such as Quicken Online, Mint.com, and moneyStrands to help us organize our household budgets and track our expenses. For a good overview of the many programs out there, check out the Get Rich Slowly blog on the subject. Online banking is now commonplace and we can pay bills online, move money between accounts and conduct all manner of banking business without leaving our home. This decade, the Internet put powerful financial tools at our fingertips, allowing us to more closely track, manage and invest our money.

Regulation Full Disclosure:
Reg FD, as it’s known in investment circles, was introduced by the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2000. The regulation mandated that all publicly traded companies disclose material information to investors at the same time. The best practices were adopted in Canada as well and attempted to level the playing field for small, individual investors. From my vantage point in the professional field of investor relations, I believe Reg FD has done more for the retail investor this decade than any other set of SEC rules, including Sarbanes-Oxley. I know of one money manager who closed his hedge fund once Reg FD was implemented. Suddenly everyone was privy to the same knowledge that had once helped him get an edge on the market. I do worry, though, that the high-tech trading tools that have given rise to high-frequency trading and dark pools will once again put the average individual investor at a disadvantage. Still an unregulated area of the market, these practices are now starting to come under the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the U.S. The next few years will likely bring some measures of oversight to these trading arenas.

Tax-Free Savings Accounts:
Launched at the start of 2009, the Tax-Free Savings Account has been heralded as the finest savings vehicle to come along for Canadians since the Registered Retirement Savings Plan. Canadians above the age of 18 can contribute up to $5,000 annually into a TFSA and any investment income earned is tax-free, unlike an RRSP. Even more compelling is that there are no penalties for withdrawals, making the TFSA the best way to save for short-term needs. Used for the long-term, the gains on this account accumulate attractively. If you contribute $2,500 to a TFSA every year, you will have nearly $64,000 in 20 years at an average annual return of 2.5 per cent. An RBC poll found that while most Canadians (71 per cent) are aware of the TFSA, three-quarters (76 per cent) have not yet opened one. Many of us either lack the funds to save or don’t fully understand how it works. Over the next few years, the TFSA may become as much a part of Canadians’ financial profiles as RRSPs are today.

Consumer protection:
One lesson we can take away from this decade is that easy access to credit can quickly lead to personal excess and even collapse of entire financial systems. From mortgages procured with little to no downpayment and escalating rates of interest to soaring credit card balances, we have all witnessed the downside of cheap money. We are now seeing governments step in to protect consumers from themselves. This past year, new credit card rules were introduced that require card issuers to give longer interest-free grace periods and get consumers’ consent for credit limit increases. The Canadian government is also reducing the length of mortgage amortization rates and raising the minimum downpayment requirements to inject more discipline into the housing market. The pendulum is swinging in favour of more government intervention to help keep our personal finances secure.