The $MART DEBT Strategies Library

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Section titled “⛔ DO NOT HAND EDIT THIS FILE”

It is generated by strategy-lint index from the strategies themselves. The next run overwrites anything typed here. Edit a strategy, then regenerate.

Every $MART DEBT strategy, sorted first by risk. Free, published, citable, non-interactive.

The standard this library is held to: every claim traces to a named source, and a field with no source says unverified — needs Talbot rather than guessing. A fabricated financial strategy is worse than a missing one. Schema and risk axis: SCHEMA.

How to read the risk level

The sort key is risk-level, a signed integer. What raises the level is new market exposure, not whether a loan is involved — a debt swap borrows and stays at level 1 because total debt and total assets are unchanged. SCHEMA §2.1–2.3.

-1 negative risk · 0 zero risk (“Can’t Lose”) · 1 low · 2 moderate · 3 high.

The level decides what the product is permitted to do — -1/0 permit a forced choice, 1 a neutral decision prompt, 2 and above objective education only. That mapping onto Strategic-Plan Rule 1 is defined once, in SCHEMA §2.4, and deliberately not restated here.

Any strategy that increases net market exposure is level 2 at minimum, however favourable its arithmetic.

The index

33 strategies. Sorted by risk level, then by rank within level.

Level -1 — Negative risk · everyone should ACT

Code	Strategy	Objective	Group	Juris.	Evidence	Tool
`BR-1`	Better Rates — Mortgage	pay less interest on a mortgage the borrower already holds, by moving it to a lower…	better-rates	Canada	documented	✓
`BR-3`	Better Rates — Consumer and Personal Debt	cut the rate on existing consumer debt (personal loans, lines of credit, card…	better-rates	Canada	documented	—
`BR-2`	Better Rates — HELOC	reduce the rate paid on an existing Home Equity Line of Credit balance	better-rates	Canada	documented	✓
`DD-1`	Claim the Investment-Interest Deduction You Already Qualify For	deduct interest already being paid on qualifying investment debt, where the deduction…	deduction	Canada	external-sourced	—
`DD-2`	Interest-Tracing Hygiene	protect a deduction the borrower already has, by keeping borrowed money demonstrably…	deduction	Canada	external-sourced	—
`DD-3`	Disappearing-Source Continuation (ITA §20.1)	keep deducting interest on investment debt that outlived the investment it funded,…	deduction	Canada	external-sourced	—
`BR-4`	Better Rates — Investment Loan	reduce the rate on existing investment debt, without changing the amount borrowed…	better-rates	Canada	external-sourced	—

Level 0 — Zero risk · everyone should ACT

Code	Strategy	Objective	Group	Juris.	Evidence	Tool
`RP-1`	Eliminate High-Cost Consumer Debt Before Leveraging	retire high-rate, non-deductible consumer debt first, because doing so is a guaranteed…	repayment	neutral	external-sourced	—
`BR-5`	Variable-Rate Relief	turn the automatic fall in variable-rate borrowing costs during a rate-cutting decline…	better-rates	Canada	documented	—
`RA-1`	HBP/LLP Early Repayment	make the year’s mandatory Home Buyers’ Plan or Lifelong Learning Plan repayment…	registered-accounts	Canada	documented	—
`LS-8`	Pre-Decline Deleveraging	reduce existing leverage while markets are high, for an investor who has already met…	leverage-structure	Canada	documented	—

Level 1 — Low risk · most should consider

Code	Strategy	Objective	Group	Juris.	Evidence	Tool
`DS-1`	Debt Swap	convert existing non-deductible personal debt into deductible investment debt,…	debt-swap	Canada	design-note	—
`ES-1`	Prescribed-Rate Spousal Loan	shift investment income from a higher-income spouse to a lower-income spouse legally,…	estate	Canada	external-sourced	—
`DD-4`	Capitalize Interest Election (ITA §21)	where a current interest deduction cannot be used, elect to add the interest to the…	deduction	Canada	external-sourced	—
`DS-2`	Cash Damming	accelerate the conversion of non-deductible debt into deductible debt by routing…	debt-swap	Canada	unverified	—
`LS-7`	Non-Callable First	for any leverage that is going to be taken, choose a structure the lender cannot call…	leverage-structure	Canada	documented	—
`LS-6`	Standby Credit Capacity	arrange non-callable borrowing capacity before a decline and leave it undrawn, so…	leverage-structure	Canada	documented	—
`IL-6`	RRSP Gross-Up Loan	contribute the fully grossed-up amount to an RRSP in one step, bridging the difference…	investment-loan	Canada	documented	—
`MT-1`	Valuation + Trend Rule	cut the damage from a major decline that starts at extreme valuations, with a written…	market-timing	Canada	documented	—

Level 2 — Moderate risk · most should NOT act

Code	Strategy	Objective	Group	Juris.	Evidence	Tool
`IL-1`	Interest-Only Investment Loan	invest a lump sum borrowed at t=0, servicing only the interest, so the full principal…	investment-loan	Canada	implemented-and-verified	✓
`IL-2`	Term (Amortizing) Investment Loan	invest a lump sum borrowed at t=0 and repay the loan on a fixed amortization schedule,…	investment-loan	Canada	implemented-and-verified	✓
`IL-4`	RRSP Catch-Up Loan	borrow a lump sum to fill unused RRSP contribution room immediately, then repay the…	investment-loan	Canada	implemented-and-verified	✓
`LS-1`	Conservative Leverage Ratio	size the loan so the leveraged position is survivable: borrow no more than the…	leverage-structure	Canada	external-sourced	—
`IL-3`	Interest-Only Then Term Loan (Two-Phase)	begin with an interest-only loan while cash flow is tight, then convert to an…	investment-loan	Canada	documented	—
`DS-3`	Smith Manoeuvre	convert a non-deductible residential mortgage into deductible investment debt,…	debt-swap	Canada	external-sourced	—
`LS-2`	LifeCycle Leverage (Glide Path)	vary leverage with life stage rather than holding it fixed: higher when young and the…	leverage-structure	Canada	design-note	—

Level 3 — High risk · most should NOT act

Code	Strategy	Objective	Group	Juris.	Evidence	Tool
`LS-3`	Margin Account Leverage	borrow against securities held in a brokerage account to buy more securities	leverage-structure	Canada	external-sourced	—
`LS-4`	Securities-Backed Line of Credit (SBLOC)	borrow against an existing investment portfolio through a credit line secured by the…	leverage-structure	Canada	external-sourced	—
`CO-1`	Corporate Borrowing to Invest (Holdco)	borrow inside a corporation to invest, deducting the interest at the corporate level…	corporate	Canada	external-sourced	—
`IL-5`	Borrowing to Fund a TFSA	borrow to make a Tax-Free Savings Account contribution, so the borrowed amount grows…	investment-loan	Canada	external-sourced	—
`LS-5`	Leveraged and Inverse ETFs	obtain leveraged market exposure through an exchange-traded fund rather than by borrowing	leverage-structure	neutral	external-sourced	—
`BM-1`	Buy More Low (BML)	deploy leverage counter-cyclically: invest more when markets have fallen and fear is…	buy-more-low	Canada	unverified	—
`BM-2`	Post-Decline Deployment	deploy borrowed capital into equities after a significant decline rather than…	buy-more-low	Canada	documented	—

What this library can and cannot compute

The distinction matters more than the strategy count, and nothing here hides it.

Can compute an outcome	Mechanism published, no outcome computable
interest-only-investment-loan · rrsp-catch-up-loan · term-investment-loan — modelled in `sd-math`, verified four ways against the original LevPro VB6 application	Every other strategy (30 of 33).

sd-math models taxable accounts only and individual taxation only; registered and tax-free account types raise NotImplementedError deliberately rather than applying the wrong model.

Strategies carrying a ✓ in the Tool column have an sd-app route that analyses them.

The honest gaps

2 strategies are unverified — named in SDC documents with no mechanism sourced anywhere reachable:

They are published as explicit stubs rather than omitted, so the library shows what is missing instead of hiding it.

Separately, effort and benefit are unverified — needs Talbot on every strategy. They were not guessed: a benefit-per-effort sort built on estimates is confidently wrong, and MDW-review measured a comparable set’s time estimates at 2.0–4.2× optimistic. See SCHEMA §3.4.

Out of scope

Community mechanisms — pull requests, contributor reputation, maintainers, red teams, bug bounties.
U.S. strategies. Every jurisdiction is Canada or neutral. U.S. applicability is unverified until sdc-risks-us-compliance-research runs.
Advisor-practice strategies — help for an advisor growing their business is an offering, not client IP. They live in SDC/Offerings/Advisors/Strategies/.
Portfolio-construction leverage — return stacking, portable alpha, risk parity. Embedded-leverage portfolio techniques rather than debt strategies; flagged in leveraged-etfs, a CEO call.

Notes

BML — Buy More Low, an SDC strategy name.
CCPC — Canadian-Controlled Private Corporation.
CRA — Canada Revenue Agency.
HELOC — Home Equity Line of Credit.
IP — Intellectual Property.
ITA — Income Tax Act (Canada).
OKF — Open Knowledge Format; this folder is a conformant OKF bundle (SCHEMA §9), which is why the index is named index.md.
RRSP — Registered Retirement Savings Plan.
SBLOC — Securities-Backed Line of Credit.
TFSA — Tax-Free Savings Account.

SCHEMA — the schema and the risk axis, including the risk-level → Rule 1 mapping
SDC/IP/JOB_DESCRIPTION.md — the charter that owns this library, and the Risks gate it inherited
Strategic-Plan — Phase 1b and Rule 1
Better-Rates-Strategy — why Better Rates is the first rung, strategically
SDC/Risks/JOB_DESCRIPTION.md — the risk-tiering constraint
sdc-behavioural-solutions-debt — the task that will settle the intervention ceilings