There's nothing worse than a reformed smoker. My dad used to smoke a pack a day and since he's quit he loudly exclaims how disgusted he is by smokers whenever we pass one on the street. I'm not a reformed smoker; I'm a reformed personal finance screw-up. A couple years ago I decided that I didn't want to be perpetually in debt, so paid off all my debt and started educating myself on personal finance. I read personal finance books and blogs, watched shows like Til Debt Do Us Part and lectured friends on their wanton spending habits.

So I was intrigued when I saw the launch announcement for Toronto-based startup Spenz, billed as "Mint for Gen Y" by founder Justin Hein. The app aims to answer the question "where did my money go" by helping you track your spending by category. The app launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City last month, and was the only Canadian company chosen to present on stage. Hein says the app is targeted specifically at college and university students who are getting their first dose of money management.

Last September, I wrote about Toronto company Loose Button, an online shopping site that made international fashion brands accessible to Canadian consumers. In true tech start-up fashion, they recently started to offer a service similar to the U.S.-based Birchbox, which delivers hand-picked beauty samples to one's door every month in a nicely packaged Haute Box.

Because Birchbox doesn't deliver to Canadians' doors, the opportunity was open for Loose Button founder Ray Cao. He re-focused the company and debuted a similar product, Luxe Box, earlier this year to a select group of invite-only testers. Now Loose Button has rebranded it as "Luxe Box by Loose Button" and its opening the "luxury beauty products for everyone" service to the public.

New Toronto startup SocialGift is helping gift-givers and birthday boys and girls everywhere get what they actually want for big occasions by removing the friction affiliated with group gift giving. Through online tools like Twitter and Facebook users can invite family and friends to contribute to a social gift, with a process the team calls "smoother than ordering a pizza."

Let's be honest, it's hard to tell people what you actually want for your birthday. Your crazy aunt, parents and best friend all want to know what to get you, but instead of saying "a new Macbook" like you really want to, you say "oh nothing, maybe some socks." And when you're buying a gift for a friend, whether for a birthday or other occasion, you're usually searching for a reasonably priced bottle of wine, instead of getting them something they actually want (although let's get serious - everyone likes wine).

Buying a house in Toronto is something I haven't cared to learn about until now. Sure, it's great to be educated about the home-buying process, but for me it was always depressing to learn about the sky-high condo prices downtown, where I want to eventually buy a property. So instead of researching mortgage rates and figuring out the difference between pre-construction and resale properties, I've been renting in ignorant bliss, slowly saving up for the elusive down payment.

This spring when I realized that by George, I might actually have enough to buy a place this decade, I set out to learn as much as I could about the home-buying process. While researching, I discovered a couple Toronto-based startups that are making buying a home a simple process for potential buyers, both pre- and post-purchase.

Remember the show Pop-up Video? I used to love watching of-the-moment '90's music videos (think Fastball and Celine Dion) play with pop-up facts and trivia about the artist and the behind-the-scenes filming. It was way more entertaining to watch a video while learning that the guy in the background was the singer's ex-husband's brother, and I wish it was still on today so I could find out why Ke$ha's videos are so terrible.

Although video is a huge part of the Web 2.0 landscape (hello YouTube and Vimeo), so far the videos themselves have lacked interaction. While you can post a comment under a video and share the entire thing with your friends, there's no easy way to interact with your social graph within the video and share only the pieces you find relevant. Toronto startup LeanIn is aiming to make video more social, or as they say "more fun with friends."

I've never tried online dating, but I know friends and family members who have. And while I've heard a lot of lovely stories about people finding a soulmate (mostly via eHarmony commercials),horror stories are just as common. Toronto entrepreneur Sean Miller heard many of these horror stories while on his own search for love online, and it led him to wonder how many of these women were giving out their phone numbers to less-than-desirable men. So he decided to build a way for women to give out their phone number to potential suitors without compromising their privacy.

Toronto-based Tigits provides a secondary, changeable phone number to people who are looking for security and privacy on their phone. Subscribers' real phone number is masked by a set of temporary digits (hence Tigits - get it?). I entered my name and phone number, and in about 10 seconds I had my new Tigits phone number and voicemail PIN. Finally, anonymity is mine!