Canadian Personal Finance Blog

So I get good and bad news reading the paper these days. There is talk of drops in federal tax rates, which is always nice (I view it as a virtual raise, since I don’t get raises from my high tech employer). That is the good news, but the threat now is rising Interest rates for the next 18 months? Oh joy!

I think I have mentioned my greatest paranoia is that we go back to the black days of the late 70’s and early 80’s of hyper-inflation, 20% interest rates and unemployment. I really pray that my dire view of the future is WRONG but, you know what can save you from this? Don’t carry DEBT and then you can take advantage of high interest rates to increase your savings (and not kill you with a larger debt load).

Gas prices in Ottawa are below 90 cents a liter for now, but how long is that going to last? Hopefully a long time, but again, who knows? If you do know, give me a hint, will you?

Interesting that our friend over at the Canadian Capitalist has not seen an increase in his heating costs yet either, but again, we shall see there. I checked my Ottawa Hydro bill and noticed that my electrical usage dropped by 22% between June-July to August-September which are comparable months, so this seems to imply my new air conditioner and furnace is saving me some money (I hope). I’ll keep looking closely at that one.

–C8j