Canadian Personal Finance Blog

So FMF in the following post put a staggering point out there, Americans have spent over $4.3 Billion dollars (that is with a B) to take their money out of an ATM machine. Un-believe-able!!!

In my world, the trickery is even more evil (this is in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, if you don’t remember):

1. If I use my “home” banks machine there is no charge to take money out of my account (well, that isn’t completely true, since I have to pay a monthly charge to leave my money in the bank).
2. If “Interac” at a store, there is no charge for that priviledge (however, there are “white” debit machines appearing that WILL charge you $1.50 per transaction, so BEWARE).
3. If I take money out of my bank at work, using the “Co-op” here, it costs me $1.50 which is charged to my account at the end of the month. So I have to remember that if I need money, I need to go to the branch of my bank which is a mile away from my office, to get money out (usually before I get into my office).
4. If I want to take money out at a local Convenience Store, this will cost me $1.50-$3.00 up front which is taken directly from my account, before I get my money, and then $1.50 service charge from my bank.

WTF?!?! Pardon my rude TLA, but this is INSANE folks. This is MY money, yet I have to pay almost $5.00 to take $20.00 out? An entire INDUSTRY has grown out of this, people can buy ATM machines and run them, and make a living off people taking money out of their own banks?

This isn’t money laundering like the “Pay Cheque Advance” places, this is taking money out that you have earned people. YIKES!

How do you escape this?

1. Don’t use money, buy on credit, and be very careful to pay it all back
2. Take out money only at your bank, and make sure there isn’t a limit to the number of ATM withdrawals you have in a month.
3. Buy with “Interac” and if the store has a “White” machine, leave, and say, sorry, I am not buying then.
4. Carry cash!

Folks this kind of death by a thousand paper cuts is why Debt Reduction is so darn hard these days.

Stay alert folks –C8j

For those of you who are regular readers, Kids Allowances was the original post.

Real World Example: Kids Allowances

OK, so back to what this blog is about, real world financial ranting.

For the longest time my wife and I tried to get the kids on an allowance, so that they could learn what money is, how it works and some responsibility, but inevitably, we’d forget for a couple of weeks, try to catch up and eventually just gave up (much to the kids chagrin). Interesting, we were trying to teach the kids responsibility and all it did was show how irresponsible their parents were (now THAT is ironic).

About 6 years ago I was in the TD on one of my yearly visits, getting my bank fees waived for a year, and get them to fix something they had screwed up (I think it was my mortgage that year), when I asked about kids’ bank accounts. My brother sends the girls money every year, and we had got to the point where we didn’t want to just buy them toys with it. The poor woman who’s life I was ruining for the day, said the accounts could be opened then (since the kids had SIN numbers), and the accounts would show up “under” my account on my on line banking.

A day or two later, a light went on in my head. I called the bank on the phone lady (who I now call once a year, because I do most of my banking on line, but couldn’t figure out how to do what I wanted). I asked her to set up weekly transfers from my account to my kids accounts, thus assuring that the money was paid every week (whether I remembered or not).

Well, it has worked, the kids get their weekly allowances AND they actually do things like:

• Buy clothes that they really want
• Have somewhere to put their uncle’s money and can then buy what they want
• Buy presents for their friends birthdays (that one shocked me the first time it happened).

So it seems this experiment has worked, chalk one up for me.

I think this hour has 22 Minutes had the best “send up” of the Tories, which showed people acting like they had just taken Buckley’s Mixture, but they were in fact in a voting booth, choosing a Tory Candidate. That is just classic!

What does this mean? Means another minority government, mostly imasculated will pass a few little tidbits from their platform, and get turfed in 2 years or so (unless Paul Martin pulls a Pierre Trudeau, and cuts the legs out from under Harper in a Machiavelian fashion). The government will continue to function by shear momentum, agencies will put together their yearly plans, and life will go on.

Am I upset, happy or indifferent about this turn of events? Apathetic really, don’t care right now, I’ll wait to see what this really means in the next few months.