Canadian Personal Finance Blog

If you are a red-blooded, coffee swilling Canadian (like most of us are), and you haven’t bought Tim Horton’s stock yet (see the Canadian Capitalist for his overview on that, he has some good stuff on it), READ closely the Roll Up The Rim “fine print”.

All the following data is available at the Tim Horton’s web site (click on this link):

So I am in Region 5 (Eastern Ontario), this is useful to know, since I don’t plan to be traveling too much during this contest. So in Region 5, if I want to win the car (which of course is the logical choice of things I want to win), what are my chances?

Well there will be 1 Cup of size Medium that will win a car, 1 Cup of Large size and 0 (ZERO) of size XL that will win. Pardon? So if I buy an XL coffee the way I do most mornings, my chances of winning the car is ZERO? Oh, ok, so I won’t be buying an XL coffee until this contest is over, because I can’t win the car!

Now, if you read the statistical weasel words, this is the APPROXIMATE distribution likely of winning cups for the car, so I guess it is possible to win the car with an XL cup in Ottawa, but my suspicions are, it is INCREDIBLY unlikely (as opposed to if I buy a Large coffee, where the chances are VERY unlikely).

What does this have to do with financial planning and such? Not much, but if you want to WIN at a game, it’s always important to know ALL the rules (in life, and in financial planning too).

I’ll have a large with double cream please. –C8j

Well, in the first place, you are too late for this year to do your last minute RRSP stuff (sorry folks, my planning stuff isn’t always timely), but you can always start your RRSP work for next year, right now!

The data I mention are in the following posts: Case 1: Put It In The Bank , Case 2: Refund to RRSP, Case 3: Refund to Mortgage

I think what the plethora of numbers over the past few days has show is that:

1. Putting money in your RRSP is a good thing. The money is not just retirement money, it is “catastophe” money too, so if you have RRSP room, I would say use it.
2. Should I pay off my mortgage or max out my RRSP? Yes is my answer :-). Do either, but do at least one, is my advice. There isn’t a wrong answer here folks, both are good things and if you can do it, good for you!
3. An ideal “mixed” idea is to put your money on your RRSP, get your refund and then put that on your mortgage, and you then end up with a nice RRSP, and a mortgage paid off sooner. If you need my advice, that would be my suggestion.

If you want the excel spreadsheet to fool around with it, send me an e-mail and I’ll mail it to you (it’s pretty straight forward).

More real life rants to come. Happy Ash Wednesday, enjoy Lent. –C8j