Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for November, 2006

Our amigo over at the Canadian Capitalist, had a good posting yesterday about the amount of groceries that are wasted by a typical household. I can believe that we waste 14% of our groceries, if not more in our household, and we spend a lot of money on groceries with 4 kids and two adults as well. I can say that my major expenses are:

1. Taxes (yes, I am bitching about that still)
2. Home (Mortgage , insurance and repairs)
3. Cars (insurance, gas, payments)
4. Groceries

Now you can’t do a lot about (1), you can buy a house at a price you can afford and live in, Cars, well I am still shuddering about how much I would be out of pocket if I hadn’t bought an extended warranty, yet my 12 year old Honda has not been too bad a drain. That leaves groceries, and there you have the opportunity to control your spending and do it in an intelligent manner, with shopping lists, and making sure you check your cupboards before you go out and buy stuff.

Don’t waste any more money, keep it in your pocket! -C8j

Yes, I caught myself doing something that as a kid drove me quite insane. My mother and father grew up in a completely different world than I did, and have very different ideas about the importance of saving (their attitudes are much better than their son, I freely admit). My mother was always saving a little bit here and there, and one of her tricks was taking left over cereal from old boxes and adding them to the new boxes (because her lazy sons would open the new cereal before the old one was finished). Now that may not sound too bad to you, but it didn’t matter if the old box was Puffed Rice and the new box was Corn Flakes. This meant that you ended up with some very interesting hodge podge cereals, and you never knew what would pour out of the box in the morning.

This morning, I did the exact same thing. I must admit, I finally had it with my daughters not finishing the cereal, and we have 5 boxes of cereal open, so I started to merge boxes together. I am very interested to see what they think of it tomorrow morning, when they get their “special mix” cereal?

Another thing Mum liked to do was to pour the remnants of Ketchup bottles into the new ones, and I must admit I do that one, and I also do that with Laundry Detergent as well.

Thanks for the lessons in life Mum, your ways are sometimes the best!

Well, I heard on the CBC that the Liberal Women’s Caucus had published their Pink Book and was wondering what the fiscal angle of this was (I knew I wasn’t going to agree with the policies much, because their point of view assumes (incorrectly, in my opinion) that all women want to “work” outside of the household, but I figured I’d see how much this might cost me, if the Liberals regained power).

So the highlights of the policies were:

The Liberal Women’s Caucus proposes that a new Liberal government should:

• Honour the bilateral agreements signed with provinces and territories to provide a system of early learning and child care across the country. These agreements shouldbe protected by legislation. The original Liberal commitment was for $1 billion ayear for five years – this level of support must be reinstated as a minimum startingpoint.

• As a longer-term goal, establish a schedule for federal funding of child care so it reaches one per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as recommended by the OECD report, Starting Strong II.

• Re-invest the $1,200 per year, per family, provided under the Conservative government’s policy in the Canadian Child Tax Benefit (CCTB). The Canadian Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) is already in place and works efficiently and effectively. By increasing the base benefit by $1,200, the overwhelming majority of Canadian families would receive – and keep – a $1,200 increase in their Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB).

• Direct the value of the Spousal Credit – the tax deduction for a spouse at home – to be paid directly to the spouse, who, in most instances, will be a woman.

OK, I couldn’t resist putting it in pink, my apologies. So what are my opinions (since naturally you are very interested in that):

1. How is this $1B over five years going to be financed? That’s an easy one to snipe at, but I figured I’d state the obvious.
2. Federal funding of daycare? What about families that don’t need daycare? Do they get to share in this?
3. You are going to take away my $1200 “… beer and popcorn …” money and reinvest it? Hey, that’s my beer and popcorn money, and you are going to take it away now? Oh, ok, you are going to give it back to me in a credit, ok, I guess, but why do I suspect that Credit gets clawed back, because I am far to affluent for my own good?
4. Spousal credit goes directly to the spouse not working? The language almost implies that the moneys might get taken by the other spouse, so we must be careful to protect that moneys from the greedy spouse!!! Yes, I am being facetious, but still, I always find the wording of this stuff very interesting.

What about Single income families, is my usual comment? Oh and the comment about protecting women from becoming “Barefoot, Pregnant and Tied to the Kitchen” is classic. Whenever my wife was pregnant I made sure she at least wore socks! -C8j

So in an article from last May, I outlined how I allocate my 3 daughters their weekly allowances. The simple explanation is that I have taken advantage of the free transfers between accounts that I have signing authority to transfer the money directly to their accounts. What I have learned now from running this experiment for about 3 years is:

Advantages:

1. I don’t forget to give them their allowances, which was the major problem I had.
2. The girls learn how direct withdrawal works
3. Some fiscal concepts like saving become obvious, which is good. I can also transfer baby sitting payments to my oldest, easily as well.
4. They are using their money to buy things like gifts for friends and their own clothes, which was not the plan, but I applaud every time they do it.

Disadvantages

1. Kids don’t see the money, so forget that they have it.
2. They have not picked up the “checking your monthly balance statements” the way I hoped, they rely on me telling them how much money they have.
3. Money seems to be invisible to at least one of the children.
4. The cafeteria at the high school takes direct withdrawal, so they use their allowances to buy lunch a little too often (IMHO).

All in all, I think the experiment is working. I think I need to sit down with the girls and discuss a few of the finer points I’d like to see, but I think it is working.

I am now in search of any other interesting experiments like this to teach my kids more about money. No, I am not giving them access to their RESPs, that is not going to happen until they need it! –C8j

Think of that amount of money flying through cash registers (or worse still onto credit cards) all over the States. This number staggered me, was all this money spent on things that were needed or things that were wanted? Think about that number, it’s staggering. How is it possible that we have a society that can squander (ok, a little dramatic, but certainly waste) $8B on a holiday that is to commemorate Christ’s birth (don’t get all P.C. on me it’s Christmas, all right).

What would Christ think? That’s a darn good question. Ask yourself that question, and see if you can figure out an answer for that one, because I can’t right now. Yes, I know I am going to blow a lot of money on Christmas, but I am going to try to at least give some moneys to charity. Who can you give to, instead of buying a new MP3 player? My parents used to give to the Brewery Mission in Montreal, I never asked why, but they did. I give to charities that mean something to me, but you should give to charities that “speak” to you.

What would Jesus do, if he had $8 Billion? Darn good question. –C8j