Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Yup, prices are up year over year for December at an adjusted rate of 1.6%, which seems kind of low, but it is still up from last month, which is not good (last month it was only 1.4%). Hmmm… this is not a good thing I think.

Inflation is one of those words that we older folks cringe at hearing and scares the living be-jumblies out of me, since I remember the inflation of the late 70’s and what it did to the economy. I am not saying we are heading into an inflationary spiral, yet, however, we need to watch the price index closely.

The biggest increase in our basket of goods was in the area of Shelter, or home costs. The price of homes and renovating them continues to increase, at 3.8%, and food is up 2.2% as well. Shockingly alcohol and tobacco costs are up as well (those sin taxes kicking in I guess) 3.2%.

My kids will be happy that their clothing and footwear have actually dropped in price over that period.

Our ever shrinking buck. –C8j

A good comment from someone jogged another area where you need to have a look at your financial resume and that is in the usage of your credit cards, and do you have them under control?

When I first graduated from University for the first year or two I actually carried a balance on my credit card (yes, hang my head in shame, but no one ever taught me about this stuff, if they had, I wouldn’t have done it honest). Now it wasn’t a large balance, but it was enough to be a drag on my life. This was a mistake but I learned from my mistake.

I no longer carry balances on credit cards, and ensure I never have to pay the high interest rates most credit cards charge, so that is a good thing, I’ll give myself a green star for that one.

I do however have FAR too many credit cards. I went to the Canadian Credit check folks and got a list of all the folks who have open credit files on me (with zero dollar balances) and it is scary. These things are dangerous because:

1. Fraud on these accounts is more likely, just because there are a lot of them
2. I have access to this credit, and quite frankly, I don’t trust myself on impulse buying or worse still fooling myself into some bizarre get rich scam, which causes me to draw on these credit facilities.

I need to get rid of all of the credit facilities and cards I do not need, so black mark on me for that one too!

On your financial resume, include a short term debt section and how you deal with it, and whether you think it is under control, which is important. If your short term debt is out of control, it will effect (affect?) your long term debt eventually. –C8j