Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for February 14th, 2007

Our amigos at Stats Canada are saying that we are spending more time at work and less time with our families (for those unsure Tempus Fugit is Latin for Time Flees) . Speaking as someone in the High Tech world, all I can say is, “D’Uh!”. Given there is no real regulation of how many hours high tech folks work (any more, used to, but the laws changed), the assumption is now “Longer Hours makes better employees”. I have heard of bosses who would wear it as a Red Badge of Courage if one of their employees went on stress leave, so I am not at all surprised by these findings.

The study showed that time spent with family members declined between 1986 and 2005 for most groups of workers. For example, in 1986 women spent an average of 248 minutes with their family members, while in 2005 they spent 209 minutes, a difference of 39 minutes during a typical working day.

For men, the average time fell by 45 minutes, from 250 minutes in 1986 to 205 in 2005.

…

Between 1986 and 2005, the average time devoted to paid employment during the typical workday, including lunch and coffee breaks, increased considerably. On average, Canadians worked 536 minutes, or 8.9 hours, during a typical workday in 2005, up from 506, or 8.4 hours, two decades earlier.

Doesn’t sound like much does it? Those of us with children (both small and large) know how much those numbers actually are. Our lives are no longer our own any more thanks to useful devices like Laptop Computers, Portable Phones and PDA’s, etc.,. I sit at basketball games where parents are supposed to be watching their kids and instead they are part of a “sales call” or something.

I lament the loss of control in our lives. Money is just not that important folks (IMHO)

OK, so my rant yesterday might have been a little confusing, so I figured I’d run through the entire scenario with a stock that I own, but not the actual shares held numbers for me (I am paranoid about my secrecy sometimes, I know).

Let’s take Sun Life Financial (stock ticker symbol SLF on the Toronto Exchange)

It’s current price is $52.41 per share Canadian . The reason I bought it was for dividends, and because I actually deal with them on a few things with my job, and figured they seemed to know how to make money (this is not an endorsement on my part, simply an explanation as to why I own shares in them).

First thing to find out is whether Sun Life offers a Dividend Reinvestment Program, and yes they do, so that is a check on the list.

What was the last dividend they paid? They paid $0.32 per common share, from their latest financial statement.

How many shares do I need to own to get a share in the DRIP program?

I trust the arithmetic is straight forward here. So if I own less than 164 shares of SLF they would simply credit my trading account the amount of the dividend (number of shares * 32 cents) and that would be it. If I owned 165 shares however, I would get 1 extra share of SLF in my account and some amount less than a dollar as the amount left over from the dividend.

Remember these dividends are quarterly paid as well, so if I owned the right amount of shares I might get new share certificates in my account 4 times a year. Not too shabby, I think.

This is one way to invest, it is not the only way, and for me it is one of the few ways I understand, so I stick with this for now.