Canadian Personal Finance Blog

It’s Friday, I am on vacation, so here are some random thoughts from me:

• A Financial Blog Magazine has been published, and I am part of it (how could you have one without my bonne mots?).
• Canadian Capitalist pointed out a great Government of Canada ( CCTB Calculator )web site that lets you figure out how much you will be getting from the government (if you are a parent), in terms of Grants.
• An investment opinion from me is, Don’t buy stock in Dell Computers. I have had more issues with their order entry system than I would think is possible, and this is their business (i.e. take order, make computer, ship computer), if the first part of your business model still doesn’t work after 4 years (it’s a very long story), I can’t see you making a profit.
• If you remember my posts about The iPhone in Canada, I thought that Rogers was going to launch them at the same time in Canada, I was WRONG, no such luck. Oh well, guess we’ll have to let our American brothers product test it for us. An interesting side note is someone theorizes that Nortel could have built the iPhone in the 90’s? Really?
• What is open during Canada Day? I have no idea, now that it falls on a Sunday, but my guess is that most things will close on Monday, and I won’t get snail mail for about a week.

Enjoy yourselves, it’s the weekend!!! -c8j

Wow, the ATM is now 40 years old, at least this is the claim of the CBC, that is amazing. I remember when the Canada Trust in Waterloo got their first “Johnny Cash” machine (complete with catchy phrases in the machine that were supposed to read like Johnny Cash was getting you money). They even managed to get Johnny Cash to do a few ads for them, it was amazing. Now we use them and eschew dealing with the bank directly, yet continue to pay exorbitant fees to the bank for this privilege? Wow, we are gullible aren’t we?

In the first three months of the year Canada’s population increased by about 0.23% thanks mostly to immigration. Being the son of immigrants, I am glad to see our doors are still open, wonder where everyone is moving to now?

Here is an interesting graph about the crime rate in Canada comparing Large Urban, Small Urban and Rural areas. Interesting stat, but what is even more interesting is the quote in the report.

Of the 658 homicides in Canada in 2005 with a known location, 427 were committed in large urban areas, 95 in small urban areas and 135 in rural areas.

Taking population into account, the homicide rate of 2.5 homicides per 100,000 people in rural areas was actually higher than the rate of 2.0 in large urban areas and the rate of 1.7 in small urban areas. This pattern has held constant over the past decade.

A total of 658 murders in Canada with a population over 30 million (or 2.19 per 100,000 people). In comparison New York City’s homicide rate was 6.6 per 100,000 people, so Canada isn’t too bad for homicides. Interesting, that “living in the country” is a more likely place to get murdered?

Carnivals?

Carnival of Debt Management #15 : Big Cajun Man presents Canadian Household Net Worth Up posted at Canadian Financial Stuff. Canadians as a whole their debt as a percentage of their net worth is decreasing, but that seems to be due to their assets increasing in value, not due to a nationwide debt reduction strategy.

After yesterday’s post about the bankless folks out there, this is not a response to that, saying that those people should: “Put a sock in it!”, no, that is not what this post is about. The Ottawa Citizen yesterday had a very interesting article about an Entrepreneur who is selling “The Sock Bank“, which sells for $15 and is a tool to help kids learn about saving money. How popular are these things? Well Mrs. Chewick sold 25,000 sock banks in 9 weeks (and part of the proceeds are going to charity as well). Mrs. Chewick’s goal is to make Canada a country of Savers again, good for her! Get one for your kids, looks cool and you get woolen socks too!

It is becoming more expensive to make Films and Videos in Canada, but the revenues are also doing quite well.

The industry recorded total revenues of $844 million, a 7.9% increase from 2004, while expenses rose 10.0%. Half of industry expenses were associated with the cost of goods sold.

As a result, profits totaled $47.4 million, down from $58.3 million in 2004. The industry posted a profit margin of 5.6%.

 

I like watching films and television, and I really enjoy seeing Canadian cities “dolled up” to pass as an American city (especially when you see a Toronto Star paper box, or a Canada Post mail box). Oh and here is some Canadian Content for you:

I enjoyed the thematic premise, and the cinematography kept me on the edge of my seat, and it is Canadian content too!