Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Now that is my kind of Surplus!

The feds announced today a whopping $14B Canadian. That is a whole lotta money to be running as a surplus, and makes me wonder why we are paying at the tax level that we currently are. Now in defense of the government, they are doing the right thing with this extra money:

The surplus will be used to pay down the federal government’s accumulated debt, which will have dropped to $467.3 billion as of March 31 of this year — its lowest level in 14 years. Since 1996, the debt has been paid down by $95.6 billion.

Good to hear that they are paying down the DEBT and that the DEBT is down almost $100B in 11 years (of course the fact that we still have almost $500B to go is worrying).

Allegedly tax cuts are coming, but to who(m) and how much remains to be seen.

Ontario Election Front

I still haven’t managed to get an NDP sign for my front lawn, but I do have both PC and Liberal signs on my front lawn (reflecting our households complete confusion about who might be the best choice for Ontario).

All parties other than the Liberals seem to be running an “Anybody But Dalton” campaign (or a “we can’t screw up as badly as he did” campaign). Will this work? We’ll see.

No new mention of huge tax breaks, or free money being given to me, so I haven’t decided as of yet. Yes, anybody reading from a Political Party, my vote can be bought (for the RIGHT price).

Canada We are Bigger

No, no, not another complaint about being overweight, Stats Canada has estimates for Canada’s population as of July this year:

Nationally, Canada’s population hit an estimated 32,976,000, a gain of 326,500 people and a growth of 1% between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. The rate of growth was similar to that in 2005/2006.

So that means the surplus is about $430 per person in Canada. You think they will cut us all a cheque?

Articles This Week

• Price Fixing For Cars in Canada
• A Parable about Advice (not just financial)
• Can Only Get Better From Here
• What is Rich in Canada?

I’ll take D’uh for $1400 Alex

Under the “you think we didn’t notice” side of things, a Toronto Law firm is putting in a class action suit claiming that Car prices in Canada are artificially inflated. Oh, I have a call coming in and it is from “Mr. Obvious”. The sales tax alone would tilt the scales, but the prices are definitely higher here in Canada. A CBC report had the following 3 interesting examples:

• A Chrysler Grand Cherokee Laredo that was advertised for $29,215 in the U.S. and $36,215 in Canada
• A Honda Odyssey Minivan that was advertised for $25,645 in the U.S. and $33,333 in Canada
• A Range Rover Sport that was advertised for $58,500 in the U.S. and $78,300 in Canada

The lawsuit is only for purchases after August 2005 and ending in August 2007.

Of course Canadians are being gouged, it happens because we are 1/10 the size of the U.S. population, and rarely do we ever complain about things.

No Wonder my Lead Futures Have Paid Out So Well

There must be a shortage in lead (pb) about to occur, because more toys are being recalled for high lead levels. Anyone been buying Lead futures lately? Are they appreciating nicely given the high usage of it in kids’ toys? I am only half joking here folks, because I have to ask, where is all this LEAD coming from?

All joking aside my family is touched by this AGAIN, with more Thomas the Tank Engine parts being recalled as well. This is getting either ridiculous or tragic, I’ll tell you in 10 years which one it is.

In my life I have had some wonderful friends and acquaintances and I count my blessings for every one that I have met (and will still meet), the following “Best of” posting is from May 2005 and it is about a piece of advice that I gave a dear friend that completely backfired, and I regret to this day (I also regret that this friend is no longer with us either).

A parable about advice (not just financial)

A few years ago I car pooled with a wonderful guy we’ll call Jack for this story.

One day after my wife and I came back from a great vacation in Florida, I told Jack about how to get free tickets to Paramount Studios in Orlando, by attending a “Time Share Condominium Sales Pitch” (my father-in-law told me about it), I told Jack that it was a hoot and also kind of sad seeing the “poor souls” (my opinion) who ended up buying these things. The Sales guy was relentless, he was going to take Canadian money at par, he was going to let us pay with our credit cards, we could stay there right now if we wanted, etc., but we stuck to our guns, got our free tickets and left, laughing as we walked out.

Jack thought it sounded like a good idea because he and his wife were going on vacation to Florida in a couple of weeks.

Fast forward to the day after Jack and his wife came back from vacation. The conversation was mostly about how much fun Jack and his wife had while in Orlando, so then I said, “How about that Time Share sales pitch, what kind of a shmuck would buy those things?”, and after a long pause Jack said, “Well, me, I bought one…”, I think my jaw dropped to the floor, and I might have said two words for the rest of the trip to the office. I never mentioned time shares ever again.

Moral to this parable? Advice is a dangerous thing to hand out, and you had better be ready to take the heat when the advice goes wrong.

This is why I try to always be careful when giving out advice, because I am fully cognizant of the damage ANY advice can do. Most time shares I have seen are not worth the money outlay (my opinion), please don’t construe this posting as me endorsing them in any way shape or form.

One of the joys of my morning drive into work is a particularly tricky merge across 3 lanes of highway traffic to get to my exit. Most mornings I am in early enough that this is not an issue, however this morning I was in with heavy traffic and almost hit another car, but swerved at the last minute to keep from having an accident. My first thought was, “Holy Crap”, but then I thought, today is going to get better from here!

Car Insurance

This is an interesting financial quandary these days. For me I have two older vehicles, the Honda that I drive is insured as minimally as possible for Ontario (I get no money for it’s damage, but am covered for anyone I hit). The car’s book value is $0 really (13 years old) unfortunately it’s real value to me is the price of having to get another used car (at least $7500), but it is not worth insuring it for that value (it would cost too darn much).

My van is insured with a different company than my house, so I don’t get a discount, but it is still the cheapest price I can get, because of the University I graduated from? Anything for a cheaper price.

To quote Chris Rock:

You know what’s worse than taxes?

What’s worse than tax is insurance.
You got to have some insurance.

They shouldn’t even call it insurance.
They just should call it ”in case sh*t.”

l give a company some money in case sh*t happens.
Now, if sh*t don’t happen, shouldn’t l get my money back?

I really wish that was the case, but it is not, Mr. Rock.

Employment Insurance Pay Outs Up

Stats Can points out that there was a 12% increase in July of folks collecting EI payments. What does this mean? In July? This could be a seasonal thing, but who knows? It was noted by a friend that it is interesting that when I was growing up it was Unemployment Insurance, but I guess that was far too Politically Incorrect so it got changed to Employment Insurance. I have managed to never draw from this fund (so far), I think I should get something to show for that too!