Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for December, 2007

For me 2007 has been a great year, but not necessarily in the financial areas I wished for, but that is not all life is about. With an end of year recap in mind, I give you the:

Best of Canadian Financial Rants 2007

• I started off the year finding out that my Pension was about to be capped by my employer, so I asked the Question: How Much is Your Pension Worth? .
• In February I outlined the Tim Horton’s Savings Plan where if you drink a lot of Timmy’s coffee you might want to go and have a look.
• In March my son’s train set inspired me to write Zen, Thomas the Tank Engine and the Art of Financial Planning, and I’d like to point out his train set has grown since then too.
• In April my continued hatred of the Pay Day Loan industry erupted in the post Pay Day Loans No, No, No! and I continue to get inquiries about advertising on my site from these kinds of places.
• In May I ran through my yearly scenario of how much my wife is worth in terms of the government with My Wife is Worth How Much?
• June I did a case study on getting refunds on being overcharged with Refunds on Overcharging .
• My yearly bank visit in July to get Free Banking was highlighted in Bank Fees and how you shouldn’t be paying for your banking.
• If you want healthy kids, is it an expensive thing? In August I tackled this topic with The High Price of Healthy Kids .
• How do you retire with kids at home? was a question I asked in September that I am still trying to figure out myself.
• My daughter started looking at Universities in October, which caused me to write, University Costs Holy Crap!
• The quarterly status report concept I talked about in November and I truly believe in it, so try out the Quarterly Personal Financial Report.
• Given the amount of snow in Ottawa this December Snowbound Personal Finances was an obvious topic to write about.

This isn’t really a “Best of” kind of list, just a cross section of my writings for the year.

Some other interesting points about this year:

• I wrote approximately 371 postings, which is more than one a day (holy cow).
• Forty (40) was my monthly maximum written in May.

Hope you enjoyed it, I am hoping for some changes in the New Year, but ’til then:

Happy and Prosperous New Year to You All!

Keep your receipts

Remember all that spending you did before Christmas? Hope you kept your receipts! Why you may ask? Let’s run down a few of the important points about keeping your receipts (and maybe scanning them into your computer for archiving?):

• You have a record of where you shopped, and this is important because what happens if another charge appears from that same store next month? If you don’t have your receipt, you might think, oh they are just billing slowly and pay it again. This happened to me more than once.
• So you know exactly how much you spent, and you can figure out a plan now of how to pay off the gross national debt of Zimbabwe off (that is my pet name for my Christmas debt hangover).
• You know where you didn’t shop as well. You end up with a strange charge from somewhere you know you didn’t shop, you can have that charge reversed.

Remember this doesn’t mean you have to hoard all those little pieces of paper, just make sure you keep them for a little while, just to be safe.

Random Thoughts for a Friday

• Jim Flaherty is now saying that big income tax cuts are now many years away and the federal government cannot do any more large cuts. His statement is that he thinks there will not be a huge surplus for 2008 and thus no room to cut taxes any more. Gee thanks Jim, hope Santa left you a nice lump of coal in your stocking, and maybe Rudolph left you a plum pudding on your pillow.
• Phased Retirement? Remember Big Caj, we value you and don’t want you to retire, because we don’t trust our younger employees? If I can retire, I will retire, no phases, Hast La Vista and farewell!
• Some nasty happenings in Pakistan I think could forebode some very high gas prices soon. Instability in that whole region is going to really zap us in the pocket books. It will also mean a continued strong Canadian Dollar as well, due to Canada’s oil reserves.

I figured I’d try out a survey from Blogspot to just see if anyone would actually “vote” and I was impressed to see the following results:

If you found $213,498.42 on the ground what would you do with it?

• Pick it up, spend it, and then lament my loss 28%
• Yell, “Hey anybody drop their wad?” 13%
• Pick it up, and give it to the Salvation Army lady on the corner 10%
• Take $3.14, and feel guilty for doing that 1%
• None of the Above 48%

What does this mean? Not sure, it was my first survey, but interesting that some folks enjoyed my humorous answer #2. Another survey may be coming soon.

Changes Coming

Watch this blog for changes that are coming very soon, I hope. For those who are on the RSS feed, you won’t notice anything (sorry).

Boxing Day sales used to be a one day type thing in Canada, then they became a week long event, now they seem to start December 1st and end March 30th! This is not a sale folks, this is an excuse to get you in the darn store to buy crap you do not want or need. My Mother used to buy wrapping paper and that was about it.

If you go to one of these sales, know what you are going to buy and don’t be swayed by the first shiny bobble you see. I looked at all of my favorite electronic stores (who have been having an On Line Boxing Day sale since 8:00 PM on the 24th of December) and see a couple of things I’d like, but not enough to attempt to get into the stores for 6:00 AM when they open to get one of the 10 that is guaranteed in each store, that is for sure!

Why not enjoy another day of peace and quiet and maybe go out on Friday? Yes all the “best buys” will be gone, but at least you may not get run over by over zealous shoppers in the parking lots?

I may rant about Boxing day and such at the end of all of this, but I will attempt to make this my last posting about finances and Christmas.

• Christmas cards are not late if they have been mailed before Christmas day (that means even if I mail them on Christmas day they are not late). Late Christmas cards are the ones that show up in July, there is no LATE in Christmas, just delayed.
• If you are paying bills, remember to get them done TODAY because they won’t be “paid” until the 27th if you don’t (I got burned on that one once).
• I once did buy something useful at a Boxing Day sale, but it was mostly due to the fact that I needed something, AND it was on sale, AND I got there and there was still some left. Boxing Day sales seem a little too much for me. (it was a Stereo Amplifier).
• My Christmas this year is astounding even before it happens, because I have had an amazing year, and really don’t need any gifts (however, I won’t ask anyone to return them either).

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy your Riches as much as I do (no I am not talking about money for once).