Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Last year, we bought a shredder because I kept taking stuff to shred to work, and felt I had enough stuff that appears in my house that I do not want to leave my house in the garbage where anyone might look at it, and I also enjoying destroying things.

What kind of things do I enjoy running through my shredder?

• Most of the credit cards I have keep sending me “cheques” that I can use to make cash withdrawals and get charge 20% interest from the moment the cheque is cashed. These things have on them my credit card number on it, and thus if someone got a hold of it in tact, I would be in very deep trouble. They shred very nicely.
• Credit Cards that I do not use, I have a bunch of credit cards that I do not use, that I am going to cancel, but I have already shredded them. They shred very nicely indeed.
• I also shred many old financial documents that I don’t need to keep, don’t want to burn and don’t want to leave out in my garbage either.
• Canceled cheques and the like as well.
• Old pay stubs.

I put my shredder in the same class as my safety deposit box as being something important in my Financial Planning, an important aspect of safety and security in finances.

New Housing Prices Still Rising

Just not as fast, and it’s acceleration is dropping. This means if you are buying a new house and you waited from last year it is going to cost more, it’s just not getting as expensive, as quickly.

Year-over-year growth in new housing prices slowed for a second consecutive month in March. This deceleration continues a downward trend that started in September 2006, due mainly to the softening market in Alberta.

Contractors’ selling prices rose 6.1% between March 2007 and March 2008, a slightly slower pace than the 6.2% year-over-year increase posted in February 2008.
(…)
Elsewhere in Ontario, contractors’ selling prices were 4.5% higher in Toronto and 3.1% higher in Ottawa–Gatineau compared with March 2007.

Personal Finance Update

So my attempts at stopping my spending at work begins anew. No spending over the last few days and that is a good beginning. De-Crapification continues as well, with more crap to go very soon.