Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for July, 2008

Busy day, so I went back into my archives to find my Tim Horton’s Savings Plan posting from a little while back (a new classic):

Think if you bought Tim Horton’s stock you are doing ok (no I am not saying go out and buy their stock, figure that one out for yourself), but I am saying look at that “Double Double” you have sitting next to you. Ever thought how much those things cost you? I have asked you this question before, so you should know the answer.

Let’s have some fun Arithmetic, shall we?

1. Assume you drink 3 “Double Doubles” a day for 5 days (what you do on the weekend is your trouble not mine). How much is that costing you a week then?3 * $1.39 * 5 = $21.00 per week
2. You work how many weeks? I’ll say 45 weeks to make it easier to calculate for me. So that means you are spending about:45 weeks * $21 / week = $945 per year on coffee
3. Over say 10 working years assuming you took that money made a lump sum payment every year into an investment vehicle that paid a modest 5% (remember if you put it in an RRSP you’d get back tax money too).We have:
   

   Year	Value
   1	$945.00
   2	$1,937.25
   3	$2,979.11
   4	$4,073.07
   5	$5,221.72
   6	$6,427.81
   7	$7,694.20
   8	$9,023.91
   9	$10,420.10
   10	$11,886.11

So after 10 years you’d have almost $12,000 in your pocket (less taxes on the growth, unless you do this inside of an RRSP).

Does that coffee seem so cheap now? Hey, you folks drinking at Starbucks and paying twice as much for your coffee, want me to do the calculations on THAT for you?

Food for thought for a Monday.

Leasing Cars a Thing of the Past?

I have commented previously about why I do not lease cars, and it is mostly because it becomes cyclic and you never have your debt paid off, because you end up getting a new leased car.

It seems our firends and General Motors agree with my view on this. This is not actually true, but as of August 1, you will not be able to lease a GM car from GM any more (I am sure there will be leasing companies out there somewhere, but not directly from GM), instead GM will offer you a 6 year ZERO-Interest loan to take their car home with you.

Why? Resale value of Vans, SUVs (or is that SUKs?), and other monster gas guzzlers is such that leasing has actually become a money losing concept for GM (or someone has figured out it soon will be).  Interesting to see if other large North American car makers will follow suit or not, but the only problem with a GM Lease OR zero-interest loan is, that at the end of it, you still have a GM vehicle (speaking as the owner of a Montana VAN).

Evidently Chrysler in the U.S. is also following suit and will be withdrawing from the Leasing business as well.

Right now, I have to pay off my used Toyota Carolla, but that is about it. I drive cars until they are DEAD and then wait 6 more months after that, so leasing never made a lot of sense to me (I used to drive a 12 year old ‘72 Dodge Dart with black vinyl interior, so no, my car is not an extension of me (or maybe it is)). I am not sad to see leasing, go the way of the “Great Awk”.

Is anyone upset that they won’t be able to lease directly from the manufacturer any more?

Those were the happy thoughts told to me one day at Church. The minister giving the sermon, worked with homeless people and such, so his view might be a little stunted, but that was the point of his statement, “We are all three pay cheques away from living on the streets”.

Is this really the case? Well that all depends on the debt burden that you carry.  If you suddenly had no means of income, but you didn’t have any debt to pay off, you’d simply need money to pay your day to day expenses that may be manageable or controllable. If you are carrying a large credit card debt load, and have minimum payments to make, then your issues are far more complicated and you must find ways to pay spiraling debt as well.

Am I three pay cheques from living on the streets? I don’t think so, I have a fair amount in RRSPs and such, and I also have some savings, but I also have a debt load that does worry me, and given the renewed vigour I have been given from reading good books like: Smoke and Mirrors , I think that is my goal is to kill my debt load while I can.

BCE & Nortel Both Cutting

The news is full of job cuts at BCE as they head towards privatization, and there was the renewed cutting announced by Nortel at the start of the year as well, which may mean some dark times ahead in the High Tech World as well. Hope those folks aren’t three pay cheques away from the streets.

Telus and BCE can both enjoy a new class action suit against them as well for their new texting surcharges. That won’t help BCE, that’s for sure.

Why I don’t Go Into TD Bank Branches Much

On Saturday I went into my local TD branch to deposit a cheque, which my wife had endorsed (it was a larger cheque, so I figured it would be easier if she endorsed it and then I could deposit it, without problems (although the account it was going into was a joint account, so what I was worried about, I have no idea)).

I was informed by a flabbergasted Teller (young lady)  that I could not in fact make a deposit at that time because all the banks computers were down, due to storms in the Toronto area. I looked at her a little puzzled and explained that I really didn’t feel safe wandering around with a cheque endorsed by my wife for the next two days, until their computers were fixed.

She said she could take a note, and deposit the cheque once her computer came back up (it was 2:45 PM, the bank closes at 3:00 PM, it was a Saturday, I did not hold out a lot of hope that much would change in 15 minutes), so I agreed.

The Teller then did the following:

• She wrote down my access TD card ID number, in a writing style, where I could barely read what she had written.
• She filled out my instructions on a bank form.
• Signed the form
• Photocopied the form with a copy of the cheque and stamped it dated for Monday for me.

What does this mean? I have no idea, I know that so far nothing seems to have happened in terms of the cheque, as my on line banking does not reflect any changes.

The humorous part then was, when I asked if the Interac network was down, and she informed me that no it was still up and I could also withdraw cash from my TD account if I wanted to then as well. I left the bank feeling very nervous about what might be happening to that cheque. I walked over to the Loblaws and deposited the other two cheques in my PC Financial account.

This post was originally My Top 5 Investing Regrets of My Life, and I wrote it in response to a challenge from another blogger. This week I have been cleaning up my blogs old posts and I realized I really do have a treasure trove of interesting posts, so I apologize for resurrecting yet another “chestnut” but I really like this post as well. Have a great weekend folks!

Top 5 Investing Regrets of My Life

As part of a writing concept put forward over at Problogger I am making this posting about my Top 5 Investing Regrets over my lifetime. Thanks to Mrs. C8j for proof reading and suggesting content changes as well.

I offer this as a list for folks to learn from, and maybe not make the same mistakes that I have made.

5. Bought Whole Life Insurance

When I was just married and was quite naive when it came to investing, a gentleman from a very large insurance company sold me on the value of whole life insurance as an investment tool and as a way to protect my wife in case something goes wrong. Lots of flashy graphs showing how it becomes self-sustaining, and all of that stuff.

This was a mistake on my part, if I had bought term insurance at the time (I was in my 20’s) I should have paid somewhere around $10-15 per month but I was paying upwards of $50 to $75 a month (I don’t remember the exact amount it was way too much).

I thought this was investing, but I finally met someone who set me on the straight and narrow, and I cancelled the policy, but if I had invested the $40 or so extra I paid a month in an RRSP back then, I’d be much better off now. The good part of it is that I realized my mistake and corrected it, or I’d be looking at this “investment” wondering why I did this. Mistakes happen, but that is why pencils have erasers.

4. Not Understanding the Tools Available

Even after taking two business courses at University I forgot the tools that were available to me on my on line trading site. I monitored things closely but I did not realize the power of the tools that my on line site gave me:

• Bottom limit rules, which I could set up, to automatically sell my investment if they dropped below a certain price. This can limit losses and save you a basket of money.
• Buy orders to pick up a stock I am looking at, at the price that I wanted to buy it. I just bought with a market order, and it went in as soon as I pressed the “OK” button. If I’d looked at the stock and liked the stock, but thought it was overpriced, I could simply put in an order to buy when if it dropped to the price I wanted to purchase it at.

These two simple tools would have saved me a lot of money, if I’d thought a little bit about the tools that were available. Remember, a good tradesman uses their entire toolbox (not just the hammer).

3. Invested with my Heart and not my Brain

This comes back in my #1 mistake, but it’s important to have a Plan for your investments and have a set of rules to work by (and use the tools available to you). If you set down a clear set of rules about when you buy , and when you sell, then you are not relying on your instincts, and your decisions are easily understood.

It’s not hard to make up some simple rules about when you think you should buy a stock, and as soon as you do that rules for when you are going to sell it (because you eventually are going to do that). Some good rules for when to sell:

• Stock drops below a target price after a certain date (so you aren’t constantly buying and selling).
• Stock has not grown by more than 5% in the past year
• Dividend from the stock has either disappeared or has dropped below your goals for the stock
• Stock is now worth twice as much as when you bought it, and you want to remove your original investment, to protect your money.

These are some pretty simple rules, and you should think of your own, but they are something to think about.

2. Did not start an RRSP or Retirement Fund soon enough

This is a common mistake. Saving for my retirement, using sound investment rules, would have me much farther ahead in my life, I think. Set down a set of concrete goals for investing a certain amount of money every year, when you are much younger and you will not be playing the “catch up” game later in your life (as I and others are doing right now). Did I have the money back then? Well, maybe not, but even a little bit of money put away in your past makes your future that much better (it’s kind of like how to get better at playing Golf, go back in time and start playing earlier).

Time can be your best friend when it comes to investing, especially if your investments are growing over that time.

1. Did not sell out of High Tech in 2000

Riding the High Tech Bomb all the way down

I have talked about this blunder before, and being a High Tech guy in the industry, I knew this was a bubble, yet, I “drank the Kool-aid” as well. I fell for the stories being told, and I rode that bomb all the way down to the ground. If I had set rules for investing, I would have at least bailed out and only got singed or lightly burnt, instead of completely incinerated the way my investments did. The funny thing is that my employers stock is the one I got burnt on the worst, and you would have thought I would have known better, but, then again in hindsight I can see what I should have done, but at the moment, it seemed like a good idea?

Take your losses, but also take your profits and move forward with them, don’t just leave your money lieing around, make it work for you.

I hope this helps you, dear reader, in your investing plans. Yet another fine, “do as I say, and not as I do” posting by the Canadian Financial Opinions.