Canadian Personal Finance Blog

“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”  -Proverbs 22:7

My that is a very topical quote for a Personal Finance Blog isn’t it?

The bible says that the Rich rule over the poor, that is your thought for Labor Day, since the rich do as they please and the poor work for their lives (OK, trite and over simplification, but still pretty true). I’m sure the bible is not speaking solely on a Financial angle, but this is something to keep in mind.

The borrower is the servant to the lender is very correct. If you are in debt to someone or an institution, they call the shots, and you have no control of the situation (or very little). The only way to get back control if you are a debtor is by paying off the debt, and then you are free.

Tired of me bludgeoning you with Bible quotes on debt? How about this one then?

From Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 1603:

LORD POLONIUS:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend…

In life, in the bible and in literature, debt is a bad thing.

Long Weekend Random Thoughts

I note the gas prices in Ottawa have inched there way back up by about 11 cents in the past few days, in preparation for the long weekend. Am I saying this is a conspiracy? If it isn’t all contrived, then this is the most amazing coincidence I have seen. Our van continues to sit in the driveway, because it is just too expensive to use on long journeys.

The coming weekend brings a great deal of turmoil and excitement. My eldest daughter is off to University out of town, my middle daughters are preparing for High School and my son prepares for nursery school. September is always an expensive month for my family due to many activities and school ask for money and then there are the inherent expenses of returning to school (clothing, school supplies, bus passes, etc.,).

Is it time to turn off the Air Conditioning? I think it is, but we shall see how bad allergies and such are, since opening the house up, inevitably means me sneezing my head off (and thus buying antihistemenes and such). Which is more expensive, running my A/C or buying Claritin in bulk?

Today is the day I return my equipment and a set of forms outlining what to do with my severance package as well, which is a bit of a milestone as well. I will outline how this works, once I am sure how things will work, but the opportunity is if I can find a new job quickly and thus use my severance as a significant financial “hammer”.

Enjoy your long weekend, drive carefully wherever you may be going, careful of gas prices and speed traps and relax.

Fruitful Bank Trip

My visit to the bank was quite fruitful.  I arranged to get money out of an RESP (evidently there are two ways of doing it):

• EAP which takes out the CESG portion of the RESP
• The other thing that takes out the other part, which I did

Tax implications? No bloody idea, I’ll figure that one out in February.

Opened a self-directed RRSP with TD, and ensured I could get at their E-Series index funds (another point well made by the Canadian Capitalist).

Opened a Locked In Retirement Account, well sort of did, filled in the forms, yet another system in TD which is all paper based. Found out from our service rep there are 5 different systems she deals with (at least) and none of them talk nicely to each other and many are still mostly paper based. Maybe TD can use their HUGE profits to fix that?

Finally, I got free banking for a while too. This time I phrased it in a way that made our rep happy to give it to us, and thus I don’t have to pay for banking for a while longer.

I love it when a plan comes together!

Owe for 3 on Stocks

After bad mouthing Scotiabank, BMO and Nortel yesterday, on Wednesday they all rebound back…

• Nortel up 5%
• BMO up 3.6%
• Scotiabank up 2.26%

I can sure pick them, can’t I? I have pointed out this is NOT where to get your hot stock tips, have I not? One day does not a trend make, and given most stocks were up, could be just a “follow the leaders rally”, but again, don’t take my advise on that one.

Humor

Here is a rhetorical question for the lady readers, would you go to LaSenza to a “Sports Bra Blow Out” sale? Something about that advertising doesn’t sound right to me.