Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for March 6th, 2009

Remember this weekend is the Spring Ahead weekend, and your clocks go ahead by an hour on Sunday morning. In Ottawa that means it is very dark in the mornings again, but the days seem to be much longer with the sun being up at 7:00 PM in March, which is always a nice feeling (however, 20 cm snowstorms and freezing rain are both very likely as well). 

How are your Lenten challenges going? Still living on cash, or cutting down on your discretionary spending in some fashion? Remember a slip for one day is simply a slip, and no reason to abandon your plan, keep at it!

Springing Forward Financially

• Remember that next week is National Procrastination Week, so plan not to plan anything or to put off whatever you have planned, because it’ll get done some time (March 9-15, if you can get around to it).
• Michael James writes about Warren Buffett’s Solution for Mortgage Abuses, which sounds simple, but may be too simple, since as Mr. J. points out no politician wants to be known as the Person who stopped folks from being able to buy their dream house.
• Preet at Where Does All My Money Go posts a very interesting graph showing the Distribution of Stock Market return from 1825 to today. A descriptive graphical help, with the disappointing point that this year is starting at the far left of the distributions.
• The Canadian Capitalist points out that BMO and RBC are offering discounts on their DRIP programs, which for folks like me who love the DRIP program, this is very good news. 
• Larry MacDonald encourages his readers to Tough it Out in the investment world, with some suggestions on how to deal with the current Financial Apocalypse. 
• Nancy Zimmerman is learning about the High Price of Living in Yellowknife, and laments she misses the farmers market, maybe there is an Ice Market around? 
• Gail Vaz Oxlade talks about Setting Expectations for kids’ allowances, which is a topic near and dear to my heart. Do you control how your kids spend their allowance?

Have a great weekend all!

Weekend Financial Video Selection

This weekend I have found a classic for you readers, a story very near and dear to my heart, with a financial angle in it, but still a story I treasure (from the National Film Board).