A week where you had better have sent in your taxe, or you will be paying some penalties. If you don’t owe money you have until June 15th, but if they owe you money, why don’t you want it right now?

Apologies for the franglais in the title a butchered attempt to use both official languages in Canada (I should misspell taxes to show my inability to write in English as well).  My French training continues on, I am astounded at my inabilities to comprehend both English and French, but c’est la vie!

A year of the “Harper Conservative Government” (I believe that is a copyright’ed phrase), oh boy! I mentioned this to my friends here in Ottawa who are Civil Servants and they grumble, so then I ask, “why did we elect so many Tories in Ottawa last year ?”(John Baird, Pierre Poillievre, etc., etc.,). Seems to stop the conversation quickly.

Many interesting stories in Canada this week with Conrad Black possibly returning, more F-35 stories and of course the heart-rending video of a mother duck and her ducklings crossing the 401, possibly the most important video you will see this year (I can’t find it anywhere, but it was good to see the little group made it across the highway).

Weekly Recap

I had some fun this week with a couple of topics, which I enjoyed writing about, but a quieter week for my writings, even though the markets look like they are lining up to have another roller coaster ride this summer!

• Financial Joy Buzzers and Sunday’s Best is a rehash of some of my older posts that have appeared on Twitter.
• Some very sage advice from BroTips, If you Bought It Why Are You Complaining, which points out that you don’t get to complain if you went out and bought something (complain about how much you spent, specifically).
• In Canada if you haven’t filed yet Taxes: You are Now Officially Late, with some of the ramifications of your decision.
• Turbotax sent me a lot of interesting data on Procrastinating Canadian Taxpayers, glad to see Toronto can win at something!
• I went a little odd with TV Show: Financial Squeegee Scam, not sure where my mind was at the time, but still an interesting concept.

Links for the Week

With tax week coming and going, the topic seemed to hang there like the proverbial 800 lb gorilla, but nobody much talked about it:

• Our Financial Kin at My Own Advisor explains Why He and His Want a $10,000 Emergency Fund, I want one to, can you pick one up while your out getting yours? They are next to the Tampons at Wal-Mart (I have heard).
• Rob Carrick talks about the “B Word” and the housing markets with Ready to be Bold? Tell the House and Rent, he talked about that when we had dinner, it is an intriguing idea, but I’d have to spend a lot of money to get my house “sale ready”, so I think  I’ll pass this time.
• Ellen Roseman points out that in Ontario there are many People freezing and sweating in newly built homes, hopefully not at the same time!
• Mr. Money Mustache writes a touching piece about how hard it is to be Rich in Toronto with The Cost of Living is Too High, Waah, Waah… it ain’t easy bein’ rich!
• Timeless Finance might be reading Mr. Carrick’s column because they write about Move Your Life for Under $2.50 per click (sic), I think they meant Klick (as in KM, but maybe I am wrong).  I used to move myself, then I realized I lost more friends that way and simply hired movers.
• The Blunt Bean Counter points out it is not easy to pump out quality posts every day (you can tell that just from my hack-kneed scribblings), but expands on that with Duck Quackers and Binge Writing.
• Michael James points out that Investing is Simple: Until you try to Outperform, which is true, if you are willing to wait, you’ll be fine, if you want to get ahead of the Jones’ you might end up behind them (in the end).
• Canadian Capitalist gives us a run down on RBC Direct Investing Simplifying  Their Admin Fees, always figure out how much you are paying to invest, you shouldn’t be paying an arm and a leg (or a kidney) to invest.
• The Canadian Couch Potato tilts at another Financial Windmill with Risk and Uncertainty in Stock Investing, as he reviews an interesting book, with some ideas about whether Risk and Volatility in Stock Markets are actually connected.
• Echo of Boomer and Echo gives us Their Fast Track to Financial Freedom, I think it rained on my track, I may be a Financial Mudder.
• Miranda at Planting Money Seeds, wonders if On Line Poker: Is it as legit as stock picking? I can assure you that I am not successful in either case.
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade wonders What Makes a Good Parent, interesting point of view on this.
• Preet is branching out with his media empire and is giving us a new podcast to subscribe to (I already have) with Mostly Money, Mostly Canadian, note it is NSFW, so don’t play it at your desk, Preet uses rude words like Money, and Poo-Poo. I may make an appearance some day, if I beg Preet enough.

Other Bookkeeping

Remember my RSS feed is available too, for those who enjoy reading without looking at my crappy page lay out, and I have added an RSS Comment Feed as well.

Have a look at my micro-blog on Twitter, where you can see a whole plethora of good articles and pithy comments by me as well. Twitter feed where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off colour commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)). I am also on reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest and other Social Media sites (look for the BigCajunMan userid) as well.

If you have social media accounts, don’t forget to vote for my posts (see the nifty dashboard on the bottom of each article, where you can cast your votes). As they say in Quebec, vote early and vote often!

This site is iPhone Friendly (and Android , iPod Touch and iPad Friendly), enjoy it on the go, in a readable format for the device. If you are reading with an iPhone or Android device, drop me a comment and tell me if this needs any improvements. This site is also in the Kindle US Blog list, if you are interested, not available in Canada yet (because no Blogs are available in Canada on a Kindle?!?).

A French Quote about the Rich

“Dieu a partagé : il a donné la nourriture aux riches et l’appétit aux pauvres”

- Coluche - a very apt quote for this blog (and for the 1% crowd as well).