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Canajun Finances Home » Back to School, RESPs, Banks Behaving Badly and #MoneyStories

Back to School, RESPs, Banks Behaving Badly and #MoneyStories

Some schools have started this week, and most will be open on Tuesday after Labour Day. Plenty of back-to-school sales going on and plenty of pressure to buy your kids all the things they “need” to go to school. The problem is that some stores’ definition of “need” is a little out of wack. Do Students need a home computer, laptop, tablet and also iPhone? That seems to be implied by many of the tech stores. Isn’t a Hilroy Exercise book, a pencil and a pen enough? It seems that lifestyle creep has worked its way into the back-to-school.

Piggy Bank
Is This the Only Bank You Can Trust?

My yearly pilgrimage to the bank to extract money from my RESP continues to create more and more content for this site, so I must send a Thank You note to TD for all the great stories that have come from their product. As I mentioned in my article this week I did manage to not run into the TD E-series Beartrap, where I cannot do anything in my local branch with the E-series funds, so I must first transfer the funds into a TD Money Market account so that then my local branch can release the funds in that savings vehicle.

I thought my issues with TD and RESPs were bad. However, Mrs. C8j pointed me to an article in the Ottawa Citizen about a woman (who she knows) and her issues with Scotiabank and their RESP (another classic example of “Banks Behaving Badly“). It seems they would not release the funds in the account until Ms. Adeney answered some Marketing questions about her net value and income. Read that previous sentence again, they would not give her HER money, until she answered the questions? What the flip? I am glad to hear that Scotiabank admitted their mistake, but at least TD never did that to me.

My Writings for Week Ending September 4th

The summer is slowly coming to a close and an entertaining fall lies ahead (with plenty of election shenanigans and tom-foolery) :


Tweet of the week

Ellen Roseman (if you aren’t following her on Twitter and on Facebook, you are missing some good stuff) gives another example of “Banks Behaving Badly“. I note I am only 8 new twitter followers until I reach 2500 followers (hint, hint).


No Marketing Questions Just Good Stories

Barry from Money We Have brings us an excellent article about Money Myths Busted, and yes, interest rates really will go up some time (soon). I was elated when I bought my first house and locked in at 11% for 5 years! A good way to keep on track with your money is to set goals, and Mark from My Own Advisor gives us his 2015 Financials Goals Update for August (a brave man). In a good financial plan, you need some good bargains and Frugal Trader at Million Dollar Journey helps out with The Best and Worst Deals at Costco. Best deal is their $1.50 Hot Dog and drink deal (IMHO).

Ever wonder what the top 25 richest neighbourhoods in Canada are? The article points them out, but why are so many of them called Westmount?

Do you have your own corporation? Mark from Blunt Bean Counter continues his summer best of stories with Business and Income Tax issues with Selling a Corporation. I don’t think I have to worry about that (yet, who knows, maybe this site will make a fortune). Speaking of income, did you realize that Everyone Who started watching Mad Money in 2005 are now Billionaires? Not really, but it is a fun story from the Onion. Do you think that Google is an Evil Empire? Mark from 2nd Career Search Explains why he Avoids Using Google Search.

Michael James asks an interesting investment question, How Much Diversification Do You Need ? I do like the term di-worse-ification, though, good pseudo-word. Our Big Fat Wallet wants to help with investing in these unclear times with Handling Stock Market Volatility.


The Bottom Line

Is this a recession? The CBC panel discusses it. To quote my favorite financial maven, “… and that’s the bottom line ’cause Preet B. said so!” :


Facebook Fun

Yes, I agree Entrepreneurs don’t have a Risk aversity gene, they have rich parents!


OK, this one is a little over the top, but do you read Postsecret? You should.


2015 Random Thoughts


My Twitter feed is where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off color commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)). I am also on Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest , Flipboard, Instagram 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!

Feel Free to Comment

  1. I found the Bottom Line discussion disappointing. They have such a short-term focus. I’m interested in what Canada should be doing to have good economics 5 or more years from now, not what would help tomorrow. Thanks for the mention.

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