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Canajun Finances Home » Remembrance, Friday the 13th, Financial Literacy and #MoneyStories

Remembrance, Friday the 13th, Financial Literacy and #MoneyStories

Remembrance Day passed Wednesday, for some it is a solemn day of reflection, for others a day off. As I have mentioned before, I work with former military folks, and I certainly thank them for their service to the country. I was also glad that it didn’t rain on the folks in downtown Ottawa.

It is Friday the 13th today, so for those concerned about bad karma or bad luck, tread carefully and hopefully the day will pass with little or few major catastrophes. For those of you still buoyed by the election results here is something to put things in perspective from MacLean’s Magazine Chart of the day: How much do MPs earn? They don’t include their expense accounts either.

Remember that November is financial literacy month and you should be looking for posts and tweets with the hash tags #FLM2015 and #CountMeInCA on them. There has been some great stuff already posted, so keep watching and see what other useful things you can learn about money and finances.

My Writings for Week Ending November 13th

I did write something this week that is important, and that is about the Disability Tax Credit Certificate, and how to reapply, please make sure you pass this info on to anyone who you think might need advice in that area:


Facebook Post of the Week

Remember that Vanguard really is one of the 800 pound gorillas that the market is going to listen to if they start flexing their collective might in the board room, but how do they represent their ETF shareholders best interests? Interesting quandary.


Is there enough Financial Literacy Yet?

Estate planning is a cornerstone of any good Financial Plan, and our resident accountant/marriage councilor Mark from the Blunt Bean Counter wants to help out with, Blended Families are Twice the Estate Planning Fun…Even with a Marriage ContractMark claims they don’t make accountants take marriage counselling courses, I suspect in these situations they might be useful. Barry from Money We Have hits the nail on the head for financial literacy, with the basic tenet  Living Within Your Means, if you don’t spend more than you make, you will always be fine.

Looking in the archives of the Canadian Capitalist, I came up with Why do ETF Investors do worse than Index Mutual Fund Investors? Wonder if that is still true today? Mark from My Own Advisor is a very honest man, and he again bares his investing soul with Share your big fat investing mistakes (hence my mention from my archives above). To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, falling down is not the problem, it is whether you get back up.  Do you want to really get High on Investing? Kevin from Modest Money wonders is there High Market Potential in The Cannabis Industry? Interesting choice of words in the title man. Evidently, Wall Street is Deeply Confused About Tesla, and that might their CEO’s plan all along!

Million Dollar Journey took a page out of My Own Advisor’s book with Top 16 Canadian Dividend Growth Stocks for 2015, but I would just buy an ETF Index of those, which is easier for me. Speaking of investing, Marie from Boomer and Echo wonders what is The Real Cost of Investing, in terms of angst and emotions? If you invest money in the Stock Market and are going to worry about it every day, maybe you shouldn’t be doing that? Gail Vaz-Oxlade even wonders Are YOU Ready to Be an Investor? That is a good question. Hopefully, you won’t be somehow motivated by Coming Soon to Late Night TV: Financial Infomercials, which Steadyhand mentions tries to sell Leveraged ETFs ? Note the mention of Michael James.

As with all parts of like there are phases and stages, so it is not surprising that Michael James talks about Retirement Spending Stages. An important thing to remember before you retire is that you should really budget in the Taxes you will have to pay on your RRSP withdrawals, or you are going to be in for a very rude surprise (I believe that might be a sticker shock stage). Jim Yih from Retire Happy asks the hard question How Much Will I Need for Retirement, and of course, the answer is as much as you will need to live. Supposedly retirees are wanting to give their money to their kids according to Globe Money with Wealth industry faces huge shift as boomers transfer wealth to their kids, anyone wants to rain money on me, please feel free!


Is Fantasy Sports Gambling?

Lewis Black answers in a very NSFW fashion (do NOT play this in your office if you have speakers), but is very correct all these fantasy sports sites are gambling. When Vegas says you are gambling, you can be sure that is the case.


Should you Rent or Buy?

Preet did a Should you Rent or Buy? Preet did a very good white board session on this very topic,  on this very topic, and it is very important topic to tackle for financial literacy.


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 think intelligent regulation of financial companies is more likely to help Canadians than trying to teach financial literacy, but both help people to some degree. Thanks for the mention.

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