Merry Christmas

I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas on this day. I wish you all joy and happiness.

For your reading pleasure while I enjoy this time for family here is a recap of the Advent Calendar.

Personal Finance Advent Calendar

Enjoy the Holiday.

Welcome to Christmas Eve the last day of Advent, and this final box in our Personal Finance Advent Calendar holds a bunch of Loonies, which seems like a good way to end this calendar.

These Loonies signify the importance some people put in money and how they work for it, but maybe it’s time to get your money to work for you and not have money run your life?

Money makes the Wordl Go Around?

Look at all of that money in that box, but wait if you look closer, they aren’t actually Loonies at all, they are actually foil covered chocolate money.

As a child I really enjoyed the surprises my mother used to put in my stocking for Christmas morning and my wife continues this tradition in our family as well, and I always enjoyed the chocolate gold coins. When I was younger these sweets were more important to me than real money, maybe that is a good thing?

Make your money work for you, and don’t be a slave to your money. 

With a good Financial Plan and a good budget money can be a tool and not your master, remember that this time of the year. 

Remember in these times Thrift is the new Chic!

In case you somehow were not sure, there is two days until the Festival of Christmas begins, and Advent comes to a close. Remember now is when guilt spending can be the worst, do not make purchases unless you need to, stick to your list and you will be fine.

If you aren’t going to see some of your loved ones until after Boxing Day, maybe you could wait until then to buy your gifts? Yes it sounds cheap, but frugal as well.

Household Spending up by 3.3%

Canadians continue their spending ways (to bridge from my previous statement about now is NOT the time to overspend), at least from 2006 to 2007 according to Stats Canada. For Ontario the interesting number is:

, yet Ontario is not the biggest spending Province on average, Alberta is. 

Another interesting stat from this study is:

Average household spending on cell phones and other hand-held text messaging devices amounted to $520 in 2007, up 9.3% from 2006. At the same time, average spending on land-line telephone services fell by 6.7% to $610.

We love our cell phones, but what happens when they finally drop in cost? Remember no one thought household phones would ever drop in cost and now they are a commodity.

White Christmas in Ottawa (but a Green New Year)

Luckily my snow tires and snow blower are being used heavily this month, thanks to the large snow falls in Ottawa. Evidently if you are looking for Snow Tires in Ottawa for a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry you are S.O.L. as there are none to be found, and one store is advertising that they are NOT answering their phone, because they just don’t have tires (and this is all this store sells). 

Why? Thanks to Quebec making it illegal to NOT have snow tires (wonder if they will be ticketing Ontario drivers visiting that are driving on All Season tires?), and thanks to last year’s HUGE snow dump and this year’s early snow dump, demand has completely outstripped supply, interesting. 

Anybody who lives in Ottawa and thinks they don’t need snow tires, is mistaken in my opinion. All season tires are an excellent compromise, they don’t give you great mileage in the summer and they give you lousy traction in the winter, perfectly useless.

Advent Financial Calendar Box Day 23

The second to last box on the calendar contains a Happy Face, to signify Joy. Joy in this season is very important and there are so many things to be joyful about, your family, your loved ones, your friends and all the other blessings you have in life.

I wish all my readers Joy, for this happy Christmas (and Holiday) season.

Holiday Schedule

I will be publishing some articles over the holidays, but I am not sure when. I am confident there will be no posts on Christmas Day, or Boxing Day either, but we shall see about the other days. I may also be doing some “Best of” posts, just to keep you reading.

On Friday Stats Canada announced the Consumer Price Index numbers for November and the downward trend for Inflation continues, with a year over year rate of only 2.0% dropping from 2.6% in October and 3.4% in September. 

Gas Prices Plummet

Gasoline prices continue to plummet like a stone falling almost 21.4% in 1 month (from October to November) however other areas prices are going up (maybe due to high gasoline prices earlier in the year and almost due to the Canadian dollar dropping against the U.S. dollar as well).

Gas Prices vs. All Other Prices

Food is the New Big Jump

This may be due to a lot of contributing factors but food prices are the most significant price increase this past month. 

Food prices gained momentum for the ninth consecutive month. Following a 12-month rise of 6.1% in October, food prices rose 7.4% in November, the largest increase since November 1986. Bakery and cereal product prices were up 12.9%, and fresh vegetables, which are largely imported, rose 28.9%.

This is a worrying site, but since transportation is a major portion of most food prices, there is hope these increases may slide back with cheaper gasoline (for now).

Advent Financial Calendar Box Day 22

This last Monday before Christmas we open our box and we find a tuning fork. 

The tuning fork is a symbol of Harmony and making sure that your Financial Life is always in Harmony, however this tuning fork says “Toyota” on the side, so it is actually a reminder to make sure that your Automobile is well tuned to make sure you get good gas mileage.

While we have seen that gas prices have dropped a significant amount in the past month, remember that they can just as easily go back up without notice, and making sure your car is in good working condition can save you a great deal of money.

The Big Table of the CPI