Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Random Thoughts

It is Friday again, and it has been yet another interesting week financially in this world.

• There is now serious talk of Gasoline going for $200 a barrel, which would mean it’s price in Ottawa would be around $2.20 a liter, which may well cause folks to seriously look at alternate transportation methods.
• I reviewed my Family’s Personal Spending for April and found some interesting spending oddities of my own.
• Ellen Roseman asked a good question about Who Speaks for Investors, and she was part of a group who tried to, and was even asked to, however, not much seems to have come out of her work.
• Stats Canada talked about how Family Incomes haven’t really changed too much in the past few years, certainly doesn’t look like it keeps up with inflation.
• The Canadian Capitalist asked us if We are Comfortable With our Portfolio, I think my answer is, it’s doing ok, but it would be nice if it doubled tomorrow.
• The Government has an Auditor General to make sure spending doesn’t get out of control, shouldn’t we all have our own Personal Auditor General?
• Any way to control your spending is by creating Artificial Scarcity in your own money supply according to Michael James.
• My mail bag does have some very interesting things in it, as well.
• The Quest for Four Pillars states boldly Zero Down Payment On a House is Just Fine, which on the surface sounds wacky to me, but the article isn’t espousing buying houses you can’t afford, simply not waiting until you have some magic number for a down payment. Interesting concept, not sure I completely buy it, but interesting.
• Finally the Globe and Mail is having a poll about picking the Top 5 Financial Bloggers in Canada , I note I am conspicuous by my absence, but I am not bitter, where did I leave my copy of the Ottawa Sun? I’d vote for the Canadian Capitalist myself (but I would have also included Michael James on Money on that list as well).

Flash: De-Crapification Set Back

Never go to a Gar(b)age sale if you are trying to get rid of your crap. Our Church is running one, and I came home with something, I have however removed something from my bedroom (which is where the new item will go), however, I am ashamed of myself. I did get a trouser press for $10 however, which I think is still kind of cool, and I could bring a lot of crap back to my Church’s gar(b)age sale tomorrow, so maybe this will work out.

No that is not my pet name for the guy who stuffs my super mailbox, however, I do get some very interesting e-mails and 1 yesterday I felt I had to make a comment on.

Art for Financial Gain

This e-mail almost had me passing my liver I was laughing so hard. It started off with:

If you’re looking for an alternative to investing in stocks or real estate, art might be the way to go – whether you have $1,000 or $10,000 to spend.

You are not serious or as my daughters might say WTF? For my regular readers you know I have very little skill when it comes to investing in stocks (I have had many more flops than wins), I think I know as little about Real Estate, but then again, I have a nice house (which is not an investment in my mind) and I know I never want to be a landlord, so that covers most of the investing areas I know of, but this e-mail suggests Art?

Don’t get me wrong, I like art and I own art, but it is Art for Art’s Sake. I am an amateur ornithologist, especially liking pictures of birds of prey, so I own a couple of Robert Bateman prints which are worth something, I think. This e-mail is saying that I should work with this web site to make money using a methodology outlined by an entrepreneur.

Pardon? So as with most get rich schemes, I give someone I don’t know money to invest and hope they don’t simply squander it, in an area where I have no expertise other than, “That looks nice to me”? I think I’ll be passing on that “investing idea”.

Other Interesting Mail

I also get lots of other interesting e-mails, which fall into a few categories:

1. How my girlfriend is unsatisfied with me, and I need herbal Viagra of some kind. Why is it my girlfriend is unhappy but my wife isn’t? Curious why those ads always talk about my girlfriend.
2. Get rich schemes for this blog and how if I use the right keywords like: Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank or PC Financial, I will make a fortune. No Canadian Capitalist is the only successful financial blogger I know of right now.
3. Phishing e-mail from people in the former Soviet Union or Nigeria who want to send me $1,000,000.00 because I am a good person.  I think I deserve that money, but no, I don’t answer those either.
4. Occasional inquiries from readers about specific things and even some who ask for investing advice. Here is my investment advice: Pay off your debt and never ask me about investing advice, I will steer you wrong.

I enjoy reading mail and e-mail, and I like reading comments too (especially the nice one who said the Globe and Mail got it wrong and that I was one of the top 5 Canadian Financial Bloggers).

Be Cautious

The CBC asks the question are Canadian Investors being too cautious?

Canadians are sitting on a record $45 billion in excess safe, liquid assets that would normally be invested in the market, according to a report Wednesday by CIBC World Markets economist Benjamin Tal.

So people who want you to invest so they can make money on the transactions think we aren’t investing enough? I am pretty sure that Laura Secord thinks I am not eating enough chocolate too, but I don’t listen to her either.

We in Canada have seen some SPECTACULAR investment busts in Bre-X, Nortel and the high tech bubble, and others, be skeptical and be cautious. Invest in what you understand and know (to paraphrase Warren Buffet), unless you are able to deal with losing the money you invest!

Where has all the money gone?

So this topic comes from a comment from my friend Michael James on commenting on my “self pitying” posting of getting older yesterday. The quip is actually quite topical, I have earned well over a million dollars in my 20+ years of working. Where did all that money go?

If you think about it, where it always goes:

• Taxes
  • Federal Taxes which had to have eaten 10-20% of it over the years
  • Provincial Taxes which ate about the same if not a little less
  • GST and PST can’t even fathom how much I have paid for those little consumption taxes.
  • Municipal Property Taxes, which keep going up as well. How much? 4-8% of my income is a good guess.
  • Employment Insurance payments, and I have never claimed against this system (touch wood). That is money completely lost.
  • Canada Pension Plan Payments (and a little QPP as well), hopefully I’ll get some of that back one day.

  That’s about 25-45% of the money right there, and I haven’t spent a cent yet!

• Living, which might include rent and mortgage payments and such, which has to be about 10-20% of that money.

So I have about 40% of my income left and I haven’t fed anyone, bought a single coffee or gone on a wild spending binge?

It’s interesting just to look back and if I told myself when I started working that I’d have earned over a million dollars by now, but not be living in a villa on the Riviera, I don’t think my younger self would have believed it.

Tax Preparation Coming

It is that time of the year to start looking at tax software and start monkeying around with my taxes. Our friend the Canadian Capitalist is looking at Ufile instead of Quicktax this year. Quicktax seems to be cutting the number of possible returns to be done down to TWO (2) but I need to research this more to figure out whether I can use this or not, given my oldest daughter now is old enough and has income. Stay tuned, I am sure I will rant more about this topic very soon.

Move Complete

My Blogspot account is now permanently aimed at this site. The move over is complete, I hope.