Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Canadian’ Category

Canada Day it is Again!

Canada Day returns this year with Canada turning a majestic 142 years young today. There is no Expo 67 like celebration this year, however Canada is preparing for it’s third Olympics this winter in Vancouver.

Enjoy the holiday Canadians!

Happy Moving Day in Montreal!

For those of you in Montreal, July the 1st is also the day that most leases begin, so enjoy your moving day, hope you found a moving van, and don’t carry too much up those winding stair cases!

And Now A Large Flag

Happy Birthday Canada

And Finally an NFB Vignette

Yup, it’s half way through 2009 and how goes your financial plan for this year?

For me my plan of having a job by now, has not come to fruition, but I am still working hard at making this happen.

This week’s posts will discuss what areas and ideas you maybe should be thinking about for your personal finance plan and what you might need to tweak, change, add or forget about in your Yearly Personal Finance plan.

Do You Have a Plan?

You are now saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t even have a financial plan for this year?”, that’s a problem, but not insurmountable that is for sure.

So many people a yearly financial plan has to be complicated, over-thought or grandiose, but that is really not the case (if you don’t want it to be).  A personal finance plan can be as simple as you want it to be, and is simply based on the goals you want to hit this year (financially), no more, no less.

Simple Plan

A simple plan for a year might be:

• Cut your credit card debt by 30% (if you have credit card debt, if you don’t then you have achieved this goal, give yourself a pat on the back). If 30% is way too much for you, then either:
  • You have one hell of a credit card debt and you need to see someone about this.
  • You need to adjust your lifestyle, because this is do-able if your credit card debt is less than $10,000
• Pay off 15% of your University loans (adjust as you see fit).
• Open an RRSP account and put in at least $1000 for the half year. Make sure it is with an investment firm and not with an Insurance Company or a Mutual Fund firm.
• Create an emergency account that you will deposit $100 a month into (open a TFSA if possible for this as well).
• See how much you pay in bank fees monthly and lowering them or cut them to Zero, if possible (see PC Financial or talk to your bank about lowering the fees). My regular readers know how I hate bank service fees.
• Buy 1 less coffee or latte a day and put that money in your top desk drawer (and then put it monthly in your emergency or RRSP account ).

Simple as that, no fuss, no muss, and less worry, if you hit those goals.

Tomorrow

What to look for in your Personal Finance Plan and how to deal with success and with failures.

Another interesting month in March for the CPI with the CPI running at 1.2% down from 1.4% in February. Lower inflation is a good thing for consumers for now, except the numbers are very deceiving, when Food is the major upward pressure (a day to day cost we all incur) and with Energy prices stabilizing, what will come in the next few months. With the amount of money “vomited” into the monetary system by governments, is Inflation that far off?

Food Glorious Food

The main culprits in the upward pressure is the cost of shelter and the cost of food. Specifically Stats Canada points out:

Food prices, the largest factor, rose 7.9% during the 12-month period to March, on the heels of a 7.4% rise in February. March’s increase was the largest since November 1986.

Yikes, that is expensive, seems our Food dollar is really not going that far these days.

Energy and Transport DOWN

The Energy and Transport sectors did their best to lower the CPI, if not put us into a deflationary spiral, by dropping significantly over the year as well. 

Mitigating the overall increase in the CPI was a 6.2% decline in transportation costs. Year-over-year price drops for gasoline and for purchasing and leasing passenger vehicles were the primary downward contributors. Increasing prices for passenger vehicle insurance mitigated the overall 12-month drop in transportation costs.

Excluding gasoline, the CPI rose 2.4% in the 12 months to March. Overall, energy prices fell 11.2% during the same period, a larger drop than February’s decline of 8.8%.

Now that is a price drop! No wonder they are laying folks off in the oil patches. 

CPI for March

The Big Picture

Random Thoughts will return next week, have a great weekend all.

Cramer vs. Stewart

I was watching CNN and saw that Jim Cramer was on and he seems to be starting up some kind of feud with Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, about how Jim is being taken out of context for his advice to buy Bear Stearns. I don’t see why Mr. Cramer is so upset, he does a daily show where he does advice, he was BOUND to have a few “clunkers” in his picks and doing it on a nationally televised (cable tv) show it is kind of hard to say, “I never said that”. Now Mr. Cramer is not saying that, he is saying he said later NOT to buy Bear Stearns, but like most pundits the rest of the media will pick him apart because they can show he did say BUY some time (8 weeks before Bear Stearns demise, as claimed by the Daily show). 

I rarely give out advice (I learned from This Big Financial Advice Mistake) on what and when to buy (and anyone taking that advice, needs to read my 5 Worst Investing Mistakes ), but I have said I buy banks and I am still buying banks (Canadian banks that is), but I am losing money on this advice and admit I am taking a beating, no big deal, but I am not making my living on my financial advice (if I did, I’d be living in a Refridgerator box on the Rideau Canal).  The most you can expect from someone like me is excellent examples of what NOT to do with your investing dollar.

My advice to Mr. Cramer is laugh it off, trying to vindicate yourself when being mocked by a Comedian who doesn’t necessarily have to make a point (although Mr. Stewart does) never looks good. You are in the business of giving advice, and entertaining people, but I suspect this “feud” isn’t going to be over very soon (since it helps both sides to keep it going).

I’d include the clips, but Comedy Central’s clips don’t play in Canada and the Comedy Network doesn’t like other folks using their clips (go figure). Interesting also that Mr. Cramer’s video clips seem to be lost on the CNBC site as well, but then again, “I KNOW NOTHING!” (that’s the Sgt. Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes quote, not the Cramer quote).

Addendum, but I do have this clip from CNN:

Proof in Point

Remember yesterday’s post where I said nothing good was going to happen this week? Well as usual, off by a mile, a sudden surge in stock prices makes me look like the stock prognosticator that I am (i.e. able to pick a loser in a 1 horse race). Although the Just Don’t Look advice still holds.