Canadian Personal Finance Blog

A friend is doing some number crunching trying to figure out which is the cheapest Cell Phone plan that she can get that fits her needs, so her and I have been discussing various pay per use plans (I know something about them because both my daughters have those set ups), I am not sure what her final decision was (I will post it when I know), but this caused me to look at my phone bills and I was flabbergasted to see just how much I pay per month for my phones.

The total this month is $190.00 (approx), for 1 home phone line (with a long distance package) and 2 cell phones all from Bell.

I leave that in a paragraph by itself because I am astounded at that number. That is more than I pay to heat my house and it is about 80% of what I pay in Electric + Natural Gas, this is ridiculous, and I am now banging my head on my desk realizing this is one of my major expenses every month.

I am getting nailed for the long distance plan on my home phone, but I am getting obliterated by long distance charges and text’ing charges on my cell phones. My wife and I save long distance charges by sending text message, however, evidently we send too darn many.

This is my new target for controlling costs, as this is a crazy expense. Anyone care to comment on their cell phone expenses and how they keep this expense down, I am open to suggestions (two tin cans and a piece of wire is one of my ideas right now).

Carnivals This Week

I am sending in posts to carnivals again so you can read some of my previous works at:

• The Carnival of Debt Reduction #141 has my post Debt Reduction is like Teenage Sex.
• The Carnival of Debt Management #53 has the same post up too.

Michael James talked about found money yesterday and the joy of paying off bills with found money, and how we should not squander this found wealth, and really use it to create happiness in the future by paying off debt now. I think this is a sensible approach to found money, but it made me think about another post I did a while ago, which was how couples deal with money.

Many times found money can cause a great deal of consternation between spouses because each have their own idea of what the best thing is to do with found money.

I think this is natural, as with most every subject possible spouses are going to have their own ideas, but the problem arises when the two ideas are contradictory or even orthogonal to each other.

Say Mary and Bob get $10,000.00 in found money from an inheritance. Mary thinks she’d like to go on a nice vacation with the family because the family has never really been on a vacation, however, Bob thinks that putting that money on their Mortgage (thus shortening it’s term by 5 years), is the right answer.

Reading this, it sounds like an easy enough “problem” to deal with, both folks want to do what they think is best with the money, but the problem now is you have is a simple difference of opinion. The problem I have seen in my life and from other folks I know is that this is not a simple problem, because:

• There is no wrong answer (or right answer)
• Both spouses have voiced their opinion, and thus feel they have the right answer.
• Money and money management is a divisive factor in many relationships

Is there a Solution?

Only if both parties are willing to compromise, or one is willing to lose (i.e. typical Prisoner’s Dilemma issue). Wikipedia’s explanation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is:

Two prisoners (the players) during the interrogation each have a choice: whether to betray the other one, and thus to decrease his own jail time by, for example, 1 month (as a compensation for the cooperation), while increasing the jail time for the other by, for example, 10 years, or to stay silent. Each of the prisoners is only interested in receiving the least possible sentence. It shall be assumed that the prisoners make their choices (to betray or to stay silent) simultaneously, and they know for sure that their choice cannot affect the choice of the other one.

All right I am stretching this (feel free to leave a comment), but the need to compromise and find the best solution for the couple is not always obvious to either spouse, and sometimes they feel it is not in their best interest (they got their way the last time, so I want my way this time). Sound familiar to any of my readers? Never happened to you?

Resolution?

I have no canned simple answer for this one, because as I keep saying, Money is a strange and divisive thing in a relationship, especially if the spouses do not agree in terms of money and how to use it.

What needs to be done is have clear lines of communication and rational discussions between the spouses about what they want to do, and a decision made that doesn’t cause either to feel that they have “lost” in this decision. Sounds easy doesn’t it ?

Think this is a simple thing to resolve? You and your spouse never have these issues? Then you are either very lucky (or very naive).

This week ends with the following things sticking in my head:

1. Nothing of great excitement in the Ontario Provincial Budget 2008, other than the fact that it is balanced and there are no new taxes (which I guess is good news). Whoopee?
2. The BCE purchase looks to be ok with the CRTC, but now we need to see if the Teachers’ Union is ok with the conditions placed on the sale.
3. I already gloated about my refund for my taxes, sorry, it’s one of the rare times where I feel like gloating.
4. Canada’s population is now 33,143,600 as of January 1, 2008! That’s kind of cool, we have a larger population than London or New York City, which is a good thing (I think).
5. Server problems continue for this site, so please stay with me, in the words of the PQ, “C’est pas ma faute! C’est la faute du Federal!” (ok that is a Bowser and Blue quote). Sorry Monsieur Klein.

Comments Please!

I find that I get some comments from a few dedicated (or maybe belligerent) readers on most of my posts, however this time, I want to hear from any reader. What do I want to hear?

• What do you like about the stuff I am posting about?
• Are there subjects you want to read more about?
• Topics I maybe don’t touch on that you want to read about?
• Things you don’t really want to read about, and I should drop from my writings?

Wish I had free stuff to give away for this (I am working on that), but I will personally attempt to reply to each comment if you do (as I normally do). It might be on delay, since I am out of town this weekend.

Remember I have spam filters on, so your comments don’t appear right away