Easter

Financial Reboot

by bigcajunman on March 31, 2013

One of the major tricks I learned when I was an I.T. dude, was how easy it was to fix problems if you asked your customer, “Have you rebooted your system lately?“. I also knew this drove my customers nuts, but it worked most of the time, and they had to then go away, and I usually had a good chuckle.

When I was at the Maundy Thursday service at my Church during Holy Week, it ends with a complete stripping of the alter and the turning off all the lights in the Church, effectively ending the Church year, and then on Easter morning, this is the start of a new year, effectively a spiritual reboot.

Restart Financially?

This strikes me as a useful idea for those who may be stuck in a financial rut, or feel they are drowning in their own financial plans. I am not espousing declaring bankruptcy or walking away from your financial issues (that is the ultimate financial reboot, and should really be a solution of last resort), but I am saying that maybe a reboot in your financial thinking is needed?

How can you reboot financially? Some ideas that might work are:

Re-vamp your investment ideas, and move away from an active investment plan to a passive or Index based plan. Maybe your issue with your investments is that you just don’t know enough about how to invest (I know I don’t), but if you go with the indexes you are more likely to succeed (as long as you choose the right indexes). This kind of reboot in your methodology may help you in the long run?
If you and your spouse don’t talk about money much, maybe it’s time to reboot, and then plan weekly discussions about what is going on with money so that both of you know what is going on. This might ease the money tension in your house and give you new ideas about things.
If you have no financial plan, reboot, and make one. If you feel living day to day is not working for you, reboot and restart with a plan that will help you feel more in control.
When you retire a debt (especially if it is a Credit Card), maybe retire that debt vehicle (i.e. close the account), so that it cannot resurrect itself later. Rebooting your credit vehicles by getting rid of unneeded credit devices is a good idea, if you have had issues with them previously.

Rebooting your financial life gives you a fresh start, and maybe can put you back on the right path?

{ 1 comment }

An Easter Story: The Leather Coat

by bigcajunman on April 12, 2012

Sometimes some interesting stories happen around me that I like passing on in this forum. I am recounting this story to show that for all the complaining about the youth, I think the world will be in good hands when we old farts finally move on.

On Ash Wednesday this year, our Church ran its normal activity day (where the kids come and learn about Lent, Ash Wednesday and Easter), and a few other parishes also participated (my wife helps run these).

One of the activities for the high school kids (who actually take the day off school) is to go down to one of the Churches in the Ottawa Core, where there is a “lunch club” where folks of modest means (and many homeless people) come to have lunch, and have somewhere to “be”. The teenagers from our churches went to help out at the lunch room, and to maybe get a glimpse of how some people have to live.

A few of the teenagers brought their coats in and hung them up, and unfortunately one of the coats went missing after lunch. Evidently where the kids hung up their coats was an “if you need one take one, if you have one leave one” area of the closet, so a very nice leather coat went missing. The jacket that disappeared was a treasured family keepsake (it had been owned by one of the young men’s grandfather). Needless to say there was a lot of rushing around to find the coat, but it was gone.

The kids returned to our Church and our minister got the whole story so he took the young man aside to talk to him about the missing coat. When our minister asked the young man if he was upset about the coat going missing, the young man’s only response was, “… at least someone will have a warm coat to wear tonight …”.

This is astounding, a kid who could have whined, complained, blamed, or at least been upset about the loss simply viewed the coat for what it most likely had become, a gift to someone who might need something warm to wear.

An astounding young man.

Note: I feel I can repeat this story, because our minister spoke about it in his sermon.

{ 2 comments }

Easter Bunny Bounces Jobs Into March in Canada

by bigcajunman on April 9, 2012

Yes, I know the Easter bunny would help the April employment numbers, but the headline is still great.

Employment is up and Unemployment is down for March 2012 in Canada (according to Stats Canada), which is very good news:

Following four months of little change, employment increased by 82,000 in March, mostly in full-time work. This brought the unemployment rate down 0.2 percentage points to 7.2%.

Compared with 12 months earlier, employment was up 1.1% or 197,000. Almost all of this growth was in full-time employment, up 181,000 (+1.3%), while part-time employment edged up. The total number of hours worked rose 1.6% over the same period.

The fact that it is Full Time employment is the most important news that I can read in that paragraph. The numbers of hours worked going up is good too.

Employment for Past Little While

Employment gains in March were spread across several industries, including health care and social assistance; information, culture and recreation; and public administration. There was a decline in educational services.

Interesting cross-section of jobs that were created, and all of this is good news for Canadians, but now we must wait to see that the ramifications are from Government cuts at the Provincial and also at the Federal level.

Unemployment for Past little While in Canada

A much more optimistic looking graph for Canadians.

The Big Table

As usual I include one of the Big Tables from our friends at Stats Canada, and some interesting numbers appear in the table.

Labour force characteristics by age and sex - Seasonally adjusted

	February 2012	March 2012	Feb to Mar 2012	Mar 2011 to Mar 2012	Feb to Mar 2012	Mar 2011 to Mar 2012
	thousands (except rates)		change in thousands (except rates)		% change
Both sexes, 15 years and over
Population	28,180.9	28,208.1	27.2	318.9	0.1	1.1
Labour force	18,740.3	18,792.8	52.5	128.9	0.3	0.7
Employment	17,354.2	17,436.5	82.3	197.2	0.5	1.1
Full-time	14,058.0	14,128.0	70.0	181.3	0.5	1.3
Part-time	3,296.1	3,308.5	12.4	15.9	0.4	0.5
Unemployment	1,386.2	1,356.2	-30.0	-68.4	-2.2	-4.8
Participation rate	66.5	66.6	0.1	-0.3	…	…
Unemployment rate	7.4	7.2	-0.2	-0.4	…	…
Employment rate	61.6	61.8	0.2	0.0	…	…
Part-time rate	19.0	19.0	0.0	-0.1	…	…
Youths, 15 to 24 years
Population	4,456.2	4,456.7	0.5	-1.9	0.0	-0.0
Labour force	2,822.8	2,843.3	20.5	-33.7	0.7	-1.2
Employment	2,409.1	2,448.3	39.2	-15.7	1.6	-0.6
Full-time	1,268.8	1,302.0	33.2	1.5	2.6	0.1
Part-time	1,140.3	1,146.3	6.0	-17.2	0.5	-1.5
Unemployment	413.7	395.0	-18.7	-18.1	-4.5	-4.4
Participation rate	63.3	63.8	0.5	-0.7	…	…
Unemployment rate	14.7	13.9	-0.8	-0.5	…	…
Employment rate	54.1	54.9	0.8	-0.4	…	…
Part-time rate	47.3	46.8	-0.5	-0.4	…	…
Men, 25 years and over
Population	11,609.3	11,622.2	12.9	159.6	0.1	1.4
Labour force	8,429.3	8,460.2	30.9	76.8	0.4	0.9
Employment	7,899.5	7,927.9	28.4	102.2	0.4	1.3
Full-time	7,281.3	7,305.2	23.9	88.9	0.3	1.2
Part-time	618.2	622.6	4.4	13.2	0.7	2.2
Unemployment	529.8	532.3	2.5	-25.4	0.5	-4.6
Participation rate	72.6	72.8	0.2	-0.3	…	…
Unemployment rate	6.3	6.3	0.0	-0.4	…	…
Employment rate	68.0	68.2	0.2	-0.1	…	…
Part-time rate	7.8	7.9	0.1	0.1	…	…
Women, 25 years and over
Population	12,115.4	12,129.2	13.8	161.2	0.1	1.3
Labour force	7,488.2	7,489.3	1.1	85.8	0.0	1.2
Employment	7,045.6	7,060.4	14.8	110.8	0.2	1.6
Full-time	5,508.0	5,520.8	12.8	90.9	0.2	1.7
Part-time	1,537.6	1,539.6	2.0	19.9	0.1	1.3
Unemployment	442.6	428.9	-13.7	-24.9	-3.1	-5.5
Participation rate	61.8	61.7	-0.1	-0.2	…	…
Unemployment rate	5.9	5.7	-0.2	-0.4	…	…
Employment rate	58.2	58.2	0.0	0.1	…	…
Part-time rate	21.8	21.8	0.0	-0.1	…	…

…

not applicable

Note(s):

Related CANSIM table 282-0087.

{ 2 comments }

Happy Easter and Sunday’s Best

by bigcajunman on April 8, 2012

This day is the beginning of it all for the Christian Faith. Strangely Christmas seems to be a more celebrated holiday, but Good Friday and Easter Sunday are the alpha and omega for the Christian Faith. Without Easter Sunday, there really isn’t Christianity (just as there isn’t a Faith without Good Friday as well).

Enjoy the feast and the celebration of the faith. Feast and enjoy, and revel in new beginnings.

Remember that Lent is now over too, so if you had a Financial Plan or Lenten vows to add or remove something from your financial plans, that time is over, look back and see if it was a success. If you feel you failed, figure out why, and either try again, or try something else. Take the good from your works and move on.

Use Easter as the starting of something new, Financially and Spiritually. Revel in the joy of a new start, and new beginnings!

Happy Easter To You And Your Loved Ones!

Sunday’s Best

For those looking for some reading for an Easter Sunday (while Mom fixes the feast), have a check out of some of these oldies that I posted on my Twitter Feed this week:

My Financial Balance Band was a little bit of an April Fool’s Joke (Poisson d’Avril), but I am sure I could sell a few to some folks.
I found an early bit of writing What’s in it For Me? Which shows just how mercenary I can be.
With the changes to the RDSP rules I figured bringing back RDSP: The Completion of Initial Work, to show just how complicated this can be.
As with sports, finances also need goals so Always Have a Target points out that even in urinals having a target is a good thing.
Not really an Oldie, but still a goody, Costco Gas points out just how far I will drive to get 4 cents a litre off gas prices.
For Good Friday I found a Best of: 5 Investing Mistakes I have Made, which is a very good read to show how honest I can be.
The topic of Pet Insurance has come up a few times, but what if you had a problem pet like in The Cat Came Back a film short from the NFB?