Canadian Personal Finance Blog

A quiet day so here is one of my favorite postings from this year.

Einstein Rule of 72

This is a rewording of a previous posting on July 21st 2005. OK, so maybe I will concede that Einstein may have stated that this was important, but I am still not convinced he “invented” it, but be that as it may.

If you click on the graph on the right you will find a gif that will show you a graph to show you the rule of 72 at work. Assuming your saving a set amount of money with only 1 compounding period per year, this graph is fairly accurate.

The other thing to remember is this is a DOUBLING period, and the more of those the better. Why? Remember if you find an investment that grows say by 10% a year (over year), your money doubles in 7 years (approximately), so in 21 years (approximately) your money will be 8 times what it is today! (remember 2 * 2 * 2 == 8). This is why it is so crucial to find good growth in your investments.

HOWEVER, risk is another thing to take into consideration too, and we’ll talk about that soon as well.

Double, double, double!!!

DRIP : Dividend Re-Investment Programs

So last year some time I finally got around to phoning up my stock brokers and asked to join the DRIP for every common stock that I owned and it has finally paid off!
What’s a DRIP? No it’s not this picture –>

DRIP is a Dividend Reinvestment Program, which most stocks typically offer you, so that you can buy stock with your dividend payments (instead of taking the cash). The cost of buying this stock is FREE, which is the best part, so I get more stock in something I already hold stock in AND I don’t have to pay any brokerage fees.

Doesn’t that sound like a good idea? Any left over moneys goes to my account, and typically you are only allowed to buy whole stock (i.e. you can’t buy 1.5 shares of XYZ).

The only problem I have run into, is that I usually didn’t own enough common shares to get a large enough dividend to buy a share when dividend time rolled around, but this time two of my stock came in!!! Whoo Hoo! I own 3 more shares! Not much? Well, we’ll see, but it’s a start!

More Carnivals

Fire Finance is hosting the 60th Carnival of Investing where my Einstein’s Rule of 72 posting is mentioned as well (Einstein Finance).

Taxes Coming

I keep having to remind myself of that one. I have my Quicktax installed and ready to go, but my current employer has a tradition of only sending out my T4 on February 33rd (or whenever the last day that they can is). I usually submit shortly thereafter, because my taxes are really not that complicated.I am proud to say that this year I do get to declare my income from blogging (it is a very small amount, but I am proud to say that I am a Minuscule Business now (the smallest of Businesses)). I figure for the amount of tax I have to pay, who really cares?

I plan on doing another essay on just how much my wife is worth (in the view of the CRA, not me, she is priceless to me (who would stay married to me for 20 years?)). My guess is not much more than last year, but if Mr. Flaherty does as he is thinking, and is not just teasing us, she’ll be worth a heck of a lot more!

This week in Carnivals

Blogging away Debt is hosting the 74th Carnival of Debt Reduction where she mentions my entry about whether to build up RRSP or pay down Debt.

The 87th Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by 2Million - My Journey to Financial Freedom included my discussions of Einstein’s Rule of 72  remembering, Einstein Finance.