Canadian Personal Finance Blog

A restful if not short week on Vacation, which was enjoyable and with back to school fairly quiet as well.

This week has seen some interesting financial news:

• A first meeting of the National Capital Financial Bloggers Association met at a Starbucks in Ottawa’s East End (although none of us ordered more than 1 coffee and 1 of us didn’t even buy one, to show our own internal frugality). In attendance were Larry MacDonald of Investment Ideas Blog and the bloggers behind Canadian Capitalist, Canadian Money Blogs Reviewer and Dividends Matter. I found the conversation invigorating and very interesting, given I had never spoken to other bloggers about “the business” and also about Financial Matters in general. You need to read what these guys write, I do, and find them interesting and also causes me to think about Financial Ideas that maybe I hadn’t thought of.
• Interest rates are staying the same for this month, which is a good thing. Given the Fed in the U.S. lowered their rate, is the tight money philosophies that were being espoused at the start of the year being revisited? I don’t think so, this economy is starting to overheat and inflation is certainly not too far away.
• The Public Sector continues to grow from it’s bottom in 1999, since 2000, public sector employees have represented about 19% of the total employed labour force, but if government continues to grow, who is going to pay for it, given their main income is from us.
• Apple announced a cheaper iPhone (a discount as it were) which is causing folks to be really mad at Apple about dropping the price so soon. I think I actually agree with Steve Jobs when he said, if you keep waiting for the next big thing, or the next price drop, you’ll never buy anything high tech. Oh, and there still are no iPhones set up for Canada (you can hack them evidently to work here but it is going to cost you).

Enjoy your weekend, the fall starts soon. –C8j

A busy week for me at work, which is always a good thing, so let’s just bounce around to some thoughts on my mind and some ideas.

1. Let me state that I am NOT in favor of the Government banning smoking in>some one’s house. I never meant to imply that should be the case, however, I am all over parents who ban smoking from their house (even their spouses) when there are kids involved. To paraphrase a famous (infamous) Canadian, The Government has no place in the bedrooms of Canadians (kind of creepy to think of my MP hanging out in my bedroom).
2. TD announces amazing profits yesterday after last week’s DOOM and GLOOM statements, so what does this mean? You should have bought TD last week? That’s about my only view on this, whether there are still more ramifications from the below prime fiasco in the states, we shall see. My DRIP keeps dripping along happily.
3. The back to school insanity continues in my financial world, with that sucking sound you hear my kids going back to school.
4. My visit to the Passport office this week was not the horror I expected, it took me 20 minutes once I was in the door and I paid only $2 parking at 240 Sparks Street, amazing. I didn’t see Lotta Hitchmanova anywhere around however. Just go after 9:00 AM on a Wednesday before the Lunch rush.
5. My company (my real job remember) just changed their parental leave benefits (naturally lowering it’s top up (was 75% after first 9 weeks are at full pay, now is only 55%) ), which has caused a great deal of discussion internally, with one side crying FOUL and the other pointing out that a great deal of companies do not offer any “top up” of the EI benefits and we are lucky to still have them. Given I am not planning on having any more kids, I am not part of the discussion.

Friday Thoughts

That was a week that was, with huge economic ramifications from things that have been brewing for a while:

• The below prime fiasco in the states, which still has a while until it’s final effects have been discerned. This has caused a “credit crunch” with Central banks all over the world injecting huge amounts of “cash” into the system. What does this mean? Don’t know, but we’ll see in a couple of weeks what those actions have caused as well.
• The “China Syndrome” looms more and more, with companies that have subcontracted their manufacturing now realizing that maybe they should have had tighter quality controls as well? What is next in this episode?
• The Stock Market had it’s worst start to a day yesterday since they reopened after 9/11 . Remember to stick to your plan, and don’t get too emotional about it, and if it really bothers you, just don’t look!

Executing a Financial Plan is Like

Moving a bridge, very slow and sometimes you never think you are making any progress, but you are. Don’t believe me?This is the Island Park bridge move from August 11th here in Ottawa. Ottawa folk are strange, because we go to these kinds of things and treat them like rock concerts! I am not kidding there were hundreds of people watching this.

Slow and steady growth, just like slow and controlled bridge moving.

Time lapse of this entire Island Park Bridge Move project can be seen here as well.

Have a good weekend, relax, don’t worry about finances, have fun, and on Monday things will be different (not necessarily better or worse, just different).

This Week’s Postings

• Crisis? What Crisis?
• Dollar Down and Dropping but Fuel Intake Up
• Wake Me Up When September Ends
• Unemployment All Time Low and Housing Prices Stabilizing

Who(m) do you trust with your money?

• A “financial advisor” has been arrested in Ottawa and charged with stealing the people’s money that he was supposed to be investing for. He declared bankruptcy and then disappeared, he has since been found and charged. This is why I am very leery of anyone I don’t know (and a few of the people I know) doing anything with my money. It’s MY money! Be very careful with you trust with YOUR money too.
• The Ottawa Citizen reported on irregularities at the Public Guardian’s Office for Ontario. There are evidently allegations of theft in this office, which is the office of the provincial government that manages (I believe) the moneys for folks who are mentally incapacitated or handicapped. If the charges are true, whoever is convicted should be flogged, because, if true, that is about as low as you can get (stealing from this group of people is Evil, especially if your job was to help them).
• We are finally retiring the refrigerator we have had for about 15 years which is going to cost a lot, but it will end up saving some money (I hope) too.
  • Currently our Fridge’s rating is 84 KwH/month so about 1008 KwH/year (and this rating was when this was NEW, it has been misbehaving lately, so I suspect it is using a lot more power than that).
  • The new Fridge’s rating for the year is about 550 KwH, so that means I should save about 400 KwH at least a year, which translate to somewhere around $0 per year on my electrical bill (I am hoping more).
  • My wife (through a friend) got a very good price so I am quite happy about the purchase, I am just unhappy about having to do the purchase, but it is rare that I am happy with a big ticket purchase.
• Gas prices have dropped in Ottawa to around 90 cents per liter which is good, given I have a large amount of driving to take care of in the coming weekends.

Enjoy your weekend!

This Week’s Posts

• How Cheap Are You?
• The Importance of Sell Stop: Limit Your Losses
• Stop Buy?
• Trading Activity and the Stock Market