Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Ho hum, guess we all took a break between March and April but the Economic Activity indicators from Stats Canada caught us, and now we know we didn’t do anything more in that time!

Wholesale trade and slower oil and gas sales are the culprits, but still interesting to see that things are not as hot as they were. Will this stop the Bank of Canada in their interest rate hike fervor? Don’t think so, sorry folks.

The table at the end of the Stats Canada posting outlines nicely what industries are still powering ahead in the economy.

On the investing side of things, if you held RIM about a year ago and decided to not look until now, that was a good piece of financial thinking, because the Technology Titan is now at $220 Cdn up from $72 a year ago (yup, tripling your money). Did I buy any? Nope, I am confident enough in my own ineptitude to say I didn’t, hope some of you did, and remember to TAKE YOUR PROFITS!

OK so the increase is only 0.1% from last month by our friends at Stats Canada, and 2.0% year over year and remember up is better than down! The Energy industry continues to help the Canadian economy hum along nicely, which lines up with our position in this world (natural resource provider to the world). Is this a good thing? Maybe, it’s better to be a “have” in this situation, however, what will happen when the “have not” countries can’t pay for it? Just an opinion and concept I am looking into.On my tax front, I received my tax rebates from the CCRA, which is great and no complaints from them about my return, and my RRSP limit continues to remain quite large (I keep thinking that I am driving it down, thanks to a large Pension Adjustment, but that is not the case). Nice to have that found money, but I am using it to pay down debt right now!

Good response to my help me make my blog better posting, which is great. As you can see there are some small changes already made on the site, and more is coming. Remember feedback in comments on this kind of stuff is ok by me, I may not take the advice, but I always appreciate feedback.

Zen and the Art of Financial Planning is mentioned by No Credit Needed in the Carnival of Personal Finance #94, as well!