Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Thankfully the markets (in Canada at least) are closed and we can all sit back and enjoy a lot of turkey and family and be thankful for all that we have in our over-abundant lives. 

For some however, Thanksgiving is a terrible time, and that is for the Meleagris gallopavo, or the Wild Turkey. Constantly hiding and ducking from now until January 2nd, think of these poor creatures are you scarf down their kins legs and breasts!

Happy Thanksgiving?

Financial Apocalypse Humor

In case you really need a dose of Financial Information, watch this helpful video on how the markets really work in these times of trouble. Go get some coffee, and come back and enjoy this 8 minutes of clarity.

Indeed this is approximately posting number 1000 for me, and after over 4 years of writing, I am beginning to think that I still haven’t really scratched the surface when it comes to home finance, personal financial issues and investing from a consumer’s perspective. 

Will I keep going? I am not sure, it seems most bloggers stop suddenly and just disappear, usually caused by the pressures of life or just disinterest. I am hoping to keep going for a while longer.

To help celebrate posting number 1000, here is a “Best of” list from me to my readers:

Personal Financial and Planning

1. Free Banking
   One of my favorite topics on how to get your bank to give you FREE banking for a while at least.
2. Quarterly Personal Finance Status Report
   A way for couples to keep each other up to date on their financial status. 
3. Debt is Like Fat
   Another way to look at trying to get out of debt.  
4. Debt Makes Me Sick
   A frank article on my feelings about debt.  
5. I Should Divorce My Wife?
   An interesting point of view from the tax side of things. 

Children

As most of you know I have kids and I write about their effects (affects?) on my financial life.

1. Real World Example: Kids Allowances
   Where I outline a system to ensure kids get their allowances on time. My kids were pretty mad at me until I implemented this system, and as a bonus, I am still watching them (financially).
2. Kippers
   Not just a salted fish eaten for breakfast in the U.K.
3. Hidden School Costs
   Not just for universities are there hidden costs in education, public schools rake a lot of money off parents too.  

Investment

1. Einstein: The Rule of 72
   Understanding what a doubling period is, and how the rule of 72 can help you with this concept is important to the start of your investment plan.
2. RRSP or Mortgage?
   Should you invest or pay down debt, always a good question to ask. 
3. Top 5 Investing Mistakes of my Life
   This one hurts to read EVERY time, seeing how much money I lost.  

Parables

In personal finances sometimes a lot can be learned in parable format.

1. Parable: Money and the McDonald’s Play Structure
   How can my son getting stuck in a McDonald’s play structure have anything to do with money? Read and you will be amused to see where I went with this story.
2. Best Financial Advice Ever Given
   Outlines a parable my Dad told me when I borrowed a large amount of money from him. I have used this parable many times myself.
3. Don’t Pass it to the Other Team
   How does the Carleton basketball coach have anything to do with finances? Read and you’ll see a long stretch.
4. The Dangers of Advice
   How I inadvertently gave very bad financial advice to a dear friend. 

Humor

I enjoy a good laugh, mostly at my own expense and here are some of my favorite personal finance posts with a humorous angle.

1. Always Have A Target
   OK, yes, my humor normally drops to toilet humor, but this one is funny too! 
2. God and a Stock Broker?
   This is funny, except last week.
3.  Why Banks are always funny
   Going into banks, talking to banks, interacting with banks, etc., you had better have a sense of humor, because if you don’t you’ll go crazy.
4. Get Off the Throne
   A perspective on the Throne Speech, that Stephen Harper might not have appreciated. 

After watching athletes work hard to reach their goals, I feel invigorated to attempt new financial goals of my own (OK, that’s pretty lame, but I couldn’t figure out any other way to spin the Olympics into a post over the past two weeks).

Glad to see the Canadian Athletes compete and do the Canadian thing and not win too much and be boastful, we are a very polite nation.

Coming Financial Decisions

The coming week is an important one for me financially because I must make key decisions on how much, and when my severance package is to be executed, and what to do about my pension (whether to leave it in my company’s badly underfunded pension (last time I heard it was funded up to about 87%)) or take the money and run, with some severe tax implications)).

I am meeting with a Financial Planner today (who is also a Chartered Accountant), to hear his ideas on how to make my severance package run as long as it can, and to maximize it’s financial impact for me. Ideally, when I find a job soon, I can simply use it as a debt destruction vehicle, but I must plan in case I have issues finding a job, as well (remember Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst).

Mostly I am meeting with this gentleman, because it is free, as his services are being paid for (evidently he charges $175 an hour normally) by the Right Management team that I am dealing with. I’ll listen to anyone for free, doesn’t mean I will necessarily follow their advice, but I can listen easily for free.

Interesting questions that may come up:

• Is it better to pay down debt quickly thus having less to deal with, or plan to simply service debt so that my liquidity stays sound?
• Is it worth working at Home Depot in my spare time right now? The easy answer there is NO, not this year, because whatever I earn, I lose about 1/2 of, and we should be able to budget well enough to last that long.
• Should I cash out of my company’s pension plan? Do I think they will exist in twenty years, and will the pension fund ever get back to 100% funding is the real question.

What other questions maybe need to be asked? I am open to suggestions here folks, any good questions, please pass on in the comments section.

Should be an interesting visit.

Sorry for the aliteration, it’s the Sports Broadcaster inside me wanting to get out.

A few weeks back I told the story of The Worst Financial Advice I ever Gave, where I told you about inadvertantly sending a friend off to buy a timeshare condominium (honestly that was not my plan), and after getting some good feedback, I challenged some of my financial bloggers to do the same and the responses were quite interesting.

Carnival of Catastrophic Financial Advice #1

The responses I got were many and varied, but let’s wander through them:

• Larry MacDonald wrote in to say:
  I’ve been holding off giving you a story hoping a incident as humurous (sic) as yours would surface in my memory but so far drawing a blank. All I can think of to this point is visiting my dentist while I was writing my book on Nortel Networks (in early 2000 just as Nortel stock was at its peak),and having read many bullish articles and reports as part of my research, recommend he load up on Nortel. As the crash unfolded and the stock languished in following years, my dental bills seemed to get bigger and bigger every year.
  
• The Canadian Capitalist added in:
  When I first started investing, I read a lot of books (regrettably none from the recommended list) but for some reason, I was most attracted by the Motley Fool books. I mean, if guys wearing joker hats are making a killing on Iomega and writing books about how easy pickings can be had in the stock market, really how hard can this investing thing be?  …. Canadian Capitalist Worst Financial Advice Ever
• The Canadian Money review came up with a group of points where he felt he was not giving the best advice. One great point was: 
  Giving stock advice taken from a newsletter to friends and family without proper disclaimer that this was still risky!…  Canadian Money Review Worst Financial Advice Ever
  
• Michael James on Money commented that he doesn’t give bad advice, but he has had his advice interpreted incorrectly. He did comment:
  The truth is that while I have opinions on just about every financial subject, I don’t advise people directly very often. For example, although I often say that trading stock options is a very bad idea for most people, it could be right for a particular person … Michael James Worst Financial Advice Ever
  
• Loonies and Sense also wrote of their experiences, including this excerpt:
  “Lots of people are in debt; it’s normal.” - The sad thing about this one is that it’s not untrue. Still, justifying my situation to myself in this way really showed a lack of maturity and ambition. Now that I’ve set a goal to get out of debt, I feel like I’m expecting more of myself, and that encourages me to rise to the task.  … Loonies and Sense Worst Financial Advice Ever
  
• Nerd Money had an experience where his good advice wasn’t followed:
  I usually try to give information to anyone who asks a question. To the best of my ability I’ll explain what I know and then send them away telling them that they need to understand for themselves.
  … Nerd Money Worst Financial Advice Ever
• Monty Loree, sent the following: I don’t generally give out financial advice unless I’m pretty sure about it. I have given information that I knew that was right, however wasn’t backed up by the industry. One that comes to mind is when I talk about not having to deal with collection agencies.
  The truth is: There is no law that says you have to deal with a collection agency.  You have to deal with them by contractual agreement only.The reality is: it seems that the collection industry will just keep calling regardless of if they have contracts in place or not.  Collection agencies don’t receive any heat from the regulators as this is a creditor friendly legal system.On the one side, I wish I never mentioned this to people as it gives them false hope.
  On the other side, it’s the truth and I wish collection agencies would heed it.As I was developing my credit repair business, there were a lot of truths that came out.  Many of them were not accepted as the industry had been operating for so long outside of the guidelines that I uncovered.  Regulators are slow to move again as it’s a creditor friendly legal system.  The legal systems favor creditors over debtors.

Have a great long weekend for my readers in Ontario.