Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Given that for now I am still a telecommunications employee I can join the Telecommunication Technologies Credit Union (this is not a promotion for them, nor am I being paid to mention them, this is me querying my readership). This Credit Union has ATMs on campus where I work, and thus if I need money I must use their machines (or drive to find a TD Canada trust machine).

As a bit of history about 10 years ago, CIBC was on campus and their ATMs were on site. They had a no charge banking deal back then, so I opened a bank account with them, where I put some “mad money” (usually no more than $50.00) where if I needed money and I was at work, I could withdraw it without incurring any extra service fees. This worked quite well, and then when CIBC played the dirtier trick of “out sourcing” their ATM machines, it was even better, because then I paid no service charges, but if I tried to take money out of my TD account, I got nailed with a $1.50 charge from TD, and CIBC nailed me with a $2.00 fee for it being a “White” ATM machine (and not a CIBC machine). You wonder why I invest in banks, they are just so darn EVIL!

Now I have the option to open an account with the Credit Union, which I almost did last week, since they seem to offer “no fee” banking so I was going to go back to my old “Work” account concept, except, the Credit Union has an interesting twist for new customers. I must be a “member” of the Credit Union, thus I must buy a share in the Credit Union (I think this is standard practice with Credit Unions), and this share costs $220. If I ever leave the Credit Union, this money is refunded to me, and it evidently earns a dividend of some sort every year as well.

This leaves me in a quandary, do I pay the $220 set up fee to have a convenience account for me to save $3.00 a month or so in service fees, or do I just get some “intestinal fortitude” and simply not take money out of my bank accounts willy nilly (and instead take out the money I need for two weeks in 1 block, and when it is gone, it is gone)? The Credit Union does not have a lot of ATMs around Ottawa, so thinking of them as an option to move ALL my banking to is not really “on” either, although they do seem to have some good services as well.

I can guess a few of my friends answers, but I am curious to hear what my readers think would be the better thing to do in this situation.

Lottery Tickets, another reason to Loath Them

The CBC is reporting yet another internal investigation at the Ontario Lottery Corp about their approval of a $21.5 Million “Insider Win” in the 6/49.  Given this is the 6/49 so the ability to tamper with this lottery is less likely (unless the person figured out how to “past post” the winners (see the Sting to understand that)), it still has the appearance of something smelly in the Lottery business (which already has had fun and excitement with Fraud allegations in the past year). Given the Lottery Commission has investigated, I guess they are satisfied their was no Fraud involved. Either way, I read this story, and I thank my lucky stars I don’t buy Lottery Tickets.

Twice in the past two weeks I have seen something that really made me scratch my head, and made me wonder exactly what parents think they are teaching their kids in terms of how money works and financial planning.

Two weeks ago I was at WalMart and saw that they had set up a Lottery Ticket booth (where the kids coin operated games had been), and I thought , at least they don’t have them at the check out, where it slows everything down. Then I noticed a family there (Mom, Dad and two kids younger than 10 years old), and the kids were asking their parents, “Can we scratch the card this time?”. Frankly my first that was WTF? What are these parents teaching these kids?

Fast forward to my trip to San Francisco and on the plane the family in front of me was another family (Mom, Dad, three kids under age of 10) and they were doing the same thing, and the kids were asking, “Can I play, can I scratch the tickets?”, again my gut reaction was WTF?

What exactly are these parents thinking getting their kids interested in playing lotteries for? To kids this is just a fun game to play, they don’t really understand how much money gets wasted on lotteries, they just think it is fun to scratch off tickets and how much fun their parents seem to be having with these games.

Why start teaching kids about this so young?

• If you really want to teach kids a lesson about lottery tickets, teach them about the chances of winning and play games with the numbers.
• Have them understand what the chances are at winning this “game of chance.”
• Explain to them where the money goes, but also explain that while the money does go to good things, it is your money, and you can donate to charities directly instead.

Am I missing something here? It is illegal for kids under the age of 18 to BUY lottery tickets, so why would you teach them to play them?

Ontario Budget 2007

More information is starting to leak out about the Ontario Budget due out today:

• As I mentioned yesterday rumors of a gradual raising of the minimum wage to $10.25 per hour (over an unknown period of time)
• A “balanced” budget for the first time in a while for Ontario. What “balanced” means is open to interpretation.
• Some green initiatives for the environment

So what? Well that is what one member of parliament is saying:

“ When you see that Dalton McGuinty’s total spending has gone up by some $ 20 billion, a 34- per- cent increase, that takes your breath away,” Conservative member of Provincial Parliament Tim Hudak commented.

Very true, of course who left them with the fiscal mess? Bob Rae? No, can’t use him as a whipping boy any more.And from the far left we have Howard Hampton

“ I think we’ll get a budget laden with more McGuinty promises. People will have to take those promises with huge dollops of salt.”

But salt is bad for my blood pressure Mr. Hampton!My guess is there will be a few election promises closed on, given the next election is in October, and a lot of trumpeting about balancing the books 2 years earlier than they promised (which is a good thing, but who is auditing these books?). Would be nice if he cut the OHIP tax he created now he has all this money from the Federal Government, but I suspect that tax is here to stay.

Oh, and in other news, remember all those rants I have had about lottery tickets and such, and how they are a waste of money, evidently there are “ethics” issues with the selling of them as well, at least from the CBC’s point of view, read here about Lottery Fraud Allegations.