Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Mistakes’ Category

Last night I watched a very interesting interview on the Daily Show with Harry Markopolos, one of the men who blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff (back in 2000). The interview with the Daily Show is astoundingly frank and entertainingly funny, and at the end of it, incredibly disturbing. The Comedy Network in Canada does not allow me to embed this interview so you’ll need to click to get to it, but it is well worth the hassle. Markopolos’ book No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller is an interesting read.

CNBC does have a more serious interview with Markopolos and a former co-worker Frank Casey, which outlines that Madoff’s shenanigans and financial tom-foolery had been noticed, but it seems no one did anything much about it for a long time. The best line is about how you never had to use Madoff’s last name, if you said, “Bernie” everyone knew who you meant.

For a while, Mrs. C8j and I have been hunting for a new family vehicle. We have had many arguments discussions about what type of vehicle we wished to purchase. I think we will not need a van for much longer and she sort of agrees but thinks we still need one for the short term so we should get one, and after a great deal of consternation consultation I we agreed that a van would be the best way to go. I must admit that we did try a few SUKs SUVs and while they felt OK, they did feel a bit “truck-ish” for my liking.

We have been dealing with a smaller dealership who had in stock the van we were hoping to get (used) a Sienna from Toyota (please don’t treat this as me endorsing this model, or that I have received any compensation for this story). The salesman at the dealership seemed a nice personable chap, although maybe a bit slick for my liking, but we thought that might be where we wanted to make our deal.

We had decided before we got too far into this process, that we would purchase a used vehicle this time (we purchased new last time, but I decided a used vehicle was the way to go). We borrowed from the Ottawa Library the Lemon-Aid books and saw that in fact the Sienna from ‘07 on seemed to be a good choice. If we were going to buy a used car, I was going to have my mechanic who I trust in these situations, to have a look at whatever we might choose to buy (I simply do not trust dealerships that much).

I mentioned to the salesperson we were dealing with that we wanted to take whatever vehicle we were thinking of buying to my mechanic to have a look at it, and the sales guy kind of got twitchy (i.e. tried to dissuade us), but eventually relented, figuring that he might lose a sale if he didn’t agree (smart guy).

I then called my mechanic and said I would like him to have a look at a vehicle and he said he would, and he asked who I was thinking of buying from, and when I mentioned the name of the dealership my mechanic hesitated. After a short pause he said he had had some dealings with the dealership and gave me some advice about possible issues getting the van off the lot and to his garage. When my mechanic makes that kind of statement the hair on the back of my neck starts to raise up. I thanked my mechanic and said I’d call back when I had decided on a specific van.

Time passed and eventually we decided (after consulting CarFax on line) on a specific Sienna that our original salesman had on his lot. My wife called up to talk to our salesman, but he wasn’t around, so she spoke to the “Owner” of the dealership.

Now this is Chutzpah

My wife asked the question, “What do we need to do to take a van to our mechanic to have him inspect it before we buy the van?”.

After a short pause the Owner’s answer was classic chutzpah, “First you buy the van, and then take it to your mechanic and whatever he may find that needs fixing, we’ll fix.”. This is most definitely not what had been discussed previously (we had been told no worries, it should be fine, you can have the car inspected BEFORE you buy it).

Let’s analyze this amazing piece of chutzpah, you want me to give you a large amount of money, have the car licensed into my name, and then once I am owner of the vehicle and my mechanic finds something, I should trust you that you will fix these problems? I do realize that in Ontario a bunch of new rules are in place dealing with used vehicles, but I am also not naive enough to believe that they will somehow protect me in this situation.

I guess it all comes down to who(m) do I trust, a car dealership that I have never dealt with (that I have heard some odd stories about), or do I trust my mechanic, who has fixed my cars for 20 years? As you can guess, we did not call back this dealership.

We have since found a similar vehicle with a larger dealership, which may cost a bit more, but they are fine with us taking the van to my mechanic (if I leave a deposit, and my current vehicle) and will abide by whatever my mechanic says (and will find another van if my mechanic finds an issue with the van). The CarFax report on the van suggests there should not be a problem.

Financial Moral of the Story?

None really, just that I am a very untrusting person and that if you try to sell me things, it doesn’t take much to get me to go elsewhere, or completely walk away from the purchase.

My wife a couple of days ago took on the daunting task of creating a space for a gas fitter to come in and work on a new project in our house. Our back room in our basement was very cluttered and there was no way anyone could get anywhere safely, so she took on the task of attempt to clear a space in the chaos.

I came home and was very impressed with the work done and the amount that was being thrown out (although there still is a great deal to dispose of) in some industrial strength garbage bags. The area was swept and cleared so that the work could be done without fear of anyone breaking a leg attempt to scale “mount crap”.

My wife was not impressed when the workman finally showed up and was able to do all the work needed on the main floor of our house and went nowhere near the basement.

Was this a waste of time? NO! That kind of de-cluttering is a good thing for many reasons:

• Safety:that mess was going to injure someone, and could easily have been a fire hazard, so it needed to be lessened in magnitude.
• De-Clutter:the amount of crap that we were never going to use again (and things that should have been disposed of long ago) is now reduced by 9.75% now, which means we only have 90% of it still to clean up (but still a good start)
• Security issues:although it might be possible for an Al-Qaeda cell to hide out in that mess, I did not mean that exactly. We found a whole set of banking records for an organization my wife no longer works for, and those records have now been destroyed. That kind of security is very important.

Do you have a lot of old financial records hidden in the clutter of your “secret stash” (be it in your basement or in that closet you just never open)? Maybe it’s time to at least find all the old credit cards, banking cards, pass books, cheque books and bank agreements that you no longer need and destroy them. Leaving that kind of stuff around is just asking for problems later in life.

If you destroy it now, you know it no longer exists, if you simply “leave it”, do you know if there are records hanging around that can easily be used for identity theft? Maybe it’s time to go clean up a bit? Before you destroy those credit cards, make sure the accounts aren’t still active, as well.

I will neither confirm nor deny that my birthday may or may not have or will occur in the past or next few days, however, I will confirm that my age is in between 30 and 75. Having been crystal clear on this point (no, you should not be publishing on the web your birthday and year, since that is the start of someone stealing your identity or something of the like), let’s talk about the things you might do if your birthday anniversary is some time this year (which I hope it is).

Things to Do Financially on Your Birthday

Just some ideas for some of the financial things you can do on the anniversary of your birth:

• Are you old enough to retire? Seems like a straight forward question, but when can you retire is another question to ask if the answer to the previous question is No? If you can’t even guess when you can retire, then today would be a good day to figure it out, or at least make a guess and work towards it. Aim to retire at 61, that’s an interesting prime age.
• Can you take today off today? Some companies actually give you your birthday off as a vacation day, I think it would be good to know that one (nope, not in my case).
• You can get free meals at some restaurants, I think Denny’s is one of those places, but call around and see where you can eat for free. Free meals is a very good way to celebrate a birthday.
• Does my car registration need to be renewed? Ottawa has an interesting problem because if you don’t renew your registration by your birthday, and take your car to Quebec, you can get fined a LOT of money, because in Quebec they’ll fine you for that one (I think they do in Ontario too, but they don’t worry about it too much until the next month).
• Did your car driving license expire? I was surprised that one year I realized a month after my birthday that I had been driving with an expired license, I received no reminder in the mail. Luckily I was not pulled over or that might have been expensive.
• Has your life insurance premium just jumped? If you have crossed an age group, your term life insurance rate may be increasing, so go check that out.
• Can you get a senior citizen’s discount now? You’d be surprised, a lot of these discounts do not start at age 65, it actually starts at 55.

Any other ideas I may have missed that you should do on your birthday?

In Carnivals my posting Personal Finance Resolutions For the New Year? was mentioned in the Carnival of Personal Finance #239 and the Carnival of Money Stories.

Yes the year may only be a few days old, but it can still teach us some important things even in it’s short life.

No Such Thing As a Sure Thing

After watching the Swiss Junior Hockey Team beat a talented Russian team, 2010 has taught me there is no such thing, as a sure thing. If someone had said this might happen before the World Junior Championships started, they would have been laughed at, and when Russia was due to play the Swiss in the Quarter Finals, it was assumed that Russia would win and face Canada next, however, sometimes the sure thing, does not pay off.

Yes this is a real long shot, and the Swiss came back to earth against Team Canada in the Semi-finals, however, it is an example of how there are no sure things, and you should hope for the best but plan for the worst.

This year has already shown it may be a year of big (and hopefully not nasty) surprises. Remember this if you get a “can’t lose” piece of financial advice (or investing tip).

Things Can Change Fast

After leaving Burlington where the grass was green and then arriving in my home in Ottawa which was under 2 feet of snow, this year showed things can change quickly (and not necessarily for the better) very quickly. I looked at my in-laws back yard and saw green grass (OK it was a little cold down there, and there was traces of snow), but I knew that snow was going to be part of the equation, it was just when would we run into it, and how deep would it be. After skiing into my driveway, which was buried, I learned that things can change very fast.

In the world of Financial Advice, be nimble and be ready for things changing really fast (and again, not necessarily for the better).

What will the rest of this year hold for us? I don’t know, but strap in, looks like it might be a very interesting one.