Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Interest Rates Hover

The Bank of Canada kept one of it’s key rates (the overnight rate) the same yesterday in response to a shakier Canadian Economic view. This means interest rates have flattened for now, and may well be heading back up very soon.

To quote them directly:

Three major developments are affecting the Canadian economy: the protracted weakness in the U.S. economy; ongoing turbulence in global financial markets; and sharp increases in many commodity prices.

Turbulence is never a good thing and I think the bank is reflecting that in it’s monetary policies, by holding interest rates steady.

For someone like me, it suggests that now is the time to start paying down debt, because we may have hit the bottom of the interest rates market, and rates going up is going to mean more money that will have to be spent on Debt Reduction due to interest charges (all my debt is carried in variable interest rate debt vehicles).

Kindred Spirit

Larry MacDonald’s blog is one that I read every day, and I was heartened to see that he and I are not only friends in the N.C.F.B.A. but we are kindred spirits in terms of Nortel’s stock. Larry did an excellent Update on Where Nortel Stands currently.

I was particularly touched by the last paragraph in the post:

So where is the stock going? Despite recent price action, there seems to be an improvement in expert opinion and fundamentals. Still, the situation remains speculative. And add a grain of salt to my update – I’m a long-suffering Nortel investor whose holdings are down 70%.

Glad to know that I am not the only financial blogger with scars from this stock.

TD & BMO Banks Continue to Slide

Both TD and BMO stock have been sliding and as I have said I am not sure what the bottom is, but I am starting to think this is going to be a buying opportunity (for me) very soon. I buy these stocks for straight dividend value and the fact that banks treat their customers very badly, yet the customers keep coming back.

Please take the above paragraph is me meerly navel gazing and guessing, I have no real insight about these stocks, but am interested to hear if anyone else has any opinions on my statements and TD and BMO.

Last night the National Capital Financial Bloggers Association met, and we did what we normally do, swap stories and ideas about finances and the like (see the N.C.F.B.A. blog roll in the side bar for the sites authored by this group).

During these discussions the topic of time share condominiums came up and that led me to tell this story (which I previously published here).

The Worst Financial Advice I Ever Gave

Most of you know that I am very unlikely to give you direct advice in any financial area, and this story is one of the reasons why.

My wife, myself and some friends went on a vacation to Florida (this was about 17 years ago). My Father In Law had told me about how if you go to a Timeshare Condominium sales pitch, you can get free tickets to some of the sites around Orlando, which sounded good to me (Free is always a good price).  We found that at the Motel we were staying there was an entire courtesy desk filled with Timeshares offering this deal, so we signed up for a “sales demonstration”.

Off we went to this sales pitch, and it was hilarious,and surreal. I must mention one of my friends on this trip was Michael James On Money himself and his wife, so we were sure we weren’t going to buy. The salesman (who we nicknamed “Ray Don Bob Ron Don”, don’t ask why, but it was funny), tried all the sales pitches:

• Slow playing us to see if the condo would sell itself  (it didn’t)
• Pandering to our wives about how there was little or no housework  (they laughed)
• Telling the men they could rent whenever they wanted (I asked if we could get to stay during Daytona 500 week, he said yes, I laughed)
• How much money we’d save (we in turn figured out how much money they were making per building on the initial sale, and then how much they were going to make per year on their service fees).
• Finally asking, “Would you buy this place for nothing?”, and then saying, “OK your price is between FREE and our selling price”, which always makes me chuckle.

I must admit that we played along and acted very much out of character (worrying my wife a great deal), but at the end, there was no sale, we got our free tickets and we left (our salesmen grumbling about how we were, “… too analytical…”. I was struck by how the people at the sales pitch “closing” room looked like deer in headlights while paying for their time share with their Credit Cards, a very disturbing site.

Fast forward a few months and a dear friend was off to Orlando with his new wife, so I told him the story about getting free tickets for a theme park and all you had to do was sit through a timeshare sales pitch. He said he’d think about doing that, and nothing much more was said.

My friend returned from Orlando a week later, picked me up to go to work and he told me all about his trip.  I asked had he gone to the timeshare sales pitch, and he confirmed that he had. I then railed about how pathetic the sales pitch was, and what kind of an imbecile would buy one of those things, etc., etc., etc., for about 5 minutes.

Once I finished, my friend said in a very small voice, “We bought one…”

The car ride to work was very quiet that morning.

From that day, I always shy away from giving anyone any financial advice directly, I will tell them what has worked for me, and let them decide for themselves

Market Crash?

Figured I’d add my 2 cents to the fray of Bloggers talking about the problems on the Stock Market these past few weeks. Is this an opportunity to buy? Should we be selling? Is it time to crack open skulls and eat the goo inside? Don’t ask me, I am standing pat for now, and we shall see what happens. My portfolio is down a fair amount, but my feeling is, now is the time, just to “Not Look”. Remember most of my stock holdings are in an RRSP, and thus aren’t a short term investment either. I am watching TD with intent.

Q3 of 2008 for Personal Finance Started

For those of you doing a Quarterly Personal Finance report, remember that Q3 just started, and you might want to think about doing  your Q2 report. I have been procrastinating doing mine, but need to get it done, to see what happened in the past 3 months, and see if there are any changes needed in our financial plan.

Money in the Jars?

Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s favorite trick with her problem spenders is putting her spenders on a set cash budget which she puts in glass jars for them. Mrs. C8j is thinking that might be an intriguing summer project, I am not so sure. I understand the concept, but am not sure it is something I can live with. Stay tuned this could turn into an interesting discussion (Mrs. C8j did convince me to go on a diet 6 years ago, and I lost 80 lbs., and I didn’t want to do that either).

How Much Do I Make?

For those curious about the scads of money I make doing Financial Blogging, well check over here at my working diary site: How Not To Make a Fortune on the Internet. Yes it’s a slow day for topics (if you haven’t guessed).

Happy Birthday Personal Finance Blogger

Michael James on Money a member of the N.C.F. B.A. is celebrating his birthday today, go on over and wish him a Happy Birthday.