Canadian Personal Finance Blog

… how do you know it ever happened? I remember reading that in a Tom Clancy novel and thinking that really does make a lot of sense, and it is very important in Financial Planning. If you have a plan, but you don’t write it down, can you be sure you are following the plan? How do you explain the plan to your spouse if you have not written it down?

If you don’t write down the cheques you write and the credit card purchases you had, how can you tell if one arrives that you don’t remember is fraudulent or not? If you write it down, you at least have an argument about whether it is real or not.

Records keeping is synonymous with Financial Planning and Financial Reporting and is an also an important of your home finances, and you must keep diligent records, as well.

This came across my mind when I revisited my mortgage repayment spreadsheet, which I use to figure out just how much longer I have to pay off my house (not as short as I want it to be), but at least because I wrote it down, I now know how long it should be, if I can live within my financial plan. Without that being written down, all I have is, “Maybe some day I’ll have my house paid off”, but to me that is not enough, if I don’t have a real number in my head, I don’t have a goal, and without a goal, it is unlikely I will succeed.

Tomorrow, I’ll do a quick run down of how to set up a simple mortgage repayment spreadsheet, which is a good estimator of how many days you have left to pay off your house.

Best Cell Phone Deal one Opinion

My friend that was researching the best Cell Phone deal (for her and her family, I must stress that you must research this for what you want to do with your cell phone) and she has come up with her decision about the ideal Cell Phone service for her.

Survey said…… “PETRO CANADA!!” (Pardon?)

Didn’t expect to hear that one, but to quote her report to me:

$.20/minute, no fees, $20 top up lasts 180 days. Phones paid for by petro points.

$0.05 per text incoming and outgoing. You would have to know how many texts you send etc to compare to a $10 per month plan or 15 cents for sent messages only.

They don’t have auto top up

That is the report, which is helpful to me, as I am near wits end with Bell Mobility. It sounds like Petro Canada is the best to go with if all you want is a phone that you don’t use very much, and you are diligent about re-charging your pay per use service (no auto top up), but I suspect I will check out Virgin, President’s Choice and Petro Points myself.

More Competition Coming

That is the good news for Canadian Consumers, is there is another spectrum auction going on, so there will be more operators, and thus more competition in the coming years. You already see some new faces (OK re-branded faces, with Koodo from Telus and others).

My Cell Phone Woes

After my rant about I am Paying How Much for My Phone? I got some very good comments from my highly intelligent readers, where the folks who want to keep their money are going with pay per use programs as a rule.

• Jerry commented that paying for a Long Distance program with Bell is not a good use of money, as there are many much cheaper programs out there.
• Traciatim pointed out that Fido (aka Rogers) has launched an UNO program where you amalgamate your mobile and home phone systems (might be worth investigating too).
• George commented about his use of Virgin mobile and made the good comment: “…Cheaper options are out there. You just need to find them…”, point taken.
• Ram had some very good points:

- Turn off voicemail in home phone and buy an answering machine. The cost of the answering machine can be recovered with just 6 months of voicemail charges.

- Turn off unwanted features in your phone service. I use only call display and call waiting in my home phone - and additionally voicemail in my cell phone

- Try subscribing to services from the same vendor, that way you can negotiate for a better price

As usual my readers show me the way, and give good advice.

With Earth day passing yesterday my wife asked me the question, “How expensive is it to be Green?”, I wanted to consult with Kermit the Frog, but I figured I’d look at my life and see in the obvious areas, would it be cheaper, more expensive or a wash to be “Green”.

1. Automobiles, currently I have two cars. A relatively frugal and clean(er) Toyota Corolla and a gas guzzling Montana van (that most likely pollutes more as well). The green solutions here might be:
   1. Get rid of both cars and use public transit and walk where we need to go. This is a non-starter, with kids and such, my lifestyle and my families could not tolerate that option. Would it be cheaper to buy 5 bus passes a month at $375 ? Not sure, but I do get to use the mass transit tax credit.
   2. I could get rid of the van and only have 1 car. This option will be more possible soon, when I hopefully have less kids living at home. For a while we only had 1 car and I took the bus to work, but it was an inconvenience, as OS Transpo does not offer great service from South Ottawa to West Ottawa. If I worked downtown the story would be very different.
   3. Staying as I am is definitely not green and not as frugal either.
      Grade: D (not very green choice by us, but I am being honest as well).
2. Attempt to limit my families water usage. I’d really like this to be better in my house, because it is getting out of control.
   1. I don’t water my grass and I rarely water my garden, mostly because I am a lazy sod, but also because I view the Grass as a gift from God, and if God thinks it should be green, he’ll water it.
   2. Low flow toilets, or better still composting toilets? Well, not really, I do need to replace the toilets in my house, so I think the water usage there might be better, but composting ones, um, no.
   3. Low flow shower heads. Yes, I do have those, and they help.
   4. Screwed up water heater. At first I thought this was a bad thing, but the fact that my water heater doesn’t seem to store that much hot water is a good thing, since it shortens my daughter’s showers significantly. Don’t think I’ll have anyone come in to fix that issue!
   5. Low water usage washer and dishwasher. The dishwasher is pretty new and is supposed to not use as much water, and my washing machine is “up on the roof” so that will get replaced this summer.
      Grade: C+ (could do better, but at least trying)
3. Good insulation in house and good windows to limit use of fossil fuels? I think my house is ok, but the windows need replacing, and that is going to cost me a bloody fortune, so I will make sure I get fairly good ones when I do.
   Grade: C
4. Efficient heating and cooling systems. Replaced two years ago and my gas bill has been dropping as has my electric bill, very worthwhile investments.
   Grade: B+
5. Composting of household wastes? Yup, we do that, not as much as we should but we do have two compost containers in the back yard and we do use them. We don’t do this in the winter, because the snow is too bloody deep!
   Grade: B-
6. Recycle? Yes indeed, and we put out yard waste too. Our garbage output is still fairly high, but we are careful not to put recyclables into the normal garbage. Once Ottawa goes with a “Green Box” for kitchen waste this should drop our garbage a great deal.
   Grade: B
   
7. Replace conventional lights with lower electric using ones? In a couple of places, but the fact that these “super bulbs” then have to be disposed of in the Hazardous Waste dump, worries the hell out of me. This doesn’t strike me as being “Green” at all.
   Grade: C-
8. Green household cleaning products? Maybe a little, not much. Might be an area we can explore some more.
   Grade: F
9. Really wacky green ideas:
   1. Alternate feminine hygiene products? Um… no.
   2. Home Solar panels? Don’t have the capital to invest to make this a worthwhile investment, but if electric prices keep going up, who knows?
   3. Not running the air conditioning in the summer? Not in this current lifestyle, my kids would revolt, that is for sure. I try not to run it too cold, but I plead guilty about being used to this creature comfort.
   4. Worm farms in my compost heap? Nope, sorry, don’t fish enough to have some Red Wigglers (the Cadillac of Worms) in the backyard.
   5. All natural clothing, no synthetic fibers? Sorry, just am not that with it as to what material I am wearing (nor am I wanting to be ensconced in velvet).

   Grade: F
   

Not too bad really, I think there is a great deal more my family and I can try to do to be more Green, however I also don’t feel heavily obliged to go out of my way to be Green if it is going to cost me a bloody fortune (or causes an incredible inconvenience in my current lifestyle).

The two ways I think the Green Movement will make farther in roads into every day life will be, Gas shooting to $150 per barrel and higher and the Government giving “Green” credits on taxes or eliminating taxes on “Green” products.

How Green are you?

Michael James talked about found money yesterday and the joy of paying off bills with found money, and how we should not squander this found wealth, and really use it to create happiness in the future by paying off debt now. I think this is a sensible approach to found money, but it made me think about another post I did a while ago, which was how couples deal with money.

Many times found money can cause a great deal of consternation between spouses because each have their own idea of what the best thing is to do with found money.

I think this is natural, as with most every subject possible spouses are going to have their own ideas, but the problem arises when the two ideas are contradictory or even orthogonal to each other.

Say Mary and Bob get $10,000.00 in found money from an inheritance. Mary thinks she’d like to go on a nice vacation with the family because the family has never really been on a vacation, however, Bob thinks that putting that money on their Mortgage (thus shortening it’s term by 5 years), is the right answer.

Reading this, it sounds like an easy enough “problem” to deal with, both folks want to do what they think is best with the money, but the problem now is you have is a simple difference of opinion. The problem I have seen in my life and from other folks I know is that this is not a simple problem, because:

• There is no wrong answer (or right answer)
• Both spouses have voiced their opinion, and thus feel they have the right answer.
• Money and money management is a divisive factor in many relationships

Is there a Solution?

Only if both parties are willing to compromise, or one is willing to lose (i.e. typical Prisoner’s Dilemma issue). Wikipedia’s explanation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is:

Two prisoners (the players) during the interrogation each have a choice: whether to betray the other one, and thus to decrease his own jail time by, for example, 1 month (as a compensation for the cooperation), while increasing the jail time for the other by, for example, 10 years, or to stay silent. Each of the prisoners is only interested in receiving the least possible sentence. It shall be assumed that the prisoners make their choices (to betray or to stay silent) simultaneously, and they know for sure that their choice cannot affect the choice of the other one.

All right I am stretching this (feel free to leave a comment), but the need to compromise and find the best solution for the couple is not always obvious to either spouse, and sometimes they feel it is not in their best interest (they got their way the last time, so I want my way this time). Sound familiar to any of my readers? Never happened to you?

Resolution?

I have no canned simple answer for this one, because as I keep saying, Money is a strange and divisive thing in a relationship, especially if the spouses do not agree in terms of money and how to use it.

What needs to be done is have clear lines of communication and rational discussions between the spouses about what they want to do, and a decision made that doesn’t cause either to feel that they have “lost” in this decision. Sounds easy doesn’t it ?

Think this is a simple thing to resolve? You and your spouse never have these issues? Then you are either very lucky (or very naive).