Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Payday Loans’ Category

I got called by Insight Magazine to give some advice to new grads on what they should be doing about their finances, and I gave some answers to the interviewer, but as usual, I am not sure I was very clear or eloquent, so now I will attempt to be more clear to those that might read the article coming up.

Get The Heck Out of Debt

You have just graduated from University, and you might be carrying upwards of $40K in debt (hopefully in student loans only), you most likely won’t be paying that debt off in your first year of working (should you find a job right away) (if you can pay it off, good for you!), however, you should put together a plan on how you are going to pay off that debt and WHEN it will be retired. 

Carrying debt is a drag on your finances, and the sooner the debt is retired, the easier your financial life will be. You should not aspire to “get used to living in debt”, this is the one thing my generation does NOT want to hand down to you.

Don’t Fall In Love With Having Money

Just because you have graduated from University and you no longer have to eat Kraft Dinner with Hot Dogs for dinner, does not mean you must go out every night to eat. You have lived a frugal lifestyle as a student (I am assuming), but if you continued that frugal lifestyle for a while longer, you may be able to pay down your debt faster and then be on a much stronger footing financially.

Yes, you deserve to enjoy life, but it is very easy to get used to the “Let’s go out to dinner tonight we deserve it” lifestyle, and once you are in that lifestyle the habit is very hard to break (speaking as a 49 year old, I can attest to that issue).

You cannot live your parents’ lifestyle (yet) so don’t try. It took them 30 years to get where they are, don’t rush your spending habits to mimic their spending habits.

If your parents paid for you to have a Blackberry or an iPhone or paid for your Cell phone bill, maybe it’s time to get rid of this expensive toy? You don’t need $120 a month cell phone bills. Discretionary spending (i.e. money haemorhage) is a bad thing which you must watch diligently. Middle age men’s wastes spread, but their spending spreads like that as well, don’t let it happen to you.

Have a Savings Plan

The sooner you start saving, the better it will be for you when you reach my age, however, saving while still carrying discretionary debt (i.e. non-mortgage debt) is paying Peter to feed Paul. Lowering your debt is first and foremost, if you have left over moneys from your year, yes, starting an RRSP early is a good thing to do, but pay your debts first.

Savings is good, getting out of debt is better.

Get the Heck out of Debt

Did I mention this yet?

Banks Can be Negotiated With

As I have pointed out before Free Banking is possible, but it is more likely for old farts like me, who have a good track record with the bank already.  Paying $12-$25 a month in bank service charges you should try to avoid, since you most likely don’t use enough services with the bank to justify this charge. Go with as cheap banking as you can.

The Three Worst Ideas After Graduation

1. I deserve a new car! -or- I deserve a vacation in Las Vegas!
2. I’m a little short until my next pay cheque, I’ll get a pay day loan
3. I am only carrying a few hundred dollars on my credit card balance this month

Keep this in mind, did I mention Get the Heck Out of Debt?

That was the label I put on the Pay Day Loan and Cheque cashing shops, but I think I will revise my statement, not wanting to put Pornography in a bad light (given how much of the Internet was built because of it, I don’t want to seem to be biting the hand that fed me).

Financial Head Shop

I am revising my statement saying that Pay Day Loan and Cheque Cashing places are actually the same as Head Shops (financially at least). 

Head Shops are where you buy the paraphernalia and “bits and bobs” you need for your drug habit (e.g. bongs, rolling papers, Bob Marley T-Shirts, etc.,  just ask Michael Phelps he can fill you in on this). 

Pay Day Loan establishments are like Financial Head Shops and use the same arguments as well. “…We don’t make our customers use our services, we are simply supplying a needed service to our customers…” (talk to a Head Shop owner, you’ll get about the same statement of business (i.e. if we didn’t do it, someone else would)).

No matter that you are charging at a rate that would make “Olaf the Loan Shark”  blush, or that once someone starts using a Pay Day Loan it is very hard (nearly impossible) to get out of the cycle (sounds like a bad habit, like say, drugs?). It is a service to take a $5 service charge off a Government cheque that any bank SHOULD cash for anyone who has sufficient identification. 

Sorry folks, guess I woke up on the bad side of the financial world this week. I do like the comment yesterday about how the picture I posted looks a lot like an old time strip club (given the amount of Neon lighting used), that comment I had to chuckle at (glad to see my readers have as twisted a sense of humor as I do).

Senators Ticket Sales Down

I enjoy listening to Sports Talk Radio, just because of it’s silly inane nature and you don’t have to think much, but I caught myself getting quite agitated by a statement by the TEAM 1200 morning crew complaining that people aren’t going to games in Ottawa only because the team stinks. Being a Montreal Canadiens fan (sorry, if you grew up in Montreal when I was a kid, you were a Canadiens fan or you got the crap beaten out of you), I thought it was funny, but then I got agitated.

How naive and obtuse to think that the only reason people are not paying from $20 to $200 a ticket to go out to a Hockey game being simply an “I don’t like the team” decision. I rarely go to games, but am still a big fan of Hockey, because I cannot justify spending upwards of $100 to $300 for a single night out (parking, a beer, popcorn and a ticket), it’s as simple as that. Yes the Senators are not playing well this  year (no big revelation there), but I still think another reason every game is not sold out is that folks are worried about money.

If the team’s record had anything to do with folks buying game time tickets, the Maple Leafs would not have sold out pretty much every game in the 80’s (and trust me those were teams it was painful to watch for FREE).

I opened my Ottawa Citizen on Saturday and I saw this picture and I was hit by a combination of revulsion, anger, and lurid curiosity.

Revulsion and Anger

Why am I repulsed? You haven’t really read much of my posts, but I think the Cheque Cashing and Pay Day Loan industry is the worst financial service out there, and shouldn’t just be heavily regulated (which it is not) it should be shut down. Anger because the surcharges and interest rates taken by these modern day Loan Sharks is obscene even at the Loan Shark level. 

Lurid Curiosity

This is the most amazing entrepreneurial set up I can see. Whoever runs this particular business has nailed their clientele exactly and are pandering to their every whim and need.

• Cheques cashed at a fee
• Lottery tickets sold (and given away as incentives to good customers)
• Cigarettes sold
• Foreign Exchange
• Money Transfers
• Income Tax “Refunds Now!”

What other services could they offer?

Modern Day Loan Sharks

It’s staggering that the government allows this kind of “financial pornography” to go on. I must admit I didn’t think there was places like this around my house, but I noticed a  ”Modern Day Money Lender” has opened in my neighbourhood, why? I have no idea.

My guess is over the next year or two, this may be one of the growth industries along with repossession and bill collection, and that is a very sad statement about life in general.

Scotiabank takes a Boot to the Head

Thanks to their dealings with Lehman Brothers Scotiabank is going to take a $595 million hit to their bottom line:

“Both the equity and fixed-income markets have experienced significant declines in value and extreme levels of volatility over the last several weeks, exacerbated by the Lehman bankruptcy,” stated Rick Waugh, Scotiabank president and chief executive.\

I wouldn’t call that a “hit”, that is more like a boot to the head (to quote the Frantics).

In case you didn’t know what I meant about the boot to the head reference, and figured I was only putting stock charts up these days. For you I leave you this boot to the head.

“Rogue” Trader at BMO

Bank of Montreal took a boot to the head with the charging of former Lead Natural Gas Trader David Lee, who has plead guilty to “…inflating the value of his portfolio and conspiring with others to deceive the bank…”, ouch. Makes you wonder how prices of commodities are set after reading:

Separately, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC filed civil charges against Lee and several other traders he is accused of conspiring with between 2003 and 2007 to fraudulently overvalue a commodity derivatives trading portfolio at Bank of Montreal.

Due to this BMO had to take a 1st quarter 2007 write down of almost C$237 million against it’s income. BMO seems to have taken a boot to the head as well?

Pay Day Loans Boot to the Head!

A while back I reprised my posting Pay Day Loans No No No! but I continue to get inquiries about advertising on this site directly by Payday Loan firms. Now, I must put the disclaimer that one of my “group” advertisers has sold space on my site to a Pay Day Loan site, which I am displeased about and will attempt to remove them as soon as I can. 

Do not mistake my humor, or frivolity at times about this subject as me being flippant, or not caring, as I think this “financial service” is evil. The victims of these “services” are those who can afford to deal with them the least, and I am sure during this ‘credit crunch’ Payday Loan Companies will jack up their “fees” even more than they currently do. I would urge my readers to contact their MP’s and MPP’s to have this industry more closely regulated. 

Oh and a boot to the head for all of those Pay Day Loan companies too!

Carnivals

• The Money Hawk hosted Carnival of Money Hawks #1: Links for Saving, Investing, and Spending Wisely where my article Debt is like Fat was added.

What else should I be writing about right now? Every news outlet is telling of the end of the U.S. Financial system and the collapse of the economy. Speaking as someone who is unemployed, and looking for a job, this worries me. As the wise International Analyst said of Canada, “When the U.S. sneezes, Canada gets a cold”, so any kind of economic turbulence in the U.S. does not bode well for Canada, in the services area at least. I believe Canada’s economy may weather this storm better, simply due to our heavily resource laden economy, but again, only a guess on my part.

Bush’s Own Words

The scary thing is, President Bush seems to inadvertently hit the nail on the head with the following statement:

“… It will help American consumers and businesses get credit to meet their daily needs and create jobs. And it will help send a signal to markets around the world that America’s financial system is back on track…”

American consumers need credit to meet their daily needs? If that is the case, the U.S. economy is in dire trouble. Americans are living on credit and now the whole system is collapsing under the weight of this credit load? Not sure that is completely accurate, but given the President mentioned this, it’s an interesting point to consider.

Fraudulent Securities?

President Bush also mentioned:

“… Many investors assumed these securities were trustworthy and asked few questions about their actual value. Two of the leading purchasers of mortgage-backed securities were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk…”

So you are implying that there was a fraud on investors, or you are saying there are some very stupid investors out there. I think both of those statements have a ring of truth to them as well.

Blame Canada?

No, but it’s a funny headline. Will this affect (effect?) Canada? Yes, but how much remains to be seen. There is now panic statements about how the Canadian housing industry “bubble may burst”.  Given I am living in a house, that I bought a while ago, I am not that worried about this, but for new home buyers this could be a big issue. Being saddled with an enormous mortgage, with possibly much higher interest rates (to deal with that 3.5% Inflation I mentioned yesterday), could slow spending from these folks, causing yet another interesting economic ripple in the pool.

Now is the Time To Panic?

I would suggest going out and buying some Eagles or maybe some Jackson Browne, slam it into your Impala’s 8-track tape player and drive ’til the music stops. Sorry, I waxed poetic, no it is not time to panic, but it is time to watch and see what might actually be going on here. I suspect we are living in very interesting times, to quote a Chinese proverb.