Canadian Personal Finance Blog

So in what other financial areas would procrastination be a good strategy?

Bill payment? Yes, BUT, I am not saying don’t pay your bills on time, what I am saying is pay your bills on time (not early). Keep the money yourself, and hopefully let it grow in some fashion (unless an early payment would save you money on interest charges). I don’t want someone saying I said don’t pay your bills until they are late, what I am saying is don’t pay them early, unless you make money on the deal.

Procrastination is never a good thing for large companies when they are supposed to be posting their fourth quarter results, as we can see here.

CCRA has made sure we’ll have to procrastinate a little longer if we want to file our taxes on line, because that option doesn’t work right now. Whoops, and I actually did want to get that out of the way this week, guess I’ll have to wait now.

Need to think about this a bit more, any other good procrastination ideas out there? –C8j

See, I told you this week’s thematic premise was procrastination. I procrastinated writing this entry, just to see whether it helps or not. Normally I write early in the morning and have something out by about 8:00 AM eastern time, but today I am writing this after my lunch, let’s see if it makes things better or not.

Glad to see that the Canadian Central bank did not raise key interest rates, so debtors such as myself have a little while longer to bask in the joy of low-ish interest rates. Maybe they are procrastinating about raising interest rates? Anything is possible. Hope they aren’t procrastinating about lowering interest rates however (hey this procrastinating thing seems to be a double edged sword). One guy from TD says interest rates won’t change for the rest of the year, but remember that folks said to hold Nortel in 2001 also (free advise is worth every penny you paid for it).

Our finance minister is looking at the outlandish ATM fees charged by banks and such. Hopefully Count Floyd can get some traction on this issue, but not too much, being a share holder in major banks. The banks claim they must charge you $1.50 (at least) if you use a banking machine that isn’t from your bank, so they can pay for upkeep of the “money vending machines”, pardon me but WTF?!?!? To quote Tony Soprano, don’t pee in my ear and tell me it’s raining! What really infuriates me is that the banks now have changed the machines that are in their own branches into WHITE ATM machines, so they not only ding you for it not being your bank, but the bank branch adds $1.50 charge of it’s own! Holy crap! That is a boat load of money to be made there.

Stats Canada points out that there are no more Federal Government Folks now than there were in 1995, but that was after a massive cut back at the end of the 90’s, so we are really back to where we started from, except now the CPA (”Core Public Administration”) is much older (haven’t I said that before?). What to do about an aging labour force? Darn good question, hopefully they aren’t procrastinating about their retirement, because it will fall on my generation to support them otherwise.

Well back to work, what else can I procrastinate on?

What, have I lost my mind? Am I espousing not doing things? No, but sometimes procrastination works for you (in some areas), especially in the areas of BUYING things.

Case in point this weekend, I have been putting off buying new running shoes for about 2 years now, schlepping around in my old beat up ones, but this weekend, thanks to a coupon my daughter received, I was able to get new shoes at a bargain price, and they are quite good shoes as well. This is what I am talking about.

Just for clarity sakes, here are some areas where procrastination is going to get you into a lot of trouble (in the financial world at least):

• Paying your taxes, especially if you owe the government money. Don’t procrastinate here.
• Paying your credit card debts, if you procrastinate there, you lose a plethora of your hard earned ca$hola.
• Starting your retirement savings (RRSP, 401k, etc.,). The sooner you start the sooner you are ahead of things.

No, I am talking about MAJOR purchases, especially if you have to borrow to make the purchases. Do you need to buy that new car right now, or can you last a while longer with your older car? Do you need to buy that bigger house? Your daughter needs a $600 prom dress because…? These are all perfect areas where procrastination is a useful tactic.

More discussions of this coming soon… -C8j

Investment Strategy it’s Important

You are asking the wrong guy that question, I am not a financial investment guru, and any money I have made over the years has mostly been by accident, not by some grandiose investment strategy. When I was a younger man, I fooled myself into believing I knew what I was doing, but at the end of it, I didn’t (remember my comments about my tech investments here).

I would say that right now my investment strategy is to use index funds and slow growth bonds mostly, just because I am old enough now that I don’t think I can afford another massive hit like I did in 2000. Should you do this? Have you not been reading, I am saying, GO and find out what YOU should do, I am simply telling you what has worked for me.

Remember a few important points:

• The more the risk, the more the potential gains, but I am here to tell you that RISK sometimes is a bad thing too (remember Slim Pickens riding that h-bomb).
• If you are younger you can afford to take risks, because you have time on your side to recover, if you are older, you shouldn’t be risking money you can’t afford to lose.
• If you use Index Funds and/or Mutual Funds, research them well, and try to buy ones with low management fees, and no entry or exit fees. Don’t buy Mutual Funds solely on the say so of a co-worker or friend, research them, at your library or on line.
• If you are going to buy stocks, be careful, because no matter what stock you buy, you are at Risk. I have shares in Financial Institutions because they are making so darn much money, but if the housing BOOM turns into a BUST, these stocks are going to take a hit.

You have time if you are young, create an investment strategy but don’t fool yourself into procrastinating, remember:

If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done. ~Author Unknown

Is not the credo to live by in your financial planning and investing lives. –C8j