Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Smoking’ Category

I got a comment last week in response to my New Grad’s Advice saying that my advice was ok, but blatantly obvious. I don’t disagree that what I wrote was pretty much “common sense” however, stating that any advice is obvious is a naive view of the world. 

A few great examples of advice (financial and other) that seems obvious that just isn’t followed even by ’smart’ people:

• Don’t smoke it’s bad for your health and it is expensive. Seems obvious, yet the tobacco industry continues to make very good profits and people continue to die of lung cancer, yet the advice is patently obvious.
• Don’t carry balances month to month on your credit card, the interest rates are ridiculous. This seems to me a “no brainer” given how cheap you can get lines of credit for, if you need to carry debt, yet the credit card industry continues to thrive on this financial folly.
• Don’t spend money you do not have. Again, to an 8 year old this is painfully obvious, because they can’t but as soon as we are old enough to have a credit card, this obvious statement, no longer seems so obvious.
• If you want more money, spend less or earn more. I think I have stated this a few thousand times (I espouse the spend less side of things more), yet people continue to get into debt and money issues because they don’t follow this simple credo.
• Don’t pay ridiculously high bank charges on your accounts, find the cheapest bank to deal with. I have heard people say that is too hard so they simply stick with the bank they are with (I then ask if they wouldn’t mind giving me $20 a month for doing nothing, since they are effectively doing the same with their bank).
• You can always trust a man who tucks his shirt in his underpants. Surprisingly another piece of advice most folks just don’t see as obvious.
• The only people who win when you buy lottery tickets is the lottery commission. Seems obvious to me, yet money is still being made in Ontario (although I was surprised to see that the Super 7 Lottery is ending in September).

One person’s obvious is another person’s blind spot, I’ll continue to point out the obvious, if readers wish to comment that I am being far too obvious, I have no trouble with that, I’d hate to think I am becoming obtuse in my old age.

Fifty Cents More for Digital TV?

Rogers sent me yet another offer to get me to change my Cable TV package and this time it worked. The claim was it was going to cost me 50 cents more to get a digital TV box and package than what I currently paid. I was skeptical figuring that was the base cost, but at the end of it after taxes and service charges it was going to be a lot more.

I called, and I was surprised to see that this was not the case, but their claim was fraudulent none the less. The final price was actually 76 cents more than what I currently paid, but they gave me “free installation” to compensate for their mistake. Is this too good to be true? We shall see, I haven’t got my first bill yet, and the box is so small it will be very easy to throw it back to the Rogers Video store near my house.

Me getting a deal? Who would have thought it?

Cigarette Production Down

Good for many reasons, people are saving their money and not spending them on smokes, but also, less smokers usually means better health as well.

Cigarette production in September decreased 11.8% from August to 1.4 billion cigarettes, down 25.7% from September 2006.

Keep that money in your pocket, not going up in smoke.

Weekly Pay is Up In August

Only by $1.13 but that is up from the previous month, so that is not bad at all, really.

In August, the average weekly earnings of payroll employees (seasonally adjusted) increased $1.13 from July to $772.59. The year-to-date growth, calculated as the average of the first eight months of 2007 compared with the average of the same eight months in 2006, was 3.1%.

Good to know this one, but remember rising income, is another part of inflation as well.

In Heaven There is No Beer, That’s Why Canadians Drink It Here

OK, I am paraphrasing from one of my favorite Oktoberfest songs, but Stats Canada says that Beer continues to be Canada’s alcohol of choice, with Red Wine coming in a solid second.

In litres of absolute alcohol, the volume of sales of alcoholic beverages edged up 3.8% in 2005/2006 to 211.9 million litres.

Beer was by far the most popular beverage. In terms of dollar value, beer captured 48.6% of sales, wine, 26.6%, and spirits, 24.8%.

Consumers bought more than 2.2 billion litres of beer, up 2.9% from 2004/2005. This volume was worth more than $8.4 billion, a 4.8% increase.

That’s where some of our money is going, I guess. Alcohol purchases is up by 6.1%, but I can’t actually attest to whether that is true for me or not (I usually drink at friends houses, just ask them).

National Capital Financial Bloggers Association

• Michael James on Money
• Canadian Capitalist
• Canadian Money Blog Reviews
• Dividend Matters
• Investment Ideas Blog

Stats Canada put out an interesting study that seems to support the claim that bans on smoking in the workplace and public places (as well as banning it in homes), has had a positive effect on folks quitting smoking, which I think is great (as a reformed smoker).

Smoking bans: Influence on smoking prevalence and it has a very good synopsis of the findings:

Since 2000, Canadians smokers have faced a growing number of restrictions on where they can smoke. Bans at home and at work were associated with a reduced likelihood of being in the initial “stages of change,” and an increased likelihood of being in the latter stages. Smokers who reported newly smoke-free homes or workplaces were more likely to quit over the next two years, compared with those who did not encounter such restrictions at home or at work.

My dislike of smoking is not purely a health issue it is also a financial issue. How can folks afford the $10-$15 a day for their smokes, when I get all flustered spending my $1.59 for my Tim’s coffee? I realize this is a physical addiction, but the way I ended up really quitting was realizing just how much of my money was going up in smoke (no not the Cheech and Chong movie).

Will my kids smoke? Certainly hope not, and I most certainly will not subsidize it either. Will I smoke again? I don’t think so.

I was hoping to find a clip of Tommy Lee Jones telling the whacked out postal alien in Men in Black II, “NO SMOKING!”, but I found a clip just as good, and just as nasty.

There is only 1 thing worse than a non-smoker and that is a former smoker. We are rabid in our hatred of the filthy habit because we know we are 1 cigarette away from being hooked again!

Let’s sum up the cost of cigarettes:

• A pack of smokes costs about: $5.00 (I don’t know let’s go with that)
• Two packs a day is about $10.00
• Over a year that is $3650.00 a year (that’s after tax money folks)

What if you put that money on a nice vacation? How about a car? That’s a packet load of money folks! –C8j