Canadian Personal Finance Blog

As a middle aged man (you lookin‘ at my gut? I’m workin‘ on it!), I have sore muscles most days, but after attempting to keep up with a bunch of 14 year old girls, I have real pain from some simple exercise (and I didn’t work very hard either). My house goes through Ibuprofen very quickly, due to many reasons but my lack of exercise is one of them.

Do I buy Advil or Motrin? No, I tend to buy the “No Name Generic” versions of these kind of drugs because most of the time they are much cheaper than the “Name Brand” versions of these drugs. Cheaper is fine by me, since the active part of the medication is what I care about. Generics if they work are the right choice in this area.

Canadians Using Less Energy

Is it due to global warming? Don’t think that is the only reason.

Canada’s demand for energy fell by 2.0% in 2006, thanks to declining consumption in the nation’s industrial, transportation, residential and commercial sectors.

Interesting, but we shall see whether this trend continues too.

Snow is Expensive

The City of Ottawa’s snow budget is evidently out of control with this year’s early and heavy snow falls. As usual short sighted planning has caused budget planners to assume that Ottawa wouldn’t get a lot of snow and now we are going to pay the price (as tax payers). What is worse is that all this snow is stopping the Rideau Canal from being available for skating for Christmas day as well!

Say Thanks to Volunteers (especially at this time of the year)

At Christmas time there is an over indulgence in buying presents for many people (in my opinion), however, I think now is the best time to say Thank You in some fashion to the volunteers that touch your lives. Who do I mean? In my life here are some of the amazing volunteers that touch my life and my kids’ lives:

• Coaches (I realize some hockey coaches get paid, but the coaches that touch my kids’ lives don’t get paid much (maybe expenses)).
• Church volunteers (the folks who decorate the Church at Christmas for example)

You don’t have to necessarily buy them a gift, maybe all you have to do is say Thank You to them, and tell them you appreciate their good works?

So far in Ottawa we have more snow on the ground by today (December 17th) than we have had most years for the entire year, and we have had days where I can’t get to (or don’t want to) go to work, which made me think about the economics of “working at home” (I put quotes around it because I have far too many distractions at home, so for me it is rare that I actually get a lot done).

Economics of Telecommuting?

I know a few “telecommuters” and when the whole idea started some 15 years ago or so, the tools available were very primitive and it usually meant a significant outlay of cash by someone to set up elaborate high speed access (at the time my company gave you an ISDN line, which was incredibly slow by today’s standards, but not back then).

Today the technology to work at home is quite simple and setting up a home office is simply a matter of:

• Gettting high speed Internet access (ADSL, Cable, or even dial in)
• Your company needs to have a Virtual Private Network policy of some kind or another (if you need to access their network while you work)
• A spare phone, but that doesn’t even have to be an extra phone line any more, you can simply use a Voice Over IP client on your PC or have a Voice Over IP phone.

Voila, you are now set up to do the same work you do in your cube at work.

Is it cheaper for you to work at home? I won’t worry about whether it is worthwhile for your company since I would guess they won’t let you do it, if they don’t get something out of the deal.

• Automobile and travel expenses. With the current cost of gas, that in itself is a HUGE savings to you if you don’t have to travel to get to work.
• Travel time saved as well, you are starting work when you plunk yourself down in your office, commute time is very short, and when you decide to finish work, you simply walk away. On a day like today with lots of snow and lots of idiots on the roads, you cannot discount the value of this in my mind.
• Don’t have to eat lunch or dinner in the cafeteria or at a restaurant, and won’t buy coffees or snacks as well.

To my mind these are really only things that make working at home attractive financially.

If any home workers want to chime in on other financial points where working at home is better, please feel free to comment.

Snow!

My snowblower is now much cheaper per use, given I have used it about 10 times so far this year, just as an update to my on going discussions of “What is cheaper, snowblower or snow removal service“.

Self Directed RESPs

Larry McDonald has been posting a series of interesting articles on RESPs and their pitfalls and things to watch for. I have 4 RESPs going right now and I am going to investigate the viability and economics of setting up a self directed RESP for my youngest child, just to see whether I can get better control of the investing in this area. Stay tuned, I will be posting more as I learn. I already spoke to Michael James on money about it, so he may have something to say in that area some time soon as well. Canadian Capitalist also has postings in this area, that are worth reading.

For those of you in warmer climates, this posting may have very little interest for you, but if you live in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver today, this is quite topical. Ottawa is getting pounded with about 40 cm of snow.

There are 4 ways for the snow to be cleared from my driveway:

1. Manual Labor, heaving snow with a shovel or scoop and getting the physical exercise benefits from this. For older folks like me, there is also a real issue with having a heart attack while heaving snow, so I have not chosen that option.
2. Clearing services: typically someone with a pick up truck and a plow on the front of it will contract with you to clear your snow, and you can either “pay as you go” or pay a flat rate for the season. I am not sure how much this is, my guess is around $200 or so possibly maybe less.
3. Buy a snow blower (the option I chose some 10 years ago) and have the fun of owning a large piece of motorized machinery and knowing the snow gets cleared without you having a heart attack
4. Wait for the snow to melt in the spring (you’d be surprised how many houses use this option too).

I weighed the economics of the situation and my own inherent laziness and I chose a snow blower about 10 years ago, and it’s costs have been:

• Purchase price of $1100.00 or so (if you are a smart guy you could tell me how much money that is worth in today’s money).
• A “tune up” done about 4 years ago for about $150.00 which actually made the machine work better than previous.
• About $10 a year in gasoline
• Whatever charge I can make up for it taking up enough space in my garage that I can’t park my car in it (I have a two car garage, my wife’s car should be parked in there right now).

I’d say the snow blower is now only costing me about $15.00 per snowfall, which isn’t bad, and if it means I don’t stroke out on the driveway, I’m sure my wife is happy about that too.