Canadian Personal Finance Blog

My prediction for this coming election is more of the same, unless there is a TREMENDOUS blunder by the Liberals or Conservatives (no a puffin having a poop on Mr. Dion in an animated ad, is not a tremendous blunder, but as a Puffin lover, I am upset to see them so politicized!).

After the last election I said the Results are Like Buckley’s Mixture and I predict more of the same. Neither side is going to change much in this campaign, we’ll end up with a minority of some kind and we’ll have more “wet noodle” parliament with very little of value being done, but nothing of disastrous implications either. The Tories passed some “good will” points including:

• The TFSA which is yet to be understood by most of us, and is yet to be in place too, so wonder if the Liberals will try to axe it if they get into power? I doubt it, but it makes for good “fodder” in discussions with your Liberal Candidate. This is significant, but mostly because no one has nailed exactly how to use it best yet, I suspect it could be a “wow” thing soon.
• Dropped the GST by 1% which was nice, but I haven’t notice that much difference.
• Dropped taxes a little here and there

September 11th 8 Years Later

More snow in Ottawa, seems like a broken record, but I think I have got my per use costs on my snowblower down to around $6.00 per use, but I also may have to buy another 10 litres of gas because I am running out. My guess is there is going to be much more snow coming and I am astounded we have anywhere to put the darn stuff.

Financially for the city of Ottawa it means more likely an overrun in their snow clearance budget (that they have been able to use as a “slush fund” (sorry for the pun) the past few years). This will most likely mean higher taxation coming (along with ludicrously higher water rates too).

Bank Rate Drop

In yesterday’s post I touched on an important topic about the Bank Rate Drop of 1/2% from the Bank of Canada. The rates dropping should not be a trigger for folks to go farther into debt (I am writing this as much as a mental note to myself as a commentary to my readers), just because it is cheaper to borrow money, does not mean you should borrow money. Take advantage of these cheaper rates to pay down your debt faster (if your debt has a varying interest rate).

Remember what your mother used to say, “If everyone else went out and ran up $10,000.00 in Credit Card debt, would you too?”. OK, my mother never said quite that, although I believe she did make a comment similar to that.

Budget Passes

The Liberals decided they didn’t want to have an election called on the basis of them defeating a fairly boring budget (with one very nice twist the TFSA), so they didn’t show up for the budget passing vote. Stefan Dion did so that he can claim he voted against it in the next election.

The Aging Workforce

Stats Canada published Canada’s Changing Labor Force 2006 report yesterday and it is an interesting read.

Census data also showed that the aging of Canada’s labour force continued between
2001 and 2006. In 2006, workers aged 55 and older accounted for 15.3% of the total
labour force, up from 11.7% in 2001.

Why do I care? I am heading into that area very soon, and I keep wondering what is really going to happen when all of these folks “retire”? My suspicion is they really won’t retire, they will just change careers and become part time employees or something like that. There will be a shortage of trained folks in a lot of areas, but my opinion is it won’t be as bad initially, because a lot of those folks are just going to “scale back” work, and not actually stop working.

Anyone care to throw their opinion on this interesting topic?

My interim tax assessment arrived yesterday in the mail and it is about what it was last year with the exception of a 1 line addition that has me wondering:

SWC - 50% Solid Waste Curbside Service $41.00

So this is a surcharge on top of what I normally pay for my Garbage Collection, I guess. Why am I paying this new “fee”? I need to do some investigating because it shows up as a Special Charge, not as part of my regular charges. My concern also is there may be more of these kind of “Special Fees” that will appear on my taxes as Ottawa City Council wants more money too.

TFSA the Follow On

So most of the Canadian financial blogging community seized on this part of the budget and there were some excellent reviews of what it might be used for. My question about whether you should use the TFSA or the RRSP was kind of addressed by Michael James in his posting: Tax Free Accounts vs. RRSPs so have a read of that posting too.

My bottom line is if I could find $5000 extra (say by cutting my discretionary spending, like I keep telling myself I should) my retirement pay ins are fairly good, so I might take advantage of this capability, but I’d need to make a solid plan for it as well.

RRSP Times Up!

Remember Friday is the cut off for your 2007 RRSP contributions, keep that in mind. I believe some banks are staying open late for you to do your last minute RRSP shopping and such. For those of us who buy a little at a time, we’ll drive by the banks and chuckle quietly knowing you are having fun.