Canadian Personal Finance Blog

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?

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is asking that very question. How can the economic measures done include the relative happiness of the populous in the economic growth ?

Interesting question but who cares? If there is economic growth the relative happiness of any single worker has very little to do with any of this, that is the nature of the free market system. I am not saying that employers and governments should not care about happiness of workers in their companies or their countries, what I am saying, is: They don’t. The only time the relative happiness of employees or workers ever comes into play is when there is a scarcity of those employees and then the Employers must then make sure their employees are happy (to retain them).

Case in Point

Over my thirty years working various jobs my best examples of what makes people happy is simply whether they get good pay raises,whether their direct boss or the people they work with are good to work with, and whether they enjoy their direct job. I have been lucky in that most of my bosses have been reasonable folk and the folk I work with the same, so my only “happiness” monitor was and is money.

How do I make more money? I really don’t know. Years when I think I have been effective, I have had little or no pay raise, years where I feel I have failed I have been rewarded highly (and vice versa). If someone could train me in how to increase my Happiness by increasing my income, I’d be even happier. If anyone cares to comment on getting a raise, I am interested in hearing your Happiness and Pay Raise stories.

Anecdote

Two years in a row I went into my “pay adjustment” discussions with my boss expecting raises and both times I got not much:

• The first year my company had not done very well and the stock had dropped a fair amount and the statement I got from my boss at the time was, “How can you expect a raise look at the stock price?“
• The next year, the same boss and I went into our adjust meeting, the stock had rebounded the company was doing much better and when I asked about why my raise was about the same as the previous lean year, given the stock price had rebounded, I got the statement, “The Stock Price, has nothing to do with your relative pay raise“.

Bosses say the darndest things don’t they?

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.