Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Some of you may remember last year I did a case study on which was cheaper replacing the burner on my Bar B Q or buying a new one? This story is an Epilogue to that story. I originally posted this on my family private blog, but figured it was worth sharing for a Saturday Funny.

Is the Label Supposed to Be On Fire?

That was a good question asked by my daughter on Wednesday, looking at our Bar B Q.

My wife had started the Bar B Q (the really old Bar B Q), and was playing soccer with our son in the back yard (waiting for the Q, to warm up). Time passed and the game continued waiting for the impending cooking of raw meat on flame.

My oldest daughter came out of the house and saw that the label on the Bar B Q (the one at the bottom where the knobs to turn the gas feed up and down (you know where the propane and air mix)) was actually bubbling and burning.

She asked, “Should the label be on fire?”, and my wife turned to see flames engulfing the bottom of the Bar B Q, this being a very bad thing since the flame could ignite the propane tank, thus causing an explosion that might blow a lot of windows out of the back of my house (not to mention blowing up some of my children).

My spouse ran over quickly, shut off the gas, showing great calm under pressure (I wasn’t there, so for all I know she was yelling obscenities and pushing small children out of the way, but I’d like to think she showed grace under pressure (Rush 1982)).

Luckily nothing else exciting happened after that (except that we had a delicious Swiss Chalet dinner instead of burnt flesh).

This long weekend, we will be buying a brand new Bar B Q.

No worries about disposing of the old Bar B Q, as they disappear off the front curb in seconds on garbage day.

Almost reminiscent of a dear old friend and his Bar B Q, that caused a chain reaction that lives on in the history of Barrhaven, but that story is for another time.

This post was originally posted as Cheaper Day Alternatives last year, but I found it doing some clean up on my site and it still made me laugh, so here it is again for a Saturday Smile. This whole out-sourcing thing is getting a little out of control, and I am not too sure whether I could sedate my son enough to get him into a box or not.

High Cost of Day Care and Alternative Methods

So after my posting about the cost of raising kids a while back a lot of folks pointed out the costs of daycare and how this is prohibitive for dual income families. To those who were so vociferous in your commentary about how I had missed the point, please watch the following video which I think puts forth a viable alternative to the high costs of daycare.

Mobilize This!

Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas
Many thanks to John Chow for pointing this one out.

Related Links:

• My Spouse is Worth How Much: Scenario
• The Disappearing Middle Class in Canada
• Spousal RRSP: Income Splitting
• My Spouse is Worth How Much?
• High Price of Parenting
• My Wife is Worth How Much 2007

No that is not my pet name for the guy who stuffs my super mailbox, however, I do get some very interesting e-mails and 1 yesterday I felt I had to make a comment on.

Art for Financial Gain

This e-mail almost had me passing my liver I was laughing so hard. It started off with:

If you’re looking for an alternative to investing in stocks or real estate, art might be the way to go – whether you have $1,000 or $10,000 to spend.

You are not serious or as my daughters might say WTF? For my regular readers you know I have very little skill when it comes to investing in stocks (I have had many more flops than wins), I think I know as little about Real Estate, but then again, I have a nice house (which is not an investment in my mind) and I know I never want to be a landlord, so that covers most of the investing areas I know of, but this e-mail suggests Art?

Don’t get me wrong, I like art and I own art, but it is Art for Art’s Sake. I am an amateur ornithologist, especially liking pictures of birds of prey, so I own a couple of Robert Bateman prints which are worth something, I think. This e-mail is saying that I should work with this web site to make money using a methodology outlined by an entrepreneur.

Pardon? So as with most get rich schemes, I give someone I don’t know money to invest and hope they don’t simply squander it, in an area where I have no expertise other than, “That looks nice to me”? I think I’ll be passing on that “investing idea”.

Other Interesting Mail

I also get lots of other interesting e-mails, which fall into a few categories:

1. How my girlfriend is unsatisfied with me, and I need herbal Viagra of some kind. Why is it my girlfriend is unhappy but my wife isn’t? Curious why those ads always talk about my girlfriend.
2. Get rich schemes for this blog and how if I use the right keywords like: Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank or PC Financial, I will make a fortune. No Canadian Capitalist is the only successful financial blogger I know of right now.
3. Phishing e-mail from people in the former Soviet Union or Nigeria who want to send me $1,000,000.00 because I am a good person.  I think I deserve that money, but no, I don’t answer those either.
4. Occasional inquiries from readers about specific things and even some who ask for investing advice. Here is my investment advice: Pay off your debt and never ask me about investing advice, I will steer you wrong.

I enjoy reading mail and e-mail, and I like reading comments too (especially the nice one who said the Globe and Mail got it wrong and that I was one of the top 5 Canadian Financial Bloggers).

Be Cautious

The CBC asks the question are Canadian Investors being too cautious?

Canadians are sitting on a record $45 billion in excess safe, liquid assets that would normally be invested in the market, according to a report Wednesday by CIBC World Markets economist Benjamin Tal.

So people who want you to invest so they can make money on the transactions think we aren’t investing enough? I am pretty sure that Laura Secord thinks I am not eating enough chocolate too, but I don’t listen to her either.

We in Canada have seen some SPECTACULAR investment busts in Bre-X, Nortel and the high tech bubble, and others, be skeptical and be cautious. Invest in what you understand and know (to paraphrase Warren Buffet), unless you are able to deal with losing the money you invest!