Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Our friends at Stats Canada published their Leading Indicators for August 2008 yesterday and things in the Canadian economy seem to be doing ok, not great, but not as bad as some might think. 

The most interesting statement made was:

Household demand has remained the most consistent source of growth in recent months. Sales of furniture and appliances grew steadily, helped by a steady housing market. Housing starts rebounded in August. Meanwhile, personal services have become the main prop to growth in services employment. Sales of other durable goods were an exception to the strength in household spending, reflecting slower auto sales over the summer in response to record gasoline prices.

The housing index dropped, which may mean more reasonable housing prices or a slowing of the price increases we have seen, which is good as well.

Speaking of House Prices

The Citizen talks about how new price valuations for homes across Ontario are about to be sent out by The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. Remember these valuations have been frozen for the past two years, so these new numbers could be pretty darn crazy (given a 20% price increase since 2005 on average in Ontario). 

“Residential property values have increased by an average of approximately 20 per cent across Ontario since 2005, when the last assessment update was done. Because of the four-year phase-in, property taxpayers will see an average assessment increase of five per cent next year,” Carl Isenburg, president and chief administrative officer of the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC)…

 
I look forward to seeing this envelope in the mail.

Quick Run Around the Blogs

Some excellent articles this week from other bloggers worth having a look at:

• Nancy Zimmerman writes about 10 tips to change a small money habit, where she discusses how to stop buying lunch out (micro economics at it’s best). 
• Michael James writes about the Current Financial Mess and gives a very philosophical view that we are still living good lives, we just need to figure that one out. 
• All About Nortel has an excellent article questioning the former Telecom Diva’s decision to Sell Off Their Metro Ethernet product. Good research.
• The Canadian Capitalist writes about the implications of the Fall of AIG, a little depressing, but good research as well. 
• No Debt Plan writes an interesting view on Credit Card Victims Don’t Pay for 100% of My Credit Card rewards. 

All I can say is I am glad that the Canadian Elections are only about a month long, unlike our American cousins who can revel in them for almost two years.

I was going to write about what other financial bloggers have been saying about the election, but no one seems to care, so maybe I should just shut up too? Nah, but the most interesting weeks in an election is the first and the last, so maybe I’ll shut up ’til the last week before the election for now.

Puffins, Misunderstood Poopers

The biggest controversy of the week was an animated “attack” ad where a puffin flies across the screen and poops on Stephan Dion. The media were appalled at the audacity of this ad, me I thought it was funny, but it does give puffins a bad name.

Puffins are cute birds, and also an English book publisher (at least it was).

I hope there is not a severe Liberal backlash of Puffin bashing, please don’t blame the species for the act of a single deranged member with Tory leanings! Maybe we can get Sir Paul McCartney in to help protect the Puffins? They are cuter than seals, in my humble opinion.

Nothing Else Really

Really, it’s been kind of boring, I was hoping to hear of great tax breaks, or income splitting, or something good like that, but nothing. Ho-hum another boring week on the election trail.

No Candidate Visitors Yet Either

No one has come to my door yet, except one guy trying to sell me windows, so I haven’t been able to ask any of my canned questions for the Candidates either. The windows guy did agree with my stance on income splitting, but was disappointed when I didn’t want to buy his windows. He ran away when I asked if he needed any help, but he’d have to pay me in cash, not sure why.

No calls about putting signs on our lawn either. Now I haven’t cut the lawn lately, so it does look fairly shabby, so that might need to be remedied as well.

Long Weekend Random Thoughts

I note the gas prices in Ottawa have inched there way back up by about 11 cents in the past few days, in preparation for the long weekend. Am I saying this is a conspiracy? If it isn’t all contrived, then this is the most amazing coincidence I have seen. Our van continues to sit in the driveway, because it is just too expensive to use on long journeys.

The coming weekend brings a great deal of turmoil and excitement. My eldest daughter is off to University out of town, my middle daughters are preparing for High School and my son prepares for nursery school. September is always an expensive month for my family due to many activities and school ask for money and then there are the inherent expenses of returning to school (clothing, school supplies, bus passes, etc.,).

Is it time to turn off the Air Conditioning? I think it is, but we shall see how bad allergies and such are, since opening the house up, inevitably means me sneezing my head off (and thus buying antihistemenes and such). Which is more expensive, running my A/C or buying Claritin in bulk?

Today is the day I return my equipment and a set of forms outlining what to do with my severance package as well, which is a bit of a milestone as well. I will outline how this works, once I am sure how things will work, but the opportunity is if I can find a new job quickly and thus use my severance as a significant financial “hammer”.

Enjoy your long weekend, drive carefully wherever you may be going, careful of gas prices and speed traps and relax.

I figured I’d move my lazy post for the week to Saturday, for those that might wander by and wonder what has been going on, and to reward Friday readers with an actual post and not just me rehashing.

An interesting week, where I got fixated on the high prices of Cell Phones, but a few other bloggers had other interesting posts as well:

• In I am Paying How Much for My Phones and Cell Phones Again , I discuss the relatively large amount of cash I put out for the privilege of being connected in this world. Some very good comments from my readers on these posts, well worth a read.
• In Understanding the BCE Mess, Michael James attempts to decipher the twists and turns in the largest leverage buy out ever. As a shareholder, I hope it settles down some time soon.
• Larry MacDonald had a posting about 7 Good Blog Posts this week including my story about Bar B Q disposal.
• I lamented about the High Cost of Flying and am getting sick of dieing by 1000 service charges.
• The Canadian Capitalist asked the question Is A Costco Membership Worth it? It never made sense for me, but he, as usual, has a good angle on the charges.
• My wife managed to get a credit card so I asked again, My Wife is Worth How Much?
• Over at Free at 45 an interesting article about how to Appeal Your Taxes .

All in all an interesting week.