Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Time and Financial Goals

Yesterday I celebrated my daughter’s 20th birthday, by reminiscing about the day she was born (she is out of town at school, so we won’t celebrate with her, but assume she celebrated with friends).

Twenty Years Ago

The decision to have kids was a hotly discussed topic between my wife and myself, since I was positive we could not afford to have kids at the time (as usual, my wife was correct, that we would simply adjust our lifestyle to fit the new costs in).

Twenty years ago, I had little or no thoughts of retirement, and saving, we hadn’t even bought our first house yet (another hotly discussed topic in the apartment we rented at the time).

My parents luckily thought about the future for us, and started buying our kids savings bonds for their post secondary education (or when they moved out of the house). This is something that I hope I can remember to do for my kids when they have kids, and that money has since moved into RESPs and such. This is something that all parents can pass on to their kids, teaching them the importance of saving for the future, because the future comes a lot faster than you think.

I didn’t really even have any RRSP’s set up in 1990, I did have some savings that we were putting away to buy our first house, but that was hard enough to build up. In hindsight I could have made a lot of shrewd investments, but I have also seen over twenty years that “sure things” in the world of investment are not as sure as they look (i.e. Nortel stock and such).

What Would I Change?

It’s easy to be trite in this situation and list out the obvious things that I should have done back then such as:

• Start an RRSP and invest in high tech early and get out early
• Don’t build up credit card debt
• etc., etc., etc.,

but this would imply some degree of regret or sadness about those twenty years, and I don’t wish to portray those years that way.

I have learned more from being a parent than I would have, had I got a PhD. I have had more happiness and joy in those twenty years than I deserve (or merit), but I am unapologetic too.

Yes there are times where I look back and think, “I should have….”, when it comes to some money decisions and some other decisions in my life, but in some ways I learned more from my mistakes than from my (minor) successes in the financial world.

Am I saying, “Don’t worry, be happy!” (to paraphrase Bobby McFerrin) about your money? No! I am saying you should be careful and take the obvious steps to be safe with your money and to avoid debt every which way you can, however, if you think you have done all you can, and you are comfortable, then you should enjoy your life, is all I am saying.

Tempus fugit, and twenty years will fly by in a heartbeat, so make sure you are enjoying it.

Given this week my fascination with the word Chutzpah (see for Joys of Yiddish full explanation), I figured I could do one more amusing post about the use of this word.

Know how to say it first

Many years ago I was interviewing for a job in a very interesting group. I had heard of the leader of this group, but didn’t really know him personally, so when he called me so I could come in for an interview I was very happy to come in and chat.

The interview seemed to be a little stunted in the discussion (i.e. it seemed mostly to be this person pontificating about his views on how technology was going to go in the future), but having been to many interviews I didn’t think much of it, I just asked a few questions to keep my interviewer going (I find the more an interviewer talks, the better the interview seems to go), so I simply asked open ended questions as follow ups to his statements, and time seemed to fly by, with me saying very little (of substance).

There was a pause, so I felt obliged to throw in another open ended question to my interviewer, so I asked, “What kind of person are you looking for to fill this job?”. This is an excellent time wasting question for an interview, as most interviewers don’t really have a clear answer, and if they are very confident like this chap, then the answer can take up to 10 minutes, and all you do as a candidate is point out how you are that exact person (a trick I learned long ago).

Sure enough this interviewer ran on and on about someone who could create symbiotic technology concepts, and show an ability to create a fused capability delivered cross-domain in the pike position,etc., etc., etc.,. I noted the catch phrases being used (without laughing out loud), and was formulating my follow up to this statement when the interviewer completely de-railed me with a statement.

It started off with the phrase, “If I could sum up what I am looking for in a candidate for the team, I’d have to use a word I learned a while ago, it’s a Jewish word…”, I fought the urge to point out that it would either have been Hebrew or Yiddish (don’t think there is a “Jewish” language per se). I figured that as long as he didn’t say “Shmuck”, I was ok, but what he did say was entertaining.

“The word that describes it best is someone with CHOO-TS-PUH…”, (I spelled the word phonetically so you could get the gist of this story). Now the word chutzpah is pronounced HH-oo-tzpa (along those lines at least), and the CH is most definitely not pronounced as CH. I must have had a bewildered look (it was actually the look I have when I am attempting to not burst into laughter), because the interviewer proceeded to give me an explanation of chutzpah (a relatively correct one).

I sat there using all of my inner strength attempting to:

1. Not correct this individual on pronunciation, because he seemed positive that he was correct.
2. Not burst out laughing at the mis-step (very bad form for a job interview)
3. Figure out whether I really wanted this job.

There was a long pause at the end of the interviewers ramble and I felt he was expecting me to respond, so I carefully responded how I fit the bill of this kind of person without actually saying the word out loud, for fear of offending this individual. After summing up, the interviewer then had to recap by saying, “So you think you have this CHOO-TS-PUH, do you?”, again, I fought hard to not burst out laughing.

My only way to respond was, “Yes, I think I am that guy.”.

I didn’t get the job, but I did get an interesting anecdotal story that I tell sometimes.

As part of the gyrations I must go through to purchase a new vehicle, I must get my new vehicle insured (that is the law, no getting away from that).

The easiest thing for me to do, is to simply remove my old vehicle and add my new vehicle, and pay the difference in premium (if there is any).

This very task I attempted to do, however, I noted that since I am now a member of the Public Service, I receive a discount from my Insurance company, and I thought this would make things so much easier, however, I was mistaken.

Currently I am part of a discount plan given that I was a Nortel employee with this insurance company, and I have my cars insured using this discount. I assumed if I called the “broker” for the Public Service side of the discount, they would simply transfer me over as a customer and that would be it. Yes, dear reader, you guessed it, nothing is as simple as I think it is going to be, and thus the story takes a left hand turn.

Insurance Sequence of Events

I called up the brokers, and said, I am an existing client of the insurance company and I’d like to add a vehicle to my coverage, the young lady on the phone was more than happy to help me out, and she asked for my policy ID to “bring up my file”. I exercised my abilities in the phonetic alphabet rattling of various Alfa, Bravo, Tango and other letters and the young lady typed it all in. There was a long pause and she repeated back to me what I had just told her, and I agreed she had the correct policy number.

Her response surprised me when she said, “I am sorry sir, your policy is not coming up, do you have your policy with this broker?”, I said, “Pardon?”. Evidently since who I have my insurance with is not nearly as important as from whom I have purchased my insurance. I was told that I would need to call the “broker” I had dealt with previously to add my new vehicle.

The interesting twist on this is that the “broker” I deal with is actually part of my insurance company (from what I can tell), and thus I must call my insurance company, have them transfer me to my “broker” and then I can add my new vehicle.

I did finally succeed in getting a new quote for my new vehicle so that task is now complete.

Obtuse Insurance Games

My insurance policies actually renew in a few months, so now I will do something so obtuse that I must write it down to believe this, but here goes:

I will phone an insurance broker to get a quote for my car insurance with the same insurance company that I currently have to see if I can get a cheaper rate for my car insurance, even though the policy will be with the exact same insurance company.

I guess it makes sense given the discounts available, and the free market at work, but it always seems so obtuse that I can get a cheaper price for the exact same product, by simply calling someone else. Yes, I am naive, I assume the cheapest price should just be the normal price, but that is another story.

Interesting Brand Name Funny

When Buick introduced it’s new Luxury Sports Sedan (I have no idea what this class of car is for, but let’s stay on track here) they did not check with their offices in Montreal about the new Brand Name they were going with. This vehicles name is the LaCrosse, but in French Canadian slang, LaCrosse means … ummm … let me put this in a delicate way … male sexual self-gratification, to put it as delicately as I can. I was unaware of this, but I did check with a co-worker who is French Canadian and sure enough, that is the case.

This is almost as good as the Chevy Nova, which in Spanish translates to “No Go”!

OK, nothing to do with money, but still quite funny

My wife a couple of days ago took on the daunting task of creating a space for a gas fitter to come in and work on a new project in our house. Our back room in our basement was very cluttered and there was no way anyone could get anywhere safely, so she took on the task of attempt to clear a space in the chaos.

I came home and was very impressed with the work done and the amount that was being thrown out (although there still is a great deal to dispose of) in some industrial strength garbage bags. The area was swept and cleared so that the work could be done without fear of anyone breaking a leg attempt to scale “mount crap”.

My wife was not impressed when the workman finally showed up and was able to do all the work needed on the main floor of our house and went nowhere near the basement.

Was this a waste of time? NO! That kind of de-cluttering is a good thing for many reasons:

• Safety:that mess was going to injure someone, and could easily have been a fire hazard, so it needed to be lessened in magnitude.
• De-Clutter:the amount of crap that we were never going to use again (and things that should have been disposed of long ago) is now reduced by 9.75% now, which means we only have 90% of it still to clean up (but still a good start)
• Security issues:although it might be possible for an Al-Qaeda cell to hide out in that mess, I did not mean that exactly. We found a whole set of banking records for an organization my wife no longer works for, and those records have now been destroyed. That kind of security is very important.

Do you have a lot of old financial records hidden in the clutter of your “secret stash” (be it in your basement or in that closet you just never open)? Maybe it’s time to at least find all the old credit cards, banking cards, pass books, cheque books and bank agreements that you no longer need and destroy them. Leaving that kind of stuff around is just asking for problems later in life.

If you destroy it now, you know it no longer exists, if you simply “leave it”, do you know if there are records hanging around that can easily be used for identity theft? Maybe it’s time to go clean up a bit? Before you destroy those credit cards, make sure the accounts aren’t still active, as well.

I will neither confirm nor deny that my birthday may or may not have or will occur in the past or next few days, however, I will confirm that my age is in between 30 and 75. Having been crystal clear on this point (no, you should not be publishing on the web your birthday and year, since that is the start of someone stealing your identity or something of the like), let’s talk about the things you might do if your birthday anniversary is some time this year (which I hope it is).

Things to Do Financially on Your Birthday

Just some ideas for some of the financial things you can do on the anniversary of your birth:

• Are you old enough to retire? Seems like a straight forward question, but when can you retire is another question to ask if the answer to the previous question is No? If you can’t even guess when you can retire, then today would be a good day to figure it out, or at least make a guess and work towards it. Aim to retire at 61, that’s an interesting prime age.
• Can you take today off today? Some companies actually give you your birthday off as a vacation day, I think it would be good to know that one (nope, not in my case).
• You can get free meals at some restaurants, I think Denny’s is one of those places, but call around and see where you can eat for free. Free meals is a very good way to celebrate a birthday.
• Does my car registration need to be renewed? Ottawa has an interesting problem because if you don’t renew your registration by your birthday, and take your car to Quebec, you can get fined a LOT of money, because in Quebec they’ll fine you for that one (I think they do in Ontario too, but they don’t worry about it too much until the next month).
• Did your car driving license expire? I was surprised that one year I realized a month after my birthday that I had been driving with an expired license, I received no reminder in the mail. Luckily I was not pulled over or that might have been expensive.
• Has your life insurance premium just jumped? If you have crossed an age group, your term life insurance rate may be increasing, so go check that out.
• Can you get a senior citizen’s discount now? You’d be surprised, a lot of these discounts do not start at age 65, it actually starts at 55.

Any other ideas I may have missed that you should do on your birthday?

In Carnivals my posting Personal Finance Resolutions For the New Year? was mentioned in the Carnival of Personal Finance #239 and the Carnival of Money Stories.