Canadian Personal Finance Blog

I received 3 different e-mails about On-Line Canada Day sales (Best Buy, Future Shop and Indigo) at various stores and at first I simply ignored them, but after thinking about it, this is really evil genius at work in the retail trade.

From the retailers point of view these “sales” are pure gravy for them:

1. Their retail stores are closed,  yet they are still selling stock (from their distribution centers).
2. They aren’t paying any retail sales staff, yet things are being sold (yes they are paying web folk to be around in case things crash, but I am sure they are relatively cheap).
3. No order is actually dealt with until the day after Canada Day (since you couldn’t ship, even if you had folks in your distribution center). No distribution center staff need to be working on Canada Day (thus you don’t have to pay them time and a half).
4. You have an interesting audience of folks either waiting to go out and party, or those that have come back from a party  and might be more motivated (read imbibed some alcohol).

This is truly evil genius on the part of these retailers and I salute their ingenuity. I like reading the e-mails and day dreaming about what I might buy one day, but unless there is something specific I am looking for, that I have the money for, I don’t usually take advantage of these “sales”.

Eating and Drinking Out More?

Even with the financial apocalypse Stats Can points out that Eating and Drinking out expenditures continue to increase in Canada:

Current dollar sales for the food services and drinking places industry increased 1.3% from March to just over $4.0 billion in April.

The price of food purchased in restaurants increased by 0.3% between March and April, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Very interesting numbers, given I would have thought folks would be staying home and eating more home cooked meals, however, this seems to contradict this a bit. Maybe this is a sign of a recovery, or more confidence folks have? We’ll see.

Michael James (nominated by the Globe and Mail as one of Canada’s top Financial Bloggers) and I were having a discussion on Friday night about an interesting article written by Jon Chevreau at the National Post: Even Young Millionaires Need to Worry About Financial Planning.

The article outlines how young athletes who suddenly come into large amounts of money tend to expand their lifestyle and spending to reflect their new riches and many times don’t learn the importance of Personal Financial Planning until much too late in their lives. I quote:

Within two years of retirement, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress, while an estimated 60%  of former NBA players are broke within five years of retirement, according to the March 23, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated magazine.

Michael James did not believe the number and questioned whether it was as bad as all that (he agreed that there is a problem, he just couldn’t believe it was as bad as all that). My view is this is very possible and I would not be surprised if it was worse than the numbers quoted by Sports Illustrated or by Mr. Chevreau.

The allure of a “rich” lifestyle and the fact that you have worked very hard to receive this monetary level does tend to throw off a lot of people’s Financial Gyroscopes (as it were). I have seen this at a smaller scale with folks that have got University degrees have lived a frugal lifestyle to get through the studies and when they graduate and get a good paying job, at first they remain frugal but then some folks just decide, “Heck, I deserve it!”, and start to lose their financial minds (I will plead guilty to this once or twice as well).

My guess is this is what happens with Professional Athletes, but they have the added problem of an entire species (for lack of a better term) of humans that seem to exist to prey on them, the hangers on (much like lampreys or other parasites). These people raison d’etre seems to be to leech off these walking banks, and this does not help these young people who suddenly get more money than they could ever dream of having. They get very odd financial advise from alleged professionals, and maybe trust people they shouldn’t trust (or worse trust people who then betray that trust). The players unions are trying to fix this, we shall see how well they might do (see the Sports Illustrated article for an eye opening statement by Raghib Ismail).

I remember when I was growing up and pro athletes did not make a lot of money (they made more than most working folks), but I remember a scout leader I had telling us about Dick Duff, because he played for the Canadiens (and the Leafs), but he had gone back to school to become a teacher, so he had a job after he finished with hockey. Do today’s athletes need to do this? Depends on the sport, and their pay level, but if they don’t plan their finances and plan for their ENTIRE life they are doomed to fall into the Rich Lifestyle trap.

Would I fall prey to this trap? We’ll never know, since my athletic talents were never a danger of putting me in this predicament.

For those of you like me who have procrastinated about getting their Tax payment in today is the day in Canada (unless you want to pay interest and have the CRA come and look closer into your lives).

Go buy Quicktax and get it done!

Unemployment Car Insurance Discount?

I phoned up my Car Insurance company to tell ask a question or two about my insurance and to add my daughter who is learning to drive on to the policy. The second question asked was, “… are you still employed at…” to which I answered no I was not, which caused an interesting sequence of events.

1. Adding a driver who only has their G1 in Ontario with this insurance company costs nothing, because they are not allowed to be driving without another licensed driver in the car, so that was nice. When she gets her G2, then it is going to cost me some money, but that is a few months away.
2. Since I am no longer commuting to work (i.e. Unemployed) I get a $23 a year discount because I am not driving my car to work. Interesting!

I had not thought about (2) but they did have down on my policy that I commuted in my car to work, so the discount does actually make sense. If I return to work and drive there, the discount no longer applies, unless of course, I take the bus to work (in Ottawa that is a stretch, unless I am working downtown).

iPhone, iPod, Android and Blackberry Readers

If you fit that category go on over to my working site How Not to Make a Fortune on the Web, and try out the new theme for mobile users and tell me what you think. I am testing it over there and may bring it over here some time in the near future, if it seems to be working ok. It’s kind of slick and I like it, but I am also a very bad judge of what other folks like and dislike.

Frank the Wrabbit is an interesting bit of animation from the NFB that can make you think and wonder about our financial industry.

Watch this animation and ask yourself does this story not sound familiar? Something like our current financial mess? Maybe not, but still an interesting little tale to enjoy on your weekend.

Would twere that we were all as smart as a Wrabbit, and even moreso, as quiet as one?

That one didn’t tickle your fancy, how about Special Delivery? This is an Oscar winner.