The British tradition of the Christmas Cracker is something I plan on continuing. Today, we will celebrate the horrible puns found in the Crackers, with these Terrible Financial Crackers.

Inside Christmas Crackers, there was a toy, a paper crown and usually a bad joke, pun or sage advice. These ideas for some sage financial advice are supposed to make you groan and wince when you read them.

Cracker 1:

I used to be a banker, but I lost interest.

Cracker 2:

I once got into so much debt that I couldn’t even afford my electricity bills, they were the darkest times of my life.

Cracker Next:

I had an account with a bank in the North Pole, but they froze all my assets.

Cracker for Uncle Stan

A bank manager without anyone around may find themselves a-loan.

Some Other Bad Financial Puns

You get the idea, the Financial Christmas Cracker needs a financial pun (or worse a groaner) as its message.

Cost of living balloons due to high inflation!

Two banks with different rates have a conflict of interest.

Irresponsible financiers must be discredited.

During an earthquake in California a bank went into default.

Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.

OK One More

There was an extra one in the box:

Money talks …but all mine ever says is good-bye.

To get everyone in a festive Christmas spirit, allow me to offer this cautionary tale of Christmas Debt.

The 12 Days of Christmas DEBT

12 Months of Agonizing Payments

Have you paid off last Christmas yet? How about the one before that?

11 Maxed Out Credit Cards

How much room do you have on those cards? Really?

10 Overdrafts a leaping

Really, how much are you paying in overdraft fees? Just because your bank balance can show a negative value doesn’t mean it should always be that way!

9 Minimum Payments

Do you realize you will pay that off in 20 years with those minimum payments, or possibly 50 years? Minimum payments forestall the inevitable.

8 Balance Transfers

Shuttling debt from one credit card to another is not solving the problem. Juggling chainsaws will lead to a messy end, and that is what this is.

7 Cashed in Emergency Funds

Is Christmas debt an emergency? I don’t think that is the emergency you were planning.

6 Pay Day Loans

Pay Day Loans could be starting a death spiral in your finances that will lead you to Day (3)

5 Gold Reclamations!

Did your Grandmother leave you that ring to help you cash it in for pennies on the dollar to pay off debt?

4 Calling Collection Agencies

These are not the bogus ones you get emails. These are the real ones

3 Calls to insolvency trustees

They can help, but you can’t keep doing this every year either.

2 Calls to your family for an emergency loan

You do have to pay those back, you realize?

1 Mortgage Refinance

Using the equity in your house to pay for consumer debt is a terrible thing.

Yes, not very festive, but ultimately a bit too true. I go to Church, and I am confident the Christmas season is not to bankrupt you. It is at a time to get together with family and friends. 

Wonder why you dislike this time of the season? How many of the Days of Debt on the list are you facing in January? 

Previous Boxing Days?

I have written on the topic of Boxing Day a few times.

• Boxing Day? Big Bloody Deal! was my first rant about the day. In 2006 there were sales, but were they that exciting?
• Let the Boxing Quarter Begin does sum up the entire concept of Boxing “day”, it just keeps going on.
• Just because it’s on sale… another classic rant about impulse buying the day after Christmas, 2008.
• Holiday Cheer Volume 4 got lazy in 2009 and just put out a list of posts from that year.
• Carnival of Money Stories: Happy Pseudo Boxing Day! back in the day when Blogging Carnivals were all the rage (2009).
• Sales and What is the Price?!? started to figure out the connection between Black Friday and Boxing Day sales. Neither really saved you much, did they? Not really in 2010.
• Happy Pseudo Boxing Day was just really a best of kind of post, no real commentary on Boxing Day itself.
• Mayhem and Sunday’s Best (on Monday) it seems that Boxing Day was an excuse for me to post a best of posts list? This article seems to prove the point?
• Advice for the day in 2012? Don’t buy crap, which is good advice any time. If something you need is on sale, buy it, if not, don’t!
• One Thing You Can Buy on the day is to buy something you need.
• Mayhem is always present on Boxing Day, but remember just because it is on sale, doesn’t mean you have to buy it.
• The 12 Days of Christmas Debt is something to think about on Boxing Day? Maybe think about that at Thanksgiving?
• Weirdest Boxing Day Ever? What do you expect during a Pandemic, I suppose?

Merry Christmas! Yes the day is here, and I hope that you have a wonderful and special time with family and friends today. Merry Christmas to you all!

A favorite short video that played in Montreal on CFCF 12 at this Merry Christmas time for your enjoyment.

If that was a bit too austere for you, here is one of my favorites, a Wombling Merry Christmas. You could listen to Slade’s Merry Christmas too, but I still love the wombles.

One more, a great Christmas Tradition from Wizzard!

Christmas Wishes from the Past

I seem to do this a lot, so here are my Christmas wishes from years gone by:

• Merry Christmas 2021 was another COVID crisis time. Omicron hit and Christmas became much more closed up. Maybe the last one of these, but we thought that last year.
• Merry Christmas 2020 ! Do you see the pussy cat in the tree? An odd year with a Pandemic and all. Christmas All Year Round ? Yes, it does feel like that these days doesn’t it? The 12 Days of Christmas Debt ? What the heck ? That isn’t Christmasy at all!
• Merry Christmas 2017 ! That was a year of fun videos that I found to help celebrate the holiday. Love that old CFCF fill.
• Merry Christmas, Highspeed Internet a right, Inflation at 1.2 and #MoneyTalk 2016 ! Sheesh, I couldn’t even be bothered to send a message that year, how Grinchy.
• Merry Christmas 2014 ! A lovely quote from the King James bible for that year. Seem to have done nothing for 2015. This year I even had a Christmas Eve post.
• Happy Christmas 2013 ! I loved the photos of every years Christmas Tree, very festive. Another Christmas Eve post too.
• Merry Christmas 2012 ! You see the hideous curtains we had in the den back then. That year we had the $150 Christmas challenge too.
• Merry Christmas 2011 ! The tree moved back to the front room and I used Google Translate to create a festive message. Think I was on French training that year. Also At Christmas Why Not Just Give Cash ?
• Merry Christmas 2010 has some very deep philosophical commentary in it. Must have been hitting the Christmas cheer early. Christmas Eve that year must have been a Friday.
• Merry Christmas 2009 and all you got was an NFB short? Not that bad really. There was also Christmas Eve thoughts too.
• Merry Christmas 2008 ! That was the year of the infamous Financial Advent Calendar too.
• A few last Yuletide Thoughts was what I had in 2007.
• Merry Christmas 2006 ! A quieter year I suppose.
• Whatever little money you have, make sure you spend it… was my first year writing here. Quite gruff and grinchy.

Christmas is finally here, and we can then unleash the orgy of spending known as Boxing Day/Week/Month! The sales will start on Christmas Eve, and will continue until there is no snow on the ground. Boxing Day sales used to be interesting, when I got money for Christmas, but now, they bore me. Luckily inflation is here as well!

When did giving a car for Christmas become a thing? One year we got a Vic-20 and I thought that was a huge extravagance. I was planning on giving everyone a Bitcoin, but that got a little out of hand a bit too quick.

Winter is here, to quote Game of Thrones. Days will start getting longer in the Norther Hemisphere but still look for the Debt White Walkers, Rising Dragon-fire Interest rates and the Foreclosure Wildlings, which are now loose.

Did you buy bread at Loblaws or those associated stores? They want to pay you $25 because they gouged you by price fixing. Loblawcard.ca was the place to go and register to get your card. I will be donating mine to my local foodbank.

Guess What? Inflation is back on the table. The Consumer Price Index is back at 2.1%, with transportation dragging the index up for November.

I bet you are asking, what part of the transportation index contributed the most?

The gasoline index contributed the most to the rise in the CPI in every province except for Newfoundland and Labrador, where a lower gasoline price increase was partly attributable to a reduction in the province’s gasoline tax which took effect in June 2017.

Remember how gas was cheap a while ago? Here is confirmation that yes, it is back up for the Holidays! (not that I would be implying price-fixing in Gas prices either).

My Recent Writings

The past few weeks I have spoken with a few folks, and answered some email from people who are getting very discouraged about the DTC policy changes (apparently) at the CRA. With this in mind I wrote Apply for the DTC Please as a reminder that if you don’t apply you will never get the Disability Tax Credit.

Also, at the end of this post is something most of my readers have been waiting for, my top 3 Christmas Music Songs of all time. Yes, I do have a soft Christmassy side too.

Micro Blogging on Finance

Here is a social media post that has Bitcoins, Bankruptcy and if you click the link you have to use Google Translate to read it! That is a festive Tweet in my books.