Investing and Personal Finance
From the monthly archives:
Well, the garbage (and others) strike is over here in Toronto – I have to say that I thought Miller caved in the end. My only question is – couldn’t he have gotten this crappy deal a lot sooner? Most Torontonians weren’t inconvenienced by the strike very much but a lot of businesses were as [...]
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This post ventures into legal and philosophical territory that is far beyond my areas of expertise. If I get something grossly wrong, please correct me in the comments (and any readers, please be careful if you use any of this information, it’s even more questionable than my posts usually are).
I’ve often found the notion of [...]
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A common financial strategy for someone who is trying to pay off their debts is to allocate some of their savings into a different account which might be used for some sort of fun. The idea is that while you want to focus on paying off debts – ie have some gazelle intensity, you should [...]
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Bell and Rogers get a lot of bad press. Ellen Roseman frequently posts problems customers have with both companies. Some might argue that by virtue of their size, companies such as these will, by chance alone, have customers who accidentally get treated badly (unavoidable circumstances and all that). That is, a small business with 400 [...]
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In real estate there are listing which can be called “pocket listings“, “in pocket listings”, or “exclusive listings”. In each case the idea is the same, an agent *DOESN’T* advertise the property in order not to share the commission with another agent (by representing both the buyer and seller) or to only share the commission [...]
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I recently picked up a new digital (what else?) point and shoot camera. I’ve been the happy owner of a Canon Digital Elph from 2002 (2.1 megapixels) but in the last few years it started to fade. The battery doesn’t work as well and the speed of the shots, particularly inside photos was [...]
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Part of most job interviews is where they ask you about your current salary or salary history. This is obviously valuable information for the other side of the negotiation to know, as it tells them exactly what amount of money you were willing to work for. At it’s core, while useful for them to know, [...]
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[Edit from Mike:Â Please note this post has no affiliate links and no compensation was received for this post from MNBA or anyone else - Henry just really likes the card]
I was pleasantly surprised when I first read about MBNA Smart Cash Credit Card on redflagdeals.com. 3% cashback on groceries and gas up to 600 [...]
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I’ve written about begging before. As long term readers can probably guess, I’m fairly opposed to it (heck, I’ll even tell people off for begging in “World of Warcraft”). Aggressive panhandlers are one thing, but at least their actions are usually motivated by a personal and immediate need. Others have actually chosen begging as a [...]
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I received notice in the mail recently that the RBC 1% rebate has been paid out in all our 4 accounts that I moved their last year to take advantage of their 1% rebate deal. Basically the offer was that if you transferred any money from other brokerages to RBC they would pay you 1% [...]
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It wasn’t long after I’d bought my investment condo that I was called a slumlord for the first time (jokingly by a friend’s father). I think most people who rent out real estate get called this at one point or another, and it’s a popular view of people in the business of providing housing.
A slumlord [...]
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I was in Tim Horton’s recently, and overheard two men talking. One of them was saying “I got cash from him in the first month, but I haven’t gotten anything since then.” Perking up at a real estate discussion, I casually eavesdropped. They were on their way out, but I heard him continue saying “I [...]
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As a quick clarification, the “relationships” in this title refers to any people who have an ongoing association with each other, not exclusively romantic relationships.
Thicken My Wallet recently wrote a great post on negotiation which addresses negotiation where you have an ongoing relationship with the other party. Most of my negotiation posts have dealt with [...]
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I entered into a stock picking competition with a number of other bloggers at the beginning of this year.  I picked four small oil-related companies as part of my “swing for the fences” strategy. So far it has paid off since my portfolio is up over 40% for the year. In the last stock picks [...]
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In John Reed’s “How to Write, Publish & Sell Your Own How-To Book” he refers to Dan Poynter’s work repeatedly. In my review of that book, Tim from Canadian Dream also directed me to Poynter, so when my local library had a copy of his “Writing Nonfiction: Turning Thoughts into Books” I had [...]
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