Opinion

This post will upset some readers. I won’t insist that readers promise not to be offended or anything like that, but if you’re not in the mood to read something that may get you worked up, you might want to skip today’s post. If you’re angry and don’t have the time to write [...]

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Some time ago, while writing a reassurance post about the stock market melt-down, Mike pointed out that for most people our career is our biggest asset.   I think Mike made a good point: given the choice between the loss of an investment portfolio or the loss of a career, the career is more valuable.  However, I [...]

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I was in Niagara Falls recently, and saw a big sign in a store window that proclaimed “Christian Owner”.  I’ve written on the topic before, but I found it unbelievable that someone would even CONSIDER putting up such a sign.
The most charitable interpretation of this sign would be that it somehow relates to the store’s [...]

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A number of personal finance bloggers and gurus have made the statement that our school systems do an awful job of providing basic financial literacy and this needs to be fixed. When “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” Robert Kiyosaki makes this statement, he means that the school system should teach people to be entrepreneurs, not [...]

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Some time back Ben Stein, who I think is great for the most part, wrote an article on “How to have a business conversation“.  I’ve had this post bouncing around in my head for a while and after a weekend where I got rammed from *behind* by a woman with a stroller (who then muttered [...]

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A recent Toronto Life article takes a look at a popular Toronto public school and the efforts that some parents will make to get their kids enrolled in it.  Since I don’t live to far from this school, the name (Jackman) is very familiar to me.  Anyone who has looked at any real estate listing [...]

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Online opinions and reviews are everywhere.  If you are doing some online shopping then it’s almost impossible to go to a site offering merchandise that doesn’t allow people to write reviews on the products.  You can comment on blog posts, newspaper articles – the “people” definitely have a voice where they didn’t before the internet [...]

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Both of my uncles (by marriage thankfully) are huge bullshitters (as defined by “To attempt to mislead or deceive by talking nonsense“). I found it bizarre when they’d say things, I’d look it up later, and without fail it would be incorrect. With one of them, it’s so consistent that I can rely [...]

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Enter in the Giant Book Giveaway if you haven’t already!

There are definitely times when it pays to buy quality.
I used to really like BiWay (a chain of el-cheapo Canadian discount apparel and general goods stores – think half-way between K-mart and a dollar store).  I used to proudly tell my friends “BiWay is *my* [...]

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As much as it can be uncomfortable to be the “odd man out”, I think it actually leads to benefits in many situations.
When I was at university for my undergrad, I found it quite cosmopolitan (and it was compared to the small town in Northern Ontario I grew up in). Next door to me [...]

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When people get indoctrinated into MLM (multi-level marketing, where you make money by getting other people to join and pass you a share of their earnings – the people who start it make all the money and the people who join later pay all the money) they’re warned to beware of dreamkillers.  What’s a dreamkiller?  [...]

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In class one time a woman was complaining about how hard it is to recruit participants for her experiment. The professor told her that she just had to approach people who fit the profile she was looking for and ask them. She was clearly uncomfortable with this idea and protested “what if they [...]

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This post is part of the Personal Finance Network’s first group project – “Summer Fun Guide“. We’ve each done a post related to summer fun and you can find links to the other PFN posts at the bottom of this page.

Recently we went on a vacation which required a somewhat lengthy plane ride to [...]

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When I was a kid a local convenience store offered a reward program that was a sheet that you got stamps to place on it (one stamp for every dollar spent). They said that the reward for a completed sheet would be announced later and started giving them out. Some friends and I [...]

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Some time back I went to a book signing that Kevin Smith was doing to promote his book “My Boring-Ass Life” . The plan was that I’d tell Kevin that one of his previous books was my first inspiration to lose 70 pounds (it’s true!), he’d ask me for details, and after chatting for [...]

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I boycott companies often.
I don’t make a big stink about it (like picketing out front, setting up a website, or anything), but if I’m unhappy with a product or service and the company won’t fix it, I stop shopping there. I’m like the soup nazi as I’ll give different punishments for different crimes (sometimes [...]

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Occasionally you come across an article that gives you an epiphany and shifts your view of the world. One such article for me was Tom Sloper’s excellent #1 lesson for aspiring game designers. While its interesting in and of itself (assuming that you’re interested in video games), I think the core idea extends [...]

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I love free giveaways, and last Sunday Harvey’s (a Canadian burger chain) was giving away its original burger free from 10:30-3 pm. I swung by, looking forward to munching on the beefy goodness, and gave up when I saw the lineup was out the door and down the sidewalk. Not being willing to [...]

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