Personal Finance

I always enjoy features in MoneySense or the Globe and Mail where they profile a family, highlight their current money issues, then consult with a panel of financial planners for suggestions on what the family should do moving forward.  Some time ago in MoneySense, they talked to a couple who worked, lived a frugal lifestyle, [...]

{ 13 comments }

I often see kite surfers zipping around Lake Ontario on windy days and I think it would be a great sport to pick up.  The only problem is – what do I do with the kids?  I can’t very well go flailing around in the water with my young kids patiently waiting on the shore [...]

{ 9 comments }

Moolanomy had a great post wondering what exactly is so bad about credit cards and why are debit cards better?
Amateur Asset Allocator talks about his experience “activating” a credit card – a rather funny description of the up-sell attempts.
Momma’s blog had a post on the 7 sins of fashion – some interesting pics.
The rest of [...]

{ 7 comments }

Canadian Capitalist wrote a very interesting post yesterday highlighting the fact that there are some disabled former Nortel employees that paid into the “self-insured” LTD (long term disability) plan offered by Nortel and now might lose their benefits.  As Thicken My Wallet pointed out in the comments – this basically a loophole in the law [...]

{ 9 comments }

Please note that Mr. Cheap wrote a very good post yesterday about H1N1 so check it out if you haven’t already – a lot of great comments.
H1N1 (Swine flu) vaccine hysteria has hit my city in a big way – last week there were people lining up for 6 hours to get shots for their [...]

{ 24 comments }

I’ve been amazed at people’s reaction to H1N1 for a number of reasons.  I was *SHOCKED* that they were able to get the name changed from “Swine Flu” to H1N1 (people involved with the pork industry started oinking immediately after the pandemic started and amazingly managed to get it renamed).  I still like to call [...]

{ 33 comments }

This is my review of Investing Made Simple written by Mike Piper who is the author of the investing blog Oblivous Investor. I’ve highlighted both Mike’s blog and book before and I was quite happy to review the book for him.  I think it’s a great resource for a non-investor or someone who is [...]

{ 6 comments }

Earlier today, I published a You Need a Budget review – budget software to help you organize your finances.  I have set up a special coupon code with YNAB so that if you want to purchase this software you can save 10% off the purchase price.
To get the discount just go to the [...]

{ 0 comments }

In this post I’ll be reviewing the budgeting tool called “YNAB” which stands for “You Need a Budget”.  There are quite a few financial software tools available on the market such as Microsoft Money (discontinued) and Quicken, so it can be difficult to sort out which tools (if any) are right for you.  YNAB is [...]

{ 8 comments }

Whenever I’ve tried to figure out how much someone should contribute to an RESP for their child – I’ve always gotten stuck on the issue of whether the kid lives at home during his school years or goes to school out of town.  My rough calculations indicate that if you contribute the maximum allowed each [...]

{ 4 comments }

One suggestion for saving money that I’ve read on countless websites is to participate in free (or very cheap) activities that are happening in your community.  Things like festivals, open houses etc are good examples.  I’ve never really followed this advice since most “community” events seem to be geared toward people with kids – [...]

{ 15 comments }

Last year my wife and I took advantage of the ING Direct pre-TFSA deal where they paid extra interest on your pre-TFSA contribution which kind of made it like a TFSA.  This year, ING is doing it again – if you have money earmarked for your 2010 TFSA contribution room then you can put the [...]

{ 11 comments }

Google Street View went live today for Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton, Kitchener, Waterloo, Windsor, Calgary, Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, Montreal, Quebec city, Halifax.  Apparently Saint John NB, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg are next on the list.
If you were impressed by satellite images of your rooftop then you will be really blown away by this service.  I [...]

{ 14 comments }

Most house or condo owners have experience with doing some sort of do-it-yourself projects fixing up their homes.  Maybe this year you wanted to take advantage of the renovation tax credit.  Whether you were painting a room, redoing a bathroom or fixing up your deck, you probably noticed that some (or all) projects are hard [...]

{ 11 comments }

One of my blogger buddies – Lynnae from BeingFrugal.net highlighted a deal offered in support of the American Cancer Society.  After looking at the bundle I bought one for myself since there are several items in there that I was going to purchase anyway.  The total retail value of the bundle is $800 although it [...]

{ 2 comments }

My wife and I both have old phones (mine has an elastic which holds the almost dead-battery on [see photo below]) and have been thinking about getting new ones.  We didn’t want to get a contract and haven’t had time to look around for a good deal.  Luckily, staff writer “Henry” took the time to [...]

{ 16 comments }

It’s back to school time and most university and college students are probably looking forward to a long winter of tough studies, late night Ramen noodles and figuring out how to cut costs in order to get by on not very much money.
Here are some suggestions from a current student who has done some research [...]

{ 17 comments }

As I discussed previously on a post about our Canon 200sx camera, our only camera up until about a year ago was an aging Canon PowerShot – a great camera in the day but now it was very slow and took very average shots unless the lighting was really good.  Three years ago, our first [...]

{ 9 comments }

Over the weekend I watched, and enjoyed, “Sunshine Cleaning“.  It’s a new movie by the producers of “Little Miss Sunshine” (and also staring Alan Arkin, the heroin snorting grandfather from “Little Miss”).  It touches on a number of personal finances issues, such as entrepreneurship, career satisfaction and the impact of money within a family.
Like “Little [...]

{ 0 comments }

Welcome to the August 28, 2009 Edition #104 of the Carnival of Financial Planning.
The Carnival of Financial Planning takes a long-term view of personal financial planning for individuals and families. We focus on efficient and sustainable personal financial planning practices that can lead to lifetime financial security.
This edition is arranged by subject heading, so that [...]

{ 8 comments }

Light Usage
7-Eleven SpeakOut Wireless is one of the best pay as you go deals available in Canada. You pay $100 + tax and it is 20 cents a minute and 4 cents a text message incoming and outgoing. The airtime expires in 365 days. Here is the catch: they charge you 79 cent a month [...]

{ 60 comments }

I’m a big fan of inline skating – or “roller blading” as I like to call it.  I got my first pair of skates which were the original Rollerblades back in the mid-80s.  Rollerblade was the original inline skate company and I had to order them from somewhere in Quebec.  It wasn’t until probably the [...]

{ 7 comments }

Everyone loves a nice vacation – whether it involves driving a short distance to visit family for a couple of days or flying to the other side of the globe to go snowboarding.  The big problem with vacations however is the cost – most of us have budgets that are limited in some way and [...]

{ 23 comments }

Some time ago Mike’s post on the Toronto Garbage Strike struke a cord with readers and generated 85 comments.  A large amount of the discussion focused on unions (from a philosophical perspective more than that specific union or strike).  One comment that had a particularly interesting part to it (from semi-frequent commenter Brendan) focused on [...]

{ 15 comments }

As I mentioned recently, I got my 1% rebate from RBC and want to come crawling back transfer my money back to my favorite broker – Questrade.  There is one huge reason why I’m such a fan of Questrade and that is money – their $5 trades are the cheapest in the business and that [...]

{ 26 comments }

Manulife Financial cut its dividend by a whopping 50%.  They still made $1.8 billion in Q2 so if anything it’s probably a good buy since the stock dipped 15% today.   The company hasn’t done a good job managing the risk of its variable-annuity products over the last few years so this move was made to [...]

{ 7 comments }

Please note that this post is very Toronto-centric, very rant-like and also contains a fair bit of fantasy.  Your challenge will be to determine what is truth and what is  fiction.
I read in the Star today that apparently one of the negotiated items in the City of Toronto outside workers strike (aka “The Garbage Strike”) [...]

{ 3 comments }

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 [...]

{ 9 comments }

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 [...]

{ 3 comments }

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 [...]

{ 19 comments }

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 [...]

{ 17 comments }

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, [...]

{ 20 comments }

[Edit from Mike:  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 [...]

{ 10 comments }

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 [...]

{ 26 comments }

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% [...]

{ 16 comments }

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 [...]

{ 7 comments }

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 [...]

{ 13 comments }

Some time ago a reader, Ben, asked for feedback on a strategy he is considering which he describes as a variant on the Smith Maneuver.  My hat is off to Fraser Smith as he has successfully attached his name to something that is a fairly general strategy based on not much more than the Canadian [...]

{ 22 comments }

[edit July 30 -  Toronto garbage strike over?  Dave Miller cave-in]
As anyone who lives in Toronto knows – the City of Toronto outside worker are on strike, which of course means…no garbage pickup.  This may seem like a big deal but the city has set up some temporary garbage dropoffs so you can still get [...]

{ 85 comments }

On our recent visit to the zoo, we paid for the day with an Aeroplan gift card which I received from my sister.  Since I have more Aeroplan points to use up (I gave up my Aeroplan credit card a while ago) I thought I would go over some possibilities for converting the points to [...]

{ 10 comments }

I’m a big fan of Squawkfox and her blog. Although always entertaining, she’s not always right (alas, I seem to be the only one who can manage that). In a recent exchange I cited her wonderful article on debt as an example of something well-written that I enjoyed reading, even though I disagree [...]

{ 10 comments }

This is a very exciting contest! WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com, Canadian Capitalist and Four Pillars have teamed up and are holding a joint giveaway for one lucky recipient to receive a FREE driving school in an open-wheel racecar courtesy of The Bridgestone Racing Academy!
You can learn more about the exact prize by clicking here: A Thrill Of A [...]

{ 43 comments }

The “debt snowball” method of debt repayment was popularized by “financial expert” Dave Ramsey.  The method was created for people who are having trouble paying off their debts and need some more motivation and a different strategy.  The basic idea of the snowball method is to pay off your loans in order from the smallest [...]

{ 17 comments }

I enjoy blogging. Twice each week, I have the chance to spend a bit of time articulating my position on a financial topic, then get a variety of smart people to respond with their $0.02 on the subject. Sometimes there will be a bit of back and forth on the day of the [...]

{ 33 comments }

The largest auto company in Britain at one time was called the Leyland Motor Corporation which eventually became British Leyland after being nationalised. In 1986 it became Rover Group.
It started in 1896 as the Lancashire Steam Motor Company in the town of Leyland and became Leyland Motors in 1907. The company was quite successful and [...]

{ 7 comments }

Dave Ramsey is a fairly well known personal finance celebrity who is somewhat controversial for his methods. His fans love him and his detractors can’t find anything good to say about him.  He created the Dave Ramsey baby steps and if you really keen – you can attend the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University. It [...]

{ 45 comments }