Oil and Dollar Mixing?
The Canadian Dollar seems inexorably attached to the price of oil, and given oil has spiked above $81 a barrel, the Canadian Dollar may well break the “at par” with it’s Yankee cousin before American Thanksgiving (also given the Fed may well drop one of it’s key interest rates, in reaction to the “below prime” fiasco). These are different days, so then you start asking yourself why aren’t car prices dropping in Canada? Don’t know, curious to see if anything does happen in that area.
Promises, Promises
In Ontario we go to the polls in a few weeks and the promises and such that are going on right now, would make you think the Provincial legislature had money to burn, yet, they still are not at a balanced budget? In our local riding every candidate is calling us, and my wife has vowed to have all 4 candidates banners on our front lawn. I am hoping she does, since it will hide all my crab grass nicely.
How this provincial election will go is still undetermined, but most voters are really unsure because no one leader has shown they can lead. Mistrust of the promises from the last election campaign are also still ringing in most voters ears.
On Line Banking Insecure
The CBC has an interesting article about how most of us who do our banking on line do not do it in a secure fashion. Specifically most folks never change their passwords (at all). This is true of a lot of us, since we continue to forget our passwords as well. Which is worse, to never change your password, or have a written down list of passwords so you can keep track of them all? Both are very bad folks. Change your password today, just to make yourself feel a little more secure.
When Young People Work
My oldest daughter is now working part time while she is at school. We have set down some fairly strict rules about homework and ensuring that her marks must stay at a certain level, but it has occurred to me that she is now going to learn how money works, with or without my help. I have already had discussions about how just because you HAVE money, doesn’t mean you need to spend it.
Her response was, “Dad, I’m not going to go out and buy my lunch every day!“, but I had a better response for her, which was, “Nobody plans to start wasting money, but sometimes it just happens.“. That was very prophetic, and I must remember that one for my other daughters as well. We are thinking about having her tithe, to her RESP for now. If anyone has any other ideas, I am open to suggestions as well.
Passwords are such a pain. I use permanent complicated passwords for important sites. Since I forget them occasionally, I put them in an encrypted computer file in a safe location.
Tithing to a savings vehicle (e.g., RESP) seems like a great idea.