Random Thoughts on Budgetary Week

This week, we saw the birth of the renaissance budget from the Tories, the alleged death of the “coalition” between the Bloc, NDP and Liberals and some other exciting quips and stories from around the magical world of financial blogging.

From Previous Weeks

• A budget for all outlines  how well the budget helps you?
• Budget Day is Here, didn’t it do something good for you?
• Bank Access Good or Bad? is it a good thing to have easy access to your bank
• Consumer Price Index at 1.2% that seems pretty darn low.
• Money is Cheap so let’s invest, back in the days of lower interest rates.
• Money for Pretty Much Nothing, yeh those rates were low.
• TFSA vs. RRSP do they clash?
• Flying: Death by a thousand charges, and somehow there are more fees now.
• Random Thoughts for a Bad Week, and it was a bad one.

N.C.F.B.A. Meeting

The NCFBA met this week for our semi-periodic beer and finance sit-down. It coincided with budget day, and Larry MacDonald showed up with an actual copy of the budget and stories about the “lockdown” he had been in all day long. I had stories about yet another Public Service exam I wrote and there was a great deal of kibitzing about the budget in specific (many points where we were not clear on what was actually meant in the budget) and on financial issues in general.

• Scenes from the budget lock up, are more stories from Mr. MacDonald about his day of imprisonment at the hands of the Finance Department, very amusing and I must say he looked quite “drawn” from his day that evening.
• One of the more confusing budget sections was the one about Control of Mortgage Insurance, which Michael James is still not sure about, but he gives it a try.
• The Canadian Capitalist took a more broad scope with his Budget Highlights post, but he had some interesting insights on some budget issues as well.
• Preet over at Where Does My Money Go is reviewing his own book (well pointing to other reviews), but also Giving His Book Away too! Free stuff!
• Ellen Roseman is asking What do You Think of the Budget? I am impressed that she was in the lockdown with Larry MacDonald.
• Riscario does a book review of an interesting mysterious book about Tax Sheltering in Canada.
• And the dream continues this week, with more amazing changes, which will all culminate with the Super Bowl on Sunday, with the Arizona Cardinals playing! Amazing times we live in.

Have a good weekend all!