Random Thoughts: Spring Ahead

Remember, this weekend is Spring Ahead, and your clocks go ahead by an hour on Sunday morning. In Ottawa, it is very dark in the mornings again, but the days are much longer with the sun being up at 7:00 PM in March, which is always a nice feeling (however, 20 cm snowstorms and freezing rain are both highly likely).

How are your Lenten challenges going? Still, living on cash or cutting down on your discretionary spending in some fashion? Remember, a slip for one day is simply a slip, and no reason to abandon your plan. Keep at it!

Early Spring Introspections

• Random Thoughts to end a February
• Get Rich? The Ultimate Canadian Story gotta love home grown stories.
• RRSP Season is OVER! let’s all get up and cheer?
• How to Avoid Tax Return Incompetence and the CRA’s Wrath a foreboding title.

Springing Forward Financially

• Remember that next week is National Procrastination Week, so plan not to plan anything or to put off whatever you have planned because it’ll get done sometime (March 9-15, if you can get around to it).
• Michael James writes about Warren Buffett’s Solution for Mortgage Abuses, which sounds simple, but may be too simple since, as Mr. J. points out, no politician wants to be known as the Person who stopped folks from being able to buy their dream house.
• Preet at Where Does All My Money Go posts a fascinating graph showing the Distribution of Stock Market return from 1825 to today. A descriptive graphical help, with the disappointing point, that this year is starting at the far left of the distributions.
• Larry MacDonald encourages his readers to Tough it Out in the investment world with some suggestions on how to deal with the current Financial Apocalypse.
• Gail Vaz Oxlade talks about Setting Expectations for kids’ allowances, a topic near and dear to my heart. Do you control how your kids spend their allowance?

Have a great weekend all!