Random Thoughts: Whale of a Tale or Two…

Call Me Ishmael

There’s a picture doing the rounds on the internet this week of a yacht splashed by a whale. I’m unsure if it’s authentic, but it’s worth checking out (you can find a version at the end of this post). Unexpected things happen in life, so it’s crucial to have solid financial plans in place. (I’m not joking around here, it’s essential!)

Things I Thought this Week

• Random Thoughts: Lazy Days of Summer is a recap of last week’s best articles
• A magic number: 833.33 Lots of Special Numbers In this world there are many magic numbers: No, I am not about to go off on some weird numerology tangent.
• Overnight Rate Jumps 50% More!!! OMG, Think of the Children!!! Yes,I am being fascetious again, playing with numbers, but the Bank of Canada raising their overnight rate from 0.50% to 0.75% is a 50% increase.
• Semantics of Money Sometimes when we espouse our money successes, the semantics of money points out that maybe you didn’t do as well as you thought you did.
• The Car Rental Paradigm Rent to Learn Sometimes ideas don’t always hit you when you first see them as novel or a nifty idea, and this is true of a trick my parents did more than once.

So is this week’s Random Thoughts going to be a plethora of Tall Tales and Fishing Stories about the one that got away? I don’t think so, but you dear reader can judge for yourself:

• Canadian Financial DIY points out that even if you tell people everything on paper, there is no guarantee that they will read it, Mutual Fund Disclosure and Advisors. You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink.
• Michael James points out the reverse logic in the statement Does Buying a House Make You more Financially Responsible ? He has an excellent basketball take in this post as well. The Wealthy Boomer started the discussion with his post Homeowners more Financially Fit.
• With the demise of the ECO-Fees fiasco here in Ontario, Ellen Roseman points out the Many Mistakes Made Leading to the End of ECO-Fees. A tax-grab by any other name would smell as putrid.
• Young and Thrifty poses the interesting question Big Bank or Mortgage Broker ? I would lean towards a Mortgage Broker if you are lazy like me, but only use one that you get good references from, if you like bargaining, take a run at the Bank, you might be able to get a better deal.
• The Canadian Capitalist was on a commodities kick this week, with a few posts on Commodity trading, including A Survey of Broad Commodity Index ETFs and ETNs. Do you really want to invest in commodities is the tough question.
• Preet shows his romantic side with his post A Successful Wedding Plan . I note no mention of a prenuptual agreement, so I don’t think it is that good.
• Free Money Finance write about 11 Smart Ways to Get out of Debt , it’s amazing there are infinite dumb ways to get into debt, unfortunately.
• A helpful post for all of you planning on winning the lottery is the Squawkfox’s Don’t Blow your Dough! post about how to deal with windfall money. Reminds me of a joke by Steve Martin, “How do you not pay taxes on $1 Million? First, get a million dollars, then…..”.
• Riscario Insider points out the Most Dangerous Part of Driving, and no it is not peeling away from Red Lights.
• The Canadian Couch Potato gives us a heads up about BMO Offers Free ETF Trades for New Clients, sounds like an interesting deal.
• Want to Win an iPad? Too bad, because I am, but you can go over and see what Preet is doing at 3 Year Anniversary I’m Giving Away Another iPad! You folks can enjoy winning the Spork!

Weekly Reminder

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