Random Thoughts: Spooky Finances

Scary Money Talk

Yes, this week we had lots of scary stuff happening, including Ontario having municipal elections and some companies announcing their results for the quarter. In France, there was lots of hoopla still about the moving of the retirement age for their National Pension to 62, but isn’t 62 the new 47? With November looming on the horizon (that’s on Monday folks), the Christmas season is braced to grasp your wallet with a death grip that won’t let go until March of 2011!

This week, the topics I covered included:

• I figured I might get a reaction from folks with my post Financial Bondage, but not much was said at all. You put pictures of handcuffs and talk about thumbscrews, and nothing, really.
• I did however get quite the response both here and on reddit.com on my post Banking on Sunday, evidently I hit a nerve asking why banks should be open on Sunday? I thought I was being clever coining the phrase Impulse Banking evidently I wasn’t.
• Financial Indiscretion simply pointed out how the slip of a lip can sink a ship.
• CPI turtles up again” was written mostly by Stats Canada pointing out Inflation continues it’s slow methodic eroding of your take home pay.
• For a little light hearted fun I posted the video about the 1987 stock market crash with Louis Rukyser but no one seemed to care.
• Enough about Registered Education Savings Plans ? should be a recap of all the great stories from the week before.

The week in the Personal Finance Blogosphere was calmer than most but there is some relevant posts from other folks in the Personal Finance world:

• Boomer of Boomer and Echo asks the investing question are the Canada Savings Bonds still as popular as an investment vehicle, as they once were? Maybe not, but they are about as safe a place to put your money as there can be.
• Michael James points out that if you are thinking of investing in China, don’t ignore the past which points out the money lost in previous investment bubbles in the Far East.
• Ellen Roseman points out that you should get a second opinion if your furnace is red tagged, which has happened to me. They come in to give you a complimentary cleaning and suddenly your heat exchanger is cracked, and you must replace your furnace in 7 days.
• The Canadian Capitalist points out why currency hedged funds have LARGE tracking errors and warns investors to keep a close eye on this disappearing money
• Miranda at the Financial Highway asked Would you put your retirement at risk to pay for your kids college? My answer is no, my kids can go into debt first and figure out how that works before I snuff out my retirement chances.
• Mike at Money.Smarts has done another Herculean effort doing a Canadian online brokerage firm comparison which is quite extensive.
• DividendDollar talks about a subject near and dear to my heart The Gift of Time, and I have spoken about this before, but time is an important currency as well.
• Preet who seems to be living full time on the Globe and Mail site asked the interesting question Is a variable rate mortgage always the best?I must say it has been for me, but I don’t view that as any great insight by me, more a function of plain blind luck.
• Million Dollar Journey does a post which Ask the Readers: What’s in Your Wallet?, aside from some lint and far too many credit cards, nothing of great interesting, in my case.
• 2 Cents at BalanceJunkie asks a real tough one What Would Make Me Invest in the Stock Market? I can’t answer that because I never really got out.

Remember

“ A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Author: Robert Frost