The Madness has begun down south, no not the GOP Primaries, the NCAA Men’s basketball championship has begun, and Yale has the biggest upset so far. This is a fun time for me, as I love watching live sports, and if I could figure out a way to do that without a TV Cable package I’d cut the cord tomorrow.
In other madness, Oil prices continue to climb, and that has caused the Canadian Dollar to rise as well, and having a Loonie that is above 70 cents the US is a good thing (in my opinion).
It is not only Holy Week next week (the week before Easter in the Christian faith), but also it is Federal Budget week, woo hoo! What new and exciting financial features will the Easter Bunny be hiding under our financial pillows? We will have to wait until Tuesday March 22nd to find out, but there are already hints of many fun financial Easter Treats for us:
- A much larger deficit than previously thought due to either bad accounting by the Tories, bad economy, low oil prices, etc., etc., . We will owe more money after this budget.
- Higher taxes for higher income folk, but that was already promised during the election campaign
- More spending on infrastructure might help the economy, and will hopefully fix the pot-hole problems in Ottawa.
At the bottom of this fine article,there is a video of Financial Pundits discussing what else might be in the budget, so stay tuned.
My Writings for the Week Ending March 18th
Winter has been washed away mostly in Ottawa, however, there is still potential for more snow soon (it isn’t quite spring yet). A three-article week this week to help celebrate St. Patty’s and my 11th year of writing. That is a whole heck of a lot of words.
Statistics Canada’s report on employment shows that Unemployment Continues to Rise but the employment numbers aren’t too bad (they are not great, but not bad). I have started reading the more detailed reports and in there you find much more interesting information.
The National Balance sheet is an interesting report from Stats Canada is another really interesting report to read, chocked full of interesting numbers, but the one that had me wondering was the Disposable Income vs. Debt numbers, have a look. Any time you can mention Tennessee Ernie Ford, that’s Gold!
Yes, I have been doing this for 11 years, hard to believe, but I have slowed down a little bit, but while I continue to have fun, I think I’ll keep doing what I am doing.
A Friday Thought
In life, as with exams, answer the easy questions first, let the hard ones ruminate for a while.
Easter is Next Week
Given I am running a Micro Business, I think I should heed the advice given by the Blunt Bean Counter What Small Business Owners Need to Know – One Day You Will Sell Your Business , but I somehow doubt I will sell this business, it may just disappear off the face of the Internet. Million Dollar Journey wants to help you out as well with, Own a Business? Consider Market Research to Boost Profitability, good advice.
Our Big Fat Wallet wrote about switching to cash spending, which can be a powerful way to budget if you can stick to it, and really only use cash. Speaking of cash, Barry from Money We Have wants to help those folks wanting to save some on their weddings with 10 Tips to Help Save Money on Your Wedding, and a wedding can be a money pit, for some folks. Speaking of Podcasts, did you realize that Preet has not only restarted his Podcast, there are a bunch of new ones you can find, like: The business of money transfers and exchanges, Bitcoin, and why FinTech isn’t special anymore (PODCAST), interesting stuff.
I don’t receive a bonus as part of my compensation package, however, NFL football players are famous for their enormous bonuses, but some bonuses are smaller than others. Speaking of Cable TV, Nelson (who seems to have moved over to Sustainable Finance (and dropped a lot of colourful metaphors) asks why we haven’t cut the cord (already)? Speaking of St. Patty’s day, did you realize that the Irish had many sayings about personal finance? Neither did I. You say you want to invest, but aren’t sure how?
Where are your retirement moneys going to be put (once you retire)? Are you going to be wild and woolly and stay in the markets, just by GICs and be happy with that, use Dividend income? Mark from My Own Advisor has some ideas on asset allocation in retirement. Are you planning on travelling during your retirement? Going to use your Aeroplan points? Better read Robb from Boomer and Echo’s piece titled, Help! Will My Air Miles Expire And Become Worthless?
Michael James points out the “7 year dropouts” in the CPP system, in his piece CPP Forgiveness or Unfairness. I don’t think I can take advantage of these dropouts, but since CPP is wrapped into my Pension, I guess it doesn’t matter much.
The Federal Budget is Next Week
That was Preet on the CBC as part of their regular Financial Pundit Panel discussing the upcoming Federal Budget.
What is All this Hubbub About Encryption
John Oliver does a good job explaining the importance of Encryption, it is a little long, but hilarious as well.
2016 Random Thoughts
- January 7th, Market Meltdown, TFSA, WildCard Weekend and #MoneyStories
- January 14th, Cheap Oil, Cheap Dollar, Dead Folk, and #MoneyStories
- January 21st, Loose Money, High Household Debt, Weak Loons and #MoneyStories
- January 29th, Doomsday Clocks, Rogue RRSP Receipts, Cash Crops and #MoneyStories
- February 4th Bouncing Loonies, RRSP Season, Superb Owls and #MoneyStories
- February 12th Lent is Here, Bricked iPhones, Love Day and #MoneyStories
- February 19th Digging Out, Ransomware, RRSP Time and #MoneyStories
- February 26th RRSP Time and #MoneyStories
- March 4th Welcome Americans and #MoneyStories
- March 11th Bank Rate Stays Put, Spring Forward and #MoneyStories
My Twitter feed is where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off-color commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)). I am also on reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest , Flipboard, Instagram and other Social Media sites (look for the BigCajunMan userid) as well. If you have social media accounts, don’t forget to vote for my posts (see the nifty dashboard on the bottom of each article, where you can cast your votes).As they say in Quebec, vote early and vote often!
I think the budget might include a surprise, CPP expansion. We’ll see!
Thanks for the mention and have a great weekend,
Mark
Increased CPP? That may not be good for me…
I’ve been hearing rumours of big changes in the budget. I hope they’re not all true.
Most pensions aren’t tightly coupled to CPP. They just reduce your pension based on an estimate of your CPP. If this is true for you, the dropouts would still help.
Thanks for the mention.
I’ll have to look into this, OK!