Easter is Here and some #MoneyStories

The season of Easter is here, time for you to restart, renew and reestablish things in your life. Being a religious type Christian person, this is what it is all about (Christmas is nice, but without Easter the whole Christianity thing doesn’t quite hold together). I hope you enjoy the time off (if you get time off) to reconnect with Family and friends. Please remember on the stewardship side of things, this time and Christmas are where the Church collects about 1/2 of their income (just saying).

This week, we had a budget to discuss, and I noticed that many different bloggers have voiced their opinions on it. While it has a hefty price tag, reminiscent of Mr. Trudeau’s father, I believe that there were many significant issues that needed to be addressed. Although I didn’t see any changes for parents of disabled children, if you have kids, things will change (if you make less than $150K, that is). I will try to recap how it affects my life and make sure to keep up with any changes that may affect me and my family.

If you are more of a Chocolate Bunny Easter person, that is OK, you can still use the season as a good reason to restart your financial plans, or start them. The best time to start a financial plan is 5 years ago, however, the 2nd best time is now, get to it, call it your Easter Financial Plan.

Happy Easter

My Writings for Week Ending March 25th

I spent the week in Toronto enjoying the Ice Capades, OK, it was an ice storm, and it wasn’t something to be enjoyed either. There sure are a lot of condos down here too.

Stats Canada noted last week that Food Prices Continue to Rise especially in the area of fresh fruit and veggies. Gas prices seem to be moving back up, as are oil prices, so we shall see what happens with interest rates with this information (my guess is not much for now, however, remember the Canadian Dollar is recovering, and that might slow interest rates as well).

It was my son’s birthday this week, and with that I revealed one of the reasons for The Origins of the Canadian Personal Finance Place. It hasn’t turned into the cash cow I had hoped, but it has been cathartic.

An Easter Thought

Bunnies are cuddly
The large and the small
But I like chocolate ones
The best of them all.

Easter and Budget Thoughts for the Week

One of the icons for Easter is the Lamb, and Mark from Blunt Bean Counter has an apropos piece entitled Estate Planning and the Black Sheep Child. Maybe it is time to reconnect with the Black Sheep of the family? Add them to your financial plans? Remember it is tax season, and there are always scam artists out trying to hustle money out of you so the CRA reminds us, Beware of telephone and email scams. Tax time? Do you have questions? Marie from Boomer and Echo has some answers with From The Boomer & Echo Mailbag: Your Tax Questions Answered. Think you are going to get a refund? Jim Yih has some ideas for you with What To Do With Your Tax Refund?

Looks like Preet has some more spare time on his hands, and he brings us yet another Podcast to enjoy The Expression Economy and How Brands Compete For Your Time. It would just be easier to subscribe to his channel on Tunein or iTunes.

Mark from My Own Advisor wants to help you restart your financial plans, with first doing a post-mortem of why they might not have worked, with his piece Why you failed your New Year money resolutions. Do the post-mortem, adjust your plan, and start again. A good way to keep to your plan is to do updates and see where you are and Frugal Trader bravely does so on line with Financial Freedom Update – March 2015, see where they stand. If you are doing things counter to your financial plan, Gail Vaz-Oxlade has some advice for you Stop Doing This!

There were changes to how Student Loans are to be repaid in the budget, but Barry from Money We Have gives some great advice about Getting on top of Your Student Loan Payments. Interesting how we like to saddle new grads with massive debt loads to start their working life.

Michael James does a review of Moshe Milevsky’s (a man you should follow on Twitter) book Are You a Stock or a Bond? I think I am a bond, but I need to read the book to understand exactly how the metaphor actually works. What kind of return are you expecting if you are a Bond? The Canadian Couch Potato wants to help with your prognostication with What (Returns) to Expect When You’re Expecting

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Walls are for Houses not Borders

Do you lament that you can’t watch Last Week with John Oliver, because you don’t have HBO? He does put his entire episodes up on Youtube as well, just like this:

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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
• March 18th Financial March Madness, Budgets and #MoneyStories

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