Yesterday, a rodent may or may not have seen his or her shadow and winter may or may not be ending sooner or later. What would financial ground-hog day be like ? This happens pretty much every month, when the Bank of Canada sets key interest rates, maybe they decide on the basis of the Governor seeing his own shadow? No, but that is a worthwhile indicator I suppose.
It is the year of the Fire Rooster, to our friends who observe the Chinese Lunar Calendar. If you are a Rooster, this may not be a good year for you, but I still enjoy the Festive Celebrations for this new year. We shall see how fortunate a year it ends up being, but it will be a long year, with 13 months .
In Ottawa we begin Winterlude , the festival celebrating the winter here. The weather rarely co-operates, it is either too warm and the canal melts or so cold no one wishes to be outside. The forecasts suggest this might be a good year to enjoy the festival.
My Writings for Week Ending February 3rd
I have been meaning to publish this week’s article for a while, but wasn’t sure whether I got it right. I have been approached by a few “Promoters” of companies that charge a fee (or percentage) to help folks get their Disability Tax Credit, and I have ignored their offers, as I feel they are taking advantage with their fees. When I came upon Bill C-462 I thought that finally the government was agreeing with my opinion, however, as I wrote in Bill C-462 : Protecting Disabled Canadians or a Paper Tiger ? it seems this act is dead on arrival.
If anyone has any more insight on this, please contact me as I am very interested to find out whether this Act will ever be put into practice.
Editor’s Note: I have now included the last update date on all my articles, so you can see that those that I may “reprint” in social media, has usually been updated (or edit’ed to make it more readable).
Money News from the Groundhog
This week’s political news from the U.S. and Canada has been dizzying, and so out of control, I am taking a moratorium on commenting on this bizarre media circus. On the financial side of things, the interesting part of all of this will be what happens when many regulations are removed in the U.S. and what this will cause in their economy. My guess is, the number of Ponzi Schemes, and similar consumer fooling systems will sky-rocket.
- There is a book that is making the rounds with Financial Bloggers, and the Blunt Bean Counter joins in with, Victory Lap Retirement Book Review and Giveaway. Giveaways are always a good thing in my book.
- It is not only Chinese New Year, it is also RRSP season, and Mark from My Own Advisor gives us a contrary view with I’ll continue to maximize my TFSA first because , remember TFSA and RRSP can work together too.
- Nelson at Financial Uproar zaps the insurance industry with the question, Is It Time to Ban Whole Life Insurance? Good question, I never used it, if I invest I invest, if I buy insurance, I buy insurance, I don’t mix the two.
- Barry from Money We Have tries to write about the Money Habits of Millennials, which is always a fun group to poke, but he tries to explain some of their reasoning.
- The Finance Blog Zone asked me to contribute to Top Finance Blogs According To Top Finance Bloggers, so you can see my top 3
- Robert Browne writes in Moneysense 7 simple differences between RRSPs and TFSAs, for those not sure what the differences are between the two.
- Robb from Boomer and Echo, points out We’re Buying New Vehicles At A Record Pace, And It’s Killing Our Finances, which I have observed with my co-workers and friends. I am a used Corolla kind of guy (which I keep for at least 6 years), so new vehicles are not anything I care about
- Michael James reviews Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s book CEO of Everything where she discusses the problems of going from a couple to single life. Sounds like some very plain language from GVO, think I will have a read of this book.
It’s That Time of the Year
Soon the airwaves and ads all over the Internet will be talking about RRSP’s (in fact one talked about RRPS!), so this blast from the past from Preet will help explain to you what an RRSP is:
2016 Random Thoughts Year End
- January 27th, Alternate Financial Facts, 1984 and #Moneytalk
- January 13th, Bungled Mortgages, Friday the 13th and #Moneytalk
- January 6th, Merry New Year, CPP, EI and #MoneyTalk
- December 30, Go Away 2016, Deep Thoughts, End of Year and #MoneyTalk
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!
