Best of

Several experts are boldly claiming that the price of oil will plummet below $20 a barrel this year, which could potentially lead to significant economic consequences. One of the most notable impacts already being observed is the devaluation of the Canadian dollar, which has fallen below 70 cents US in value. It is worth noting that just two years ago, the Canadian dollar was stronger than the US dollar.

Alan Rickman and David Bowie passed away this week, so not a very good week for celebrities. David Bowie’s music was the anthem of my teenage years, whereas Mr. Rickman’s acting made me wonder whether it would be worse to be tortured with a spoon? Rest in Peace, should be an interesting band wherever they are with Lemme Kilmister too.

In other news I have reached another magical milestone, in that I have turned 55, so I can get a 20% discount at Shoppers Drug Mart (on Thursdays). I will be exploring what other great advantages becoming a somewhat senior citizen might buy me. For those that follow me on Facebook, sorry for the flim-flammery, but Facebook’s dates are purposely wrong. You should really never publish your exact birth date for many reasons, but security is a really good reason too (I am also 66 years old on Facebook too, remember you can’t believe everything you read on-line).

A good bit of humor from my carpool mate,
“What do you call folks moving east from Alberta to find jobs ?” — Newfoundlanders

My Writings for Week Ending January 15th

Winter is here, and it is time to pay for Christmas:

The job picture is no better but no worse to end the year, but it is actually better for old farts like me, and not so good for my children.

Mrs. C8j is trying out the new on line order and then go pick up yourself systems being offered by a few of the grocery stores, she seems quite happy with it so far, but is it also a good budgetary tool ?

Read More »Cheap Oil, Cheap Dollar, Dead Folk, and #MoneyStories

Hey there! It’s 2016, and things aren’t looking great. The stock market is in the dumps, the Canadian dollar and oil prices are plummeting, and there’s talk of North Korea having a Hydrogen Bomb. But who cares? As an Indexer, I’m not bothered by the stock market’s ups and downs. However, I’m keeping an eye on the situation in North Korea. But whatever happens, I’m confident that we’ll make it through. Here’s to a fantastic new year for all of us!

The New Year brings many opportunities to change or improve things. I have resolved to lose that extra weight I have packed on due to laziness on my part (sloth, gluttony and greed, can’t go wrong when you are working with the 7 deadly sins). As I have said, Debt Makes Me Sick but it is very easy to fall into bad habits as I have learned, and just because you may have achieved your goals, doesn’t mean you can abandon the methodologies that got you there.

The reason why the TFSA is not being used effectively? The name scares people, seriously, that is what the media is now spouting as great financial advice. If it was called Anal Probe it would still be an effective savings vehicle, get over it Canadians. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet.

For football fans like myself or Robb from Boomer & Echo, it will be a great weekend with 4 games this weekend and 4 games next weekend. No doubt there will be a football flavoured article coming out of this weekend as well (Go Vikings!).

My Writings for Week Ending January 8th

It is past Epiphany so you should have your decorations down by now, but remember Valentine’s Day is coming soon too:

Keep some of these great ideas and maybe re-read this on December 27th, 2016, Financial Things to do on Last Day of year.

Maybe a new way to work for 2016, Financial Rules of 3

TD may start asking for royalties, given how many posts I write about them, but if they stopped Rejecting My Mutual Fund Transactions, I might have less to write about.

Yes, more writing about TD on this one as well, more fees, more fun

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Read More »Merry Market Meltdown, TFSA, Wild Card Weekend and #MoneyStories

Advent continues, and hopefully, you are getting all your festive duties completed with not too much stress and strain. Remember Advent is the time of preparation for your holiday calendar. Just remember you can still get gift cards at any gas station (that is open) on Christmas Day (helpful present gift of the week).

The Liberals continue to do as they promised, and have announced that the TFSA limit for 2016 will be $5500. Will this cause all those rich folks to charge out and deposit $10000 in their TFSA? Not really sure but it might happen. The alleged middle class tax cut will be implemented as well, which will save you about $600 or so, unless you make more than $200000 in which case, the new tax measures are gonna hurt. I have asked the CRA whether the Family Income Splitting Tax Break is now off the table (i.e. cancelled), but haven’t heard back yet. Will the new trumped-up (pardon the pun) Nanny-gate take the shine off the Dauphin? We shall see.

There is a chance that Canada might actually have a negative interest rate from the Central Bank? The Governor of the Bank of Canada said it is not very likely, however it is not completely off the table either. What would a negative interest rate be used for? To stimulate spending, since keeping your money in a bank would cause it to decrease, but isn’t that kind of what is happening with bank accounts with 0.01% interest and $20.00 month bank fees? Sorry, I couldn’t resist. We do seem fixated on stimulating our economy.

My Writings for Week Ending December 11th

Our tree is not up yet, but I did do some writing this week:

Less jobs and more people looking for work in November

Isn’t redundancy a bad thing ?

Some fun Christmas stuff from the past

Facebook Post of the Week

Friend of this site, Kerry from Squawkfox was on the television last week talking about managing kids’ expectations at Christmas. Does this mean she is giving me a lump of coal this year?

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Tweet of the Week

It was very nice of the CRA to answer my tweet and now we have confirmation that the CRA does have an RN on call to help out with the T2201 forms (learned that from a commentator ):

@bigcajunman To get help with filling T2201, pls. call 1-800-959-8281 and provide your contacts and an RN will call you back.

— Canada Revenue Agency (@CanRevAgency) December 7, 2015

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Read More »Advent, TFSA Drops, Negative Interest and #MoneyStories