The 12 Days of Christmas Debt
There is actually 12 days of Christmas Debt, that you should be avoiding this year (and every year). Budget and don’t splurge, start the new year happy.
Christmas Treats, RESPs, The Markets and Polkas and #MoneyTalk
With Advent upon us, it is not much time until Christmas will be here (and then gone). Did you realize there is actually a Financial Advent Calendar on this very site? You can consult it here.
With interest rates slowly rising, is it time to rethink short term savings? A good example is your RESPs for your kids. Should you be thinking about using GICs to ensure the money grows slowly but safely? Can you even use GICs in your child’s RESP? All good questions. Now you can get GICs with interest rates above 2%, maybe you should at least be putting your kids’ Grant money and put that in there? Remember it is near year end, if there is room still left you should put a top up to get to your $2500 yearly maximum payment to the RESP.
My view of the Stock Market is it is currently having a shart. If you are unclear on what a shart means, please clock on the link. This shart might become something worse soon, given the trade stupidity going on, but for nice it is a mess caused by someone thinking they were only letting off gas.
Are planning on playing the Christmas Money Polka this season? It’s a simple game where you have bought many things on credit, and when the bill arrives in January, because you didn’t budget well you take the cash you got from family and pay off some of those bills. The money just goes round and round, and at the end of it you feel sick (just like a Polka), and broke.
Did you start your Emergency Fund with the idea that you were going to pay off Christmas with it? That’s not an emergency fund, that is a Christmas Fund. Maybe you should have both? Remember starting to plan for Next Christmas can start before this Christmas. You will have a better Christmas perspective now, than in July next summer.
Recent Articles
I really need to read letters more carefully, as I ended up blundering my way into a very large tax bill because of my inability to read letters well. I outline the predicament of my own creation in CRA and me: Assessment Excitement, the CRA was very helpful is the moral of this story.
Podcast of the Week
Finally you get to see what I actually look like, and you may realize why I have commented that I have a face for Radio. I do like the preview photo makes you wonder what I was thinking.
CRA and me: Assessment Excitement
When you get an assessment letter form the CRA it is not time to freak out, read it carefully and give them everything they ask for.
Who are these Robo Advisors that you keep hearing about?
Who are these robo advisors and are they really the best place to put your investment money?
GM, PC M/C Changes, Podcasts and #MoneyTalk
Allow me to be clear on my opinion of GM shutting down their Oshawa plant, F*ck you GM! You take government bail-outs (fail-outs?), and you then turn around and do this? As a tax payer I am disgusted by this attitude. Yes, I realize this is a business, and it is only a “business decision”, but as a regular person, I still think the thing stinks. I have had 3 GM cars, and all have had issues, and the last one was a Lemon. My opinion of their products is they are low quality.
I recorded yet another Podcast with Doug Hoyes last week, and dropped in on the Hoyes-Michalos offices in Ottawa. Spoke to a few of the folks in the office, and heard about the scope of the Phoenix pay debacle has had on Ottawa. The chap I spoke to said he has seen plenty of folks who ended up being burned badly by the Phoenix “Pay” system. This included folks who didn’t get paid, and tried to live on their credit which cause the entire “financial apple cart” to fall over. I passed on my personal findings of folks who are turning down promotions, for fear of it causing a “Phoenix Profile” change and endangering their pay.
The content of the Podcast was well-defined by Doug and he had questions written down, but as usual it all broke down quickly, and I am not clear exactly what the real topic ended up being. Stay tuned on the Debt Free in 30 podcast and see how he edited it together. There were cameras as well.
Banks News?
The Banks will be announcing their results, TD already has, and they seem to be doing well. Somewhere along the line things will change, but not today.
Speaking of banks, President’s Choice has redesigned their PC Mastercard site, and have decided that an ability to download into Quicken or Quickbooks isn’t needed. You can download in CSV format (for Excel or a spreadsheet), but not directly from your bank account. Given how competitive the marketplace is for Credit Cards, taking away functionality for customers isn’t something rd assume was a good thing. I have voiced my displeasure, we shall see whether I take action, or not.
Recent Articles
It’s been a while since I did one of these so here are a few of my articles from the fall of 2018.
Never was So Much Owed by So Many outlines the latest numbers from Stats Canada about household debt, and how consumer debt is a hobby Canadians dearly love. My apologies to Mr. Churchill for such a crass paraphrasing.
Make More by Reducing Debt has been sitting in my almost finished queue for a while. Again, I am being quite cheeky about the subject, but sometimes the simplest explanations are the best. Continuing in that cheeky line, Savings Motivating System really was just a quick bad bit of humor I thought up one night. Remember with interest rates going up, a savings account might not be a bad place to put money.
Do credit cards just appear on your doorstep? In Farewell New Credit Card I outline how an old credit card (that I had forgotten about) morphed into a new card, which I didn’t want. The one really important part of a credit report is to see which credit cards you thought you closed are still open.
Deep Financial Thoughts
Doug Hoyes has thoughts everywhere, and here he is in his car telling us why high interest lenders (59% rates) are causing stress.
