Canadian Personal Finance Blog

I was saddened to read about the demise of the first job for many kids, the paper delivery person. When I was 10 years old I started delivering the Montreal Star, and then I moved to delivering the Montreal Gazette and then I delivered the Sunday New York Times for a while. These jobs taught me discipline, taught me about money and most likely contributed to my torn rotator cuff. With the ever-changing media environment, delivery of papers was going to disappear, but I am still saddened to see it happen.

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Do you want to know about Bitcoin? There is a great video at the end of this article that will help introduce you to the most over-hyped investing idea since Bre-X (or Nortel)). Did you realize there are over 500 types of Cryptocurrency? If you want to keep up with them, go to 500 coins and check a few of them out. Choice of the week? Etherium !

More Bitcoin interesting news, a Miami Bitcoin Conference has stopped taking Bitcoins as payment due to high fees and problems. You still think investing in this is a good idea after reading that? You might be a die-hard Bitcoin lover.

My Recent Writings

A slower week for me, and I fell back on the old click-bait, flim-flammery title trick with Stock Picks 2018. As most of you know, I am an Index Investor so how can I put out stock picks? For that you must have a read.

Micro Blogging on Finance

A very interesting Tweet, that tweaked my memories of when I was a roaming Co-Op Student. Every 4 months I had to move and that made me a Minimalist. Everything I had, had to fit in the trunk of a Mercury Zephyr (admittedly bigger than most cars today). In an esoteric way moving was good (for me), however, for folks like Squawkfox and this Twitter Handle it is a life wrenching horrible event.

MOVING IS AWESOME

I GET TO PACK UP ALL MY THINGS AND SLOWLY REALIZE THAT THE MATERIAL GOODS I SPENT YEARS WORKING TO AFFORD HAVE BECOME AN ANCHOR FROM WHICH I WILL NEVER BE FREE

OH AND I MUST FORWARD MY MAIL

— NOT A WOLF (@SICKOFWOLVES) January 5, 2018

Read More »Paper Delivery, Bitcoin and #MoneyTalk

Over the Christmas holiday Ottawa and Southern Ontario were in the grips of the two words Canadians fear worse than Personal Debt and that is Polar Vortex. It was that bone chilling, battery killing and skin burning cold that we expect in Mid-January, but here it was over Christmas. I have lived through this before, but as I said in 2008 when the markets crashed, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

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With the new year comes many new Government initiatives, and in Ontario that means the minimum wage moves to $14 an hour. There are also new rules about sick leave. What will be the impact of these changes? Currently we have one view that says this will make life easier for those working for a minimum wage, and the counter view that 60,000 jobs will be lost due to this pay increase (according to the Bank of Canada). Time will tell whether this change will make things better for employees, but the early returns suggest the employers are not overly pleased with the changes.

My opinion on the increase in costs to small businesses is that it may introduce more automation in many businesses, and we are already seeing this is companies like McDonald’s with their automated ordering system in store. If costs become prohibitive, businesses will adapt and find cheaper ways to do things, or go out of business. Will this help folks who receive minimum wage? My fear is all this will mean is the elimination of many jobs (or the closing of many small businesses), but I hope I am wrong.

An impromptu survey by me, suggests some small businesses are simply passing the extra cost on to their customer base, by raising their fees.

There was a chance that my last pay cheque of the year might be zero, thanks to the Phoenix pay system, luckily, for me, that did not happen.

The good news is that the Rideau Canal is finally open. Unfortunately, it is -20C a high, so not many folks are going to be skating on it!

Stay warm this weekend, and check on your neighbours too.

My Recent Writings

I took a little time off over the holidays, although I did put out a few articles. I did put out my normal Merry Christmas statement for 2017. Christmas can be very commercial, but to me it means a time for family, and a time to remember those who may not be with us any more. Happy New Year 2018 I decided to point out that I have been at this for a while, and linked to as many of the Happy New Year articles I have written and the New Year’s Resolution articles as well. Yes I really have been at this for over 12 years.

I broke one of my rules of writing with Financial Predictions 2018, by publicizing my guesses as to what this year might hold financially. I try not to go for too much click-bait but the devil took the wheel for a while.

Micro Blogging on Finance

Wondering about when you should start saving and planning for Christmas 2018?

Ugh. pic.twitter.com/HAB1m4gNRx

— Meanwhile in Canada (@MeanwhileinCana) December 26, 2017

Read More »Polar Vortexes, Minimum Wage and #MoneyTalk