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Santa at Home Depot

Air Miles Blinks, Advent Begins and #Moneytalk

Air Miles has finally capitulated and will not expire 5-year-old miles starting on January 1st, which is a victory for consumer advocacy folks like Ellen Roseman and Robb Engen who have fought this decision very hard. Is this the end of this whole thing in the news? Maybe not, as folks are now complaining that they spent their miles quickly when they heard of the initial decision and are now upset they didn’t have a chance to keep accumulating points.

Air Miles Christmas Tree
Not This Year’s Tree, we haven’t got ours up yet, too worried about Air Miles I guess

Advent has begun so you can now put up all your decorations are garlands and the like, but so many of you already had stuff up Mid-November didn’t you? At least try to follow the Church’s calendar for that stuff.

Whenever something is in the news, it brings out the scum, as we are now seeing with the Phoenix payment system that the federal government has tried to get running for a while. Luckily I have had no issues, but some folks are not getting paid, while others are being overpaid, and that is where the story starts to get interesting. There are folks evidently calling Civil Servants and saying they are from the Phoenix pay system and they want their money back (only, no one is doing that right now evidently). These scammers are trying to make some quick dough off a flawed government system.

My Writings for Week Ending December 2nd

A simple little bit of writing for me this week with Debt is a Four Letter word. I was positive I had already written that exact story, however, after I heard our friend Preet B. use it, I went into my archives and found that I had not written something with that exact title. I have said there is no such thing as good debt, but not that Debt is an obscenity.

Read More »Air Miles Blinks, Advent Begins and #Moneytalk
far in debt

Debt is a Four-Letter Word

The author highlights the negative connotation of the term ‘debt’, emphasizing that it is a difficult burden that one owes to their future self. Noted financial expert, Preet Banerjee echoed this sentiment in a presentation. Numerous people are likely unaware of the substantial impact that a quadrupling prime rate might have on them, especially with the current low interest rates. The author also encourages readers to anticipate potential increases in mortgage interest rates and consider the levels of consumer debt.

Black Friday NT Times

Black Friday is Here, Exciting Tax Calculations and MoneyTalk

Black Friday has arrived (it has been here in terms of Black Friday Sales for the past month, so nothing new in this version of MoneyTalk ). Who will be wasting hours at work to find that ultimate sale? I won’t, I usually end up buying AntiVirus software and that is about it. I always wonder how it is Black Friday, when the mortar and brick stores typically open on Thursday evening?

Black Friday NT Times MoneyTalk
Where Do They Keep the Left Handed Cheese Straighteners?

I am saddened to hear that all the Turkeys that are pardoned by Presidents, typically died soon after, because “eating turkeys” are bred for white meat not longevity (Today You Learned).

The hottest Thanksgiving topic this year? How to deal with Political Discussions at the dinner table. Whatever happened to discussing candied yam recipes? What is a candied yam, by the by. I do enjoy the exploding deep frying turkeys though, nothing can beat those yearly traditions.

I watched an 8 year old do tax calculations last week, which was really interesting for the first little while, but then it ends up watching someone do Tax Calculations. She did hole hoop nicely though. See the video at the end for details on this. Seems like a lovely young lady (but I wouldn’t want to watch the Blunt Bean Counter do tax calculations either).

My Writings for Week Ending November 25th

After my time at CFPC16, I felt invigorated, so I wrote two articles this week, and have introduced a few new tricks as well.

Not sure whether other folks used the old SRA reading system, but I did, and it struck me that you could use SRA Readers for Financial Literacy and Money Concepts ? That methodology of starting off with more simple topics, and then build to the more complex ones.

The EQ bank folks were at the conference again this year, and one of their folks started talking about making banking more straight forward, so naturally that caused me to resurrect a 50 year old expression with, WYSIWYG Banking. You’ll have to read to figure out what WYSIWYG means (and how to pronounce it as well).

A CPFC16 Thought

The most interesting arrival tweet, by far, but I am not surprised either.

Read More »Black Friday is Here, Exciting Tax Calculations and MoneyTalk
Bank Fees and accounts should be WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG Banking

WYSIWYG Banking Why is it not possible to have a single bank account, that I can do all my banking with, without having to worry about overuse fees.

SRA Reading System

SRA Readers for Financial Literacy and Money Concepts ?

We need new tools to teach financial literacy to our children, maybe we can borrow from the old SRA Reader model, teach by levels of difficulty.

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