Best

Halloween is finally here, and let’s be honest, it’s all about the money these days. Gone are the times when a simple Jack-O-Lantern would suffice. Nowadays, if you don’t have a spine-chilling decoration that could rival Vincent Price’s movies, you’re a failure in the eyes of your neighbors. I’ll be taking L’il C8j trick-or-treating, but don’t expect him to eat much candy. He has a selective palate. But as for me and my wife, we’ll definitely be indulging in all the sugary treats. After all, what’s Halloween without a little overindulgence? Make sure you don’t end up with any Financial Skeletons in Your Closet after setting up your Halloween Horror House.

Word has it that the upcoming Budget may allow income splitting for families with children under the age of 18 (hopefully with a dispensation for those with disabled children, maybe allowing for this ability after the child reaches the age of 18). The splitting will really mean an ability to transfer up to $50K from one spouse to another (maximum benefit of $2000), but still will help single income families (or families where one spouse makes much less than the other). I started a discussion on reddit about this as well, drop by and be heard.

This is all due to the Government “balancing” the budget (note I put that in quotes), what “balanced” means is simply the Government is simply spending all the money that they earn (while paying maintenance on the existing National Debt). I do not suggest this as a good plan for anyone trying to lower their debt level (i.e. cutting your income).

If Halloween is here, that must mean only one thing (aside from my Daughter’s birthday of course) and that is not to forget to put your clocks back this weekend as well. Yes, it is Fall Back time, where we get an extra hour of sleep and those of us who go into work early in the morning will still get no glimpse of sunlight.

My Writings for Week Ending October 31st

The days are getting shorter and of course this weekend, the clocks go back, so we all have an extra hour of sleep, so more time to read my writings, and luckily it was a sparse week for me, with only two new articles written.

• I was very happy to hear from a Twitter follower that TD Waterhouse has updated their RDSP, and I wrote about that with TD Waterhouse RDSP, a step in the right direction.
• You realize that it is 85 years since the great stock market crash of 1929, don’t you? This begs the vital question When is the Next Big Stock Market Crash? The answer might surprise you, but some interesting data about the crash, worth looking at as well.
• Maybe we need to make sure we Define What Debt Free Means ? I think we do, because banks think Debt-Free means you don’t owe on your credit cards.

Read More »Happy Halloween, Income Splitting and #BestThisWeek

The week was going along just fine until the events of the 22nd showed that no matter how wonderful a place you live, there are always lunatics and zealots who want to ruin it all. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the two brave young men, killed this week, let us hope their deaths are never forgotten, We Shall Remember.

Glad to see the normal reserve of the Canadian TV Media, not wanting to report all the wild stories of the day on Wednesday, but when they started to report “American Claims”, that got a little worrisome. Keep it Classy CBC and CTV, we have journalistic integrity in this country, and I was proud of (most) of your reporting.

For those wondering the Bank of Canada did keep their key overnight lending rate at 1%, however, they did make one interesting statement,

Weighing all of these factors, the Bank judges that the risks to its inflation projection are roughly balanced. Meanwhile, the financial stability risks associated with household imbalances are edging higher. Overall, the balance of risks falls within the zone for which the current stance of monetary policy is appropriate and therefore the target for the overnight rate remains at 1 per cent.

My Writings for Week Ending October 24th

The dark days of the fall continue on, with the days shortening, and we get to enjoy the “go to work in the dark and come home in the dark” that we northerners have this time of year.

• Reversing Mutual Fund Transactions was me venting about how TD kept undoing excellent trades, because my trading profile did not reflect my reckless nature (of wanting to purchase bond funds). I am a wild child, when it comes to investing.
• I finally swallowed my pride and called AOL to cancel that monthly fee I kept swearing about and thus I wrote Tales of Financial Persistence, because I did have to wait on my speakerphone for over 2 hours to get through. Let us hope the charges stop appearing.
• Redux: Real World Example: Kids Allowances is me going back to one of my first bits of writing, and commenting about how a simple idea about making allowances easier to administer, taught me more about money, and such.

Read More »Ottawa We Shall Remember, Bank of Canada and #BestThisWeek