Our friends at Stats Canada came out with the April CPI numbers on Friday (just before the long weekend), and while it isn’t much different from March’s numbers it still reflects an upward trend (only 0.1% to a year over year rate of 2.0%).

Surprisingly the good news is that Energy is actually slowing down (in fact Natural Gas prices are falling drastically), witness:

Consumer prices rose 2.0% in the 12 months to April, led by increases in transportation costs. This increase followed a 1.9% rise in March.

Energy prices increased 1.1% in the 12 months to April, following a 5.1% rise in March. The slower increase in April was largely attributable to smaller price gains for gasoline and electricity, as well as price declines for natural gas (-13.9%).

NOW I choose to replace my natural gas clothes dryer with an electric one?!?! Oh well, another not great choice on my part, but not to worry.

While the following graphic seems to imply that inflation is slowing, that can be deceptive as well, given that energy costs and Gasoline are all over the place these days.

Inflation Past Little While

What do I mean by that odd comment, have a look at the following Gasoline Index Graphic, to see how that price has been changing, you might get a better understanding about my comments:

Gasoline Index Past Little While

It has been a lot more expensive to travel the past little while, this graph seems to suggest it is not just my own opinion.

Bank of Canada’s core index

The Bank of Canada’s core index rose 2.1% in the 12 months to April, led by price increases for the purchase of passenger vehicles. This increase followed a 1.9% gain in the core index in March.

On a monthly basis, the seasonally adjusted core index increased 0.4% in April, after rising 0.1% the previous month.

Not very high, but not low either, kind of in the “we are ok with that rate for now” range for the central bank.

The Big Table

Where were the biggest jumps? Have a look at the big table and see!

Consumer Price Index and major components, Canada - Not seasonally adjusted

April’s CPI Child is Still Inflating (in Canada) is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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A fine long weekend here in Canada, so I am treating this Monday like a Sunday and doing a quick recap of the week along with a list of some of my best tweets, enjoy!

First Happy Victoria Day Canadians (or Joyeux Jour Des Patriotes pour mes amis Quebecois).

Looks as thought Europe could start splintering soon, with Greece possibly going back to its old currency, which may cause a domino return in a few other countries. All in all a complete “cock-up” for the Euro, but we shall see what comes in the near future (no doubt a great deal of perturbation and excitement on the markets). G-8 leaders are meeting to discuss this, but what can they do?

Facebook’s IPO is causing renewed interest in high-tech companies that don’t really create anything, but just cause folks to waste time (so no doubt it will be a roaring success). Did you buy some stock? I have many (good) reasons to stay away from High Tech companies, even with Apple and Google making many people rich (the biggest reasons spelled N-O-R-T-E-L). Good luck to Face-hole, it might work, who knows? Mark Z. is now a much richer (and married) man after this weekend, so someone succeeded.

This week was an interesting week for me, with podcasts and such, but my twitter feed was quite busy, and here are some of the oldies I also brought back for your enjoyment:

• The Cost of University Residence is a helpful tip for those with kids going into first year University this September, better have saved some money up (RESP!)
• TED had a very useful video about tieing your shoe laces which I had in my post You Are Doing it Wrong, watch the video, it is a foolproof way to make sure your laces stay tied.
• I don’t buy it when folks say I Didn’t Know I was THAT Far In Debt, you knew it, you just didn’t want to admit it, is a better way of putting it.
• Given my incessant blathering on Preet’s podcast I figured I’d resurrectOn Being Laid Off, a short essay I did after I got laid off from Nortel.
• Since I mentioned RESPs as well I figured RESP: And More Trees Died would be good for folks to re-read. If you read the TD twitter feed, they are claiming they are SAVING trees, I am not sure how they are doing that given how many forms I fill in there, but maybe I am missing something.
• Also if you make little enough don’t forget the Canada Learning Bond with your RESP as well. I have not managed to get this to work yet, but maybe soon.
• I did have to clarify my initial statement that Debt is Like Teenage Sex, have a read and see how I twist those two subjects together.

Prince Albert’s main squeeze!

Albert! Are you in the Can Again?!?

Happy Victoria Day (and Monday’s Best) is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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Jean Charest has slammed the door shut on my Quebecois Student brethren, and they will have to finish their terms in August? I really think this is a mistake and with the looming specter of an election on the horizon, will this be a lever for our Independiste friends to seize power in Quebec? Will we have another decade of Canadian hand wringing, thanks to separatist leanings in both Quebec and Alberta? Will Monsieur Bouchard make a comeback and be the Savior in Quebec? This could make for a great deal of fun for all of us, stay tuned folks, and make sure you have your safety straps tightly attached.

As for other news, check out our amigo Preet’s Podcasts, there will be a very interesting one coming up this week, with some crazed financial crackpot spouting his demented concepts of the demise of Western Civilization. You might get a new point of view on your humble author as well (if you can guess, it is me this week, who knows whether Preet’s podcast can recover from this, we shall see).

I did have a great deal of pleasure watching St. Gail Vaz-Oxlade of the personal finance take on the suited dragons of Bay street on TVO’s Agenda. Mrs. C8j was cheering out loud as Gail skewered the suited beasts (in our opinion).

A long weekend awaits Canada, enjoy it, with your family, enjoy the sunshine (hopefully), and relax as well.

Weekly Recap

Some improving data from Stats Canada about jobs, but other news which may not be as good news for the young folks searching for jobs (including my own kids):

• I did do  a traditional Happy Mother’s Day post, which also included some tweets for the previous week as well.
• Another interesting report from Stats Canada with More Employed but Unemployment up for April, more people looking makes the data change.
• I have said this many times but Take Advantage of the Rules (When you can), is an important credo to live by.
• St. Gail’s fight against the suited dragons was highlighted in Video: TVO with GVO, Gail has a way of talking that just makes sense.
• I cribbed the title of Loveless, Sexless Marriages (and Money) from a comment made by our friend Preet on the National a few weeks back. Will money destroy your marriage? I think it has the chance if you aren’t careful.

Links for the Week

With Europe threatening to implode (financially) and other interesting issues arising with this what did our favorite writers write about this week:

• Larry MacDonald (a real economist I’d like to point out) warns that Federal equalization payments have unintended consequences, not just seeing Ontario become a “have not” province after being a “have” for so long!
• My Own Advisor reviews Rob Carrick’s book with My Favorite Takeaways - What is Good Bad and Downright Awful in Canada’s Investment Industry, guess meeting Rob face to face lit a fire under him.
• Rob Carrick gives out a little more tough love with a 29-year old on the difficulties in finding a first job, I was lucky I had a Co-Op degree so finding a first job was not as hard (but that was 1986 as well).
• Canada Mortgage News wonders is there a need for A Complete Overhaul of Mortgage Lending in Canada? I think so, but I have been ridiculed for my opinion (not that I am sensitive, I simply include it for factual content).
• Mr. Money Mustache explains Internet Sharing — How to Get Revenge on the Cable Company, now I’d like to point out that this is for the U.S. only and none of us condone the explanation given in this article, it is simply supplied as an interesting experiment (might not even work in Canada).
• Timeless Finance had a guest post which talked about how Your Hair is a Money Pit, not for me, Mrs. C8j cuts it, with a trimmer, I’m good with that (and I can use Lifeboy as my shampoo then too). Yes, I am anything, if not a Style-hound.
• The Blunt Bean Counter (who should really get on Twitter), asks the interesting question How Much Control Do I have From the Grave? The answer is fairly obvious, “… you are dead …” guess the rest.
• Michael James posts an interesting picture in Jose Canseco Hits Huge Homerun for Autism, one of the people in the picture is someone you know well (no, not me).
• Canadian Capitalist wonders about TSX index funds with Sector Breakdown of Diversified Portfolios, how does one balance an Index fund?
• The Canadian Couch Potato testifies about Why He Has no Faith in Market Timing, because timing is… everything (that’s a funnier joke on a podcast). Timing the stock market is a mugs game in my opinion as well.
• Boomer of Boomer and Echo gives us some useful tips on How to Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster (hint there is no mention of buying an expensive car in that plan).
• Miranda at Planting Money Seeds, wonders why folks are Paying for a Credit Card with more Status than Benefits? I wouldn’t know given I have an BCM Platinum Super colossal HOLY CRAP GREAT Card, myself.
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade helps you ladies how to Save and Still be Beautiful, which Gail succeeds with, I better be careful Mrs. C8j might get mad at me for my Finance Blogger Crush I have on Gail, shhh, don’t tell anyone.
• Preet must be done picking the splinters out of his fingers (after scraping the bottom of the barrel to find his podcast’s latest guest) but found time to let TuskTrader do a piece on JP Morgan’s $2 Billion blunder re-ignites debate on regulations. I hope to one day make a $2 Billion mistake, think about it….
• Given this is a long weekend ahead, think about Giving Blood, it is in you to give! I will be doing so on Friday night.

Other Bookkeeping

Remember my RSS feed is available too, for those who enjoy reading without looking at my crappy page lay out, and I have added an RSS Comment Feed as well.

Have a look at my micro-blog on Twitter, where you can see a whole plethora of good articles and pithy comments by me as well. Twitter feed where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off colour commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)). I am also on Digg as Big Cajun Man, on reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest and other Social Media sites (look for the BigCajunMan userid) as well.

If you have social media accounts, don’t forget to vote for my posts (see the nifty dashboard on the bottom of each article, where you can cast your votes). As they say in Quebec, vote early and vote often!

This site is iPhone Friendly (and Android , iPod Touch and iPad Friendly), enjoy it on the go, in a readable format for the device. If you are reading with an iPhone or Android device, drop me a comment and tell me if this needs any improvements. This site is also in the Kindle US Blog list, if you are interested, not available in Canada yet (because no Blogs are available in Canada on a Kindle?!?).

Donating Blood Thoughts

Have you given lately:

The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.

Many Folks

Podcasts, Dragons et Les Etudiants (mon dieu) and Random Thoughts is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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I borrow the title from a phrase used by our friend Preet, during a discussion panel on the National a few weeks ago. Preet was pointing out that the “alleged housing bubble” and high housing prices can be a major friction point in relationships, and can end up destroying those relationships, however, given the price of houses some couples are staying together because they can’t afford to move, thus creating a “Loveless and Sexless Marriage“.

I was impressed that Peter Mansbridge didn’t comment further on this, but be that as it may, the point is well taken, money problems can destroy any and all relationships (no matter how much in love folks think they are).

The equation is pretty simple, Stress is what really destroys relationships, and the biggest stresser for young couples (and older ones as well) is Money.

Right now folks may be living “hand to mouth” or “pay cheque to pay cheque”, but all we need now is for the following perfect storm:

• Interest rate increases which return back to the “norms” of the late 90′s, of 5 or 6%
• Housing market cogitations thanks to the Interest Rates killing (or at least badly maiming) the housing market
• Folks who already owe a great deal in discretionary debt (i.e. Credit Cards and Unsecured Lines of Credit), now having to make much higher monthly payments (or maybe just a little bit more but that might be their “tipping point” (to sound more hack-kneed than I normally do)).
• Add a dash of folks owing more on their house, than it is currently worth (which if you view your house as a “long-term” investment, you should not be worrying about, but that is for another post). Remember if you only put 5% down to buy your house (or if you went “off off broadway” and put even less down, it is much more likely for this to happen)

You will see a jump in Divorce rates (yes, I have no numbers to back this one up, and I am sure the C.D. Howe Institute and the Banks would argue that this hasn’t happened before), and most certainly a much higher stress in many families.

I put this “Big Cajun Man Wild Ass Theory” forward for disproof by those who view me as a “… doom and gloom profit …”, and yes, I am calling this one. The joy of this is, I can neither be proven correct nor proven to be a charlatan, pretender, sham or a fraud for a few years, but feel free to disagree with my statement.

Loveless Sexless Marriages and Money is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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For those of you who might have missed it on Monday night, Gail Vaz-Oxlade did her impersonation of St. George and took on the Financial Dragons (i.e. Banks and the C.D. Howe institute), in a very entertaining battle, entitled “Deconstructing Personal Debt” on TVO’s show “Agenda”.

The show seemed to pit Gail and Moshe Milevski against Phillip Cross of the C.D. Howe Institute and Derrick Burleton a VP at TD (apologies on the spellings) (from this point on, they will be known as “the suits”).

Gail did a great deal of the battling, where the “suits” kept arguing Marcoeconomic macroeconomic policies and how statistics don’t agree that Canadians are drowning in debt, but Gail continued to hammer her point of view with her personal experiences (which was contrary to the “suits” point of view).

Lots of interesting discussions and Gail even fires out an “… oh bite me!” comment (and the moderator made some comment about how Gail didn’t drop an “F-bomb” this time), well worth watching.

If you are a resident of Ontario, think about donating to TVO as well, to keep this kind of interesting programming going.

In case you were wondering about Saint George and the Dragon, click on this picture (does look a little like Gail).

Saint George Slaying the Dragon

Video: TVO Agenda with GVO is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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Over the years I have learned a great deal about the importance of knowing the rules in life (not all the rules, and I am by no definition an expert). What kind of rules? Mostly rules in systems that directly affect me, like my health insurance(s), dental insurance, rules for banking, etc., etc.,.

The first time, was figuring out that my Health Insurance with my employer (at the time) would actually pay for private testing for my children (to determine whether they were gifted and/or if they had learning disabilities). What looked to be a very expensive bill (well over $1500 at the time), ended up only costing me around $100 or so. I must admit that I did not actually figure this out, the Psychologist we were dealing with already knew “how the game was played” and simply let my wife and I in on the rules.

Knowing the rules of the game, is the single most important thing to learn, no matter what game you are playing. Michael James is also known as Mr. Rules, but it has served him well in his life (being a Mathematician it seems to come to him naturally), and knowing the rules will help you make sure you are compensated by “the system” (even when you think it is just not going to happen).

No, I am not espousing going out and finding a Shyster Lawyer to try to skirt the tax laws (good God, I am not saying that, and anyone who is thinking that I will personally spank with a cricket mallet),  but I am saying you should find out how the rules to all benefits packages work and how you can take advantage of them.

What kind of things am I talking about? Here are some simple examples to go with my testing example:

• If your benefits cover glasses, find out how often and when the time frame deadlines are. One year I ended up buying two sets of glasses in two months, because they straddled two different time frames (at the time I was compensated for one set of glasses every two years). Line this up correctly and you get two sets of glasses covered in less than a month.
• There are thousands of bursaries and programs for University and College students, that aren’t given out some years, because no one applies (sometimes it is because there are no actual candidates, but sometimes it is due to candidates not applying). My daughters basketball club gives out a bursary at the end of the year for graduating players, more than one year no one applied for it (guess they didn’t want free money).
• My daughter’s have learning disabilities (which I got tested for cheap) however because of these learning disabilities they also received bursaries from OSAP and their schools (and dispensations for writing exams as well), however, we didn’t really think about this until we looked and saw what is available to folks with learning disabilities.

Some simple Rules to Live By

Know the rules, understand the rules and if you can use them to your advantage (in a legal and above-board way) then do so (don’t be shady, ask first if you are unsure, it may be that no one has tried before, the worst thing they can say is, “no”).

Take Advantage of the Rules When You Can is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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Canada continues to add jobs, but also seems to be adding more folks looking for jobs as well in April according to Stats Canada. Another month where Canada has added more jobs (Full-time jobs, which is great), however, thanks to more folks out there looking unemployment is up as well.

Employment increased by 58,000 in April, mostly in full-time work. This was the second consecutive month of notable gains after four months of little change. With more people searching for work, the unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 7.3%.

Compared with 12 months earlier, employment was up 1.2% or 214,000. All of the growth over the 12 months was in full-time work, up 217,000 (+1.6%), while part-time employment was unchanged. The total number of hours worked rose 1.5% over the same period.

These are very promising good news information for Canadians (for those who claim I am a doom and gloom kind of guy).

Employment As of April 2011

This graph makes me happier, let us hope that the good numbers continue for the Economy.

Here is the confusing group, that shows that unemployment is going up, even with more folks being employed:

Unemployment for the past little while in Canada

Kind of slowly rolling down, but kind of worrying none the less.

An interesting comparison with our friends down south was also brought forward:

The number of employed as a percentage of the working-age population in Canada, that is the employment rate—when adjusted to U.S. concepts—was markedly lower than that of the United States from the early 1990s until 2002. Since 2002, the adjusted employment rate in Canada has been higher, with the gap between the two countries widening since late 2006.

Better employment numbers in Canada? Good thing to hear.

The Big Table

Stats Canada also has lots more data with their monthly numbers and I like to include at least one of their tables:

Table 1 Labour force characteristics by age and sex - Seasonally adjusted

More Working and Higher Unemployment in April (2012) is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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To all my Matriarchal Readers and Mothers everywhere, Happy Mother’s Day! Hope you are enjoying your day, and if you are a Father, remember the argument “You are not my Mother”, is a dangerous game to play (speaking as someone who foolishly made that statement one Mother’s Day).

As a Montrealer (who lives in Ottawa), I was appalled to see the Metro under attack (OK, with smoke bombs) and shutting down the system for 3 hours. I have no idea who is behind this, and who(m)ever is, I hope the book is thrown at them, but it remains to be seen who will claim responsibility.

This past week I ranted a fair amount about identity theft and such (having had my wife’s bank card cloned (again)), but my Twitter Feed had a bunch of older posts in some other interesting themes as well:

• My humorous post about Old Bar B Q’s and Flames, points out that you should either maintain your old Bar B Q or replace it when it looks dead (or you might have some big problems).
• More Fun with Credit Cards, where I suggest an old trick (my brother told me about from his MBA class).
• Remember that as a Pure Laine Quebecois (ok tete carre aussi) I can invoke C’est la faut du Federal at any time,  it will be true.
• It’s not very nice to ask, however, are Canadians Financially Stupid? Actually most bloggers seem to think it is true?
• I didn’t post this one, but it’s something someone should read A Mind of My Own, by our friend Gail Vaz-Oxlade.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day, Smokey Metros and Sunday’s Best is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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I seemed fixated on credit cards and modes of payments this week, but with the RCMP shutting down a large (worldwide) credit card and debit card fraud ring, I guess I was spot on target for topics (I’ll have to thank Mrs. C8j for having her debit card cloned again).

In Quebec, students continue to complain that they have the lowest tuition fees in Canada, and in fact are now asking that Post Secondary Education be free and available to all who wish to attend. Why does that sentence seem like something out of Alice in Wonderland? I wish Les Etudiant et Membres de CLASSE bonne chance, because they are going to need it (and let’s hope it is not them who are disrupting the Metro in Montreal, enraging already uptight Montreal commuters is not the way to build public support).

Our European friends continue to make daytime soap operas seem dull, with more plot twists than a thoroughbred horse intestines! France elects a new president who says “retirement should be at 61 not 63″ and Greece elects representatives who want nothing to do with the on-going austerity measures. This will give the financial pundits no end of fun and excitement, discussing the impending Global Economic Implosion.

In the U.S. Obama may have come across a stroke of genius in his re-election campaign, which is the infamous “bait and switch” topic trick. He has now openly spoken about Same Sex Marriages, which will cause a fire-storm of discussions, which may distract folks from the still ailing U.S. Economy. This tactic could win him the election (or lose it, depending on your point of view), the Republicans may have to respond with, “It’s about the Economy Stupid!”, because a moral discussion about same-sex marriage will dull the Republican arguments about the economy (or at least muddy the waters greatly).

Weekly Recap

The topic of money security and identity theft is never a bad topic, but remember you must continue to remain diligent to protect yourself from these syndicates that want your personal info:

• Our friends in Europe seem to think they are not the problem, so they don’t need to fix it, and have Answered Austerity Measures with Tais-Toi (effectively saying they don’t want an austere lifestyle).
• As I mentioned Mrs. C8j had her bank card cloned (again), and so Debit Card The Saga continued on, it’s annoying as hell, but at least this time we didn’t have any money taken out of our bank accounts.
• I really want to figure out how to stop these Credit Card Cheques from appearing on my doorstep, they are of no use and are financially a Molotov cocktail!
• After the close of another basketball season, I went back to one of my favorite rants with I Blame the Refs (financially speaking).

Links for the Week

Ain’t life grand? No I didn’t win $50M with the Lottery, so it ain’t grand yet, but maybe tonight, wonder what I’d write about if that happened? We know that my favorite writers would keep writing and pump out more quality posts like these:

• Larry MacDonald points out that the Canadian Health Care System Needs Reform, which is pretty obvious, and as the years pass, the more obvious this is all going to be. If you are a francophone Larry’s book on Bombardier is now available in French.
• My Own Advisor explains about his struggles with GDSR and TDSR, a good try at explaining what these fees are, getting down to brass tacks is a good thing.
• Rob Carrick hopes Canada’s Days of Berserk Borrowing are (almost) Behind Us, we shall see whether his prediction will come to pass, but following Polonius is not a bad idea.
• Ellen Roseman is looking for Your Tips on How to Fight Back, I would suggest hiding your money in your mattress to avoid bank service fees, but that might not be a good tip.
• Mr. Money Mustache showing his U.S. roots wonders Can We all Stop F*cking Complaining About our Government? Strong words, but a fun read none the less, it seems our American cousins like to complain about Government as much as Canadians like complaining about the weather.
• Timeless Finance gets down and talks of Bubble Double Speak, talking about how the government may be the author of a lot of the mortgage and bubble mess in Canada. Worth reading whether you agree or not.
• The Blunt Bean Counter wonders is A Family Vacation - A Memory Worth Not Dying For? No, it’s not about overspending on vacations, it is about inheritances and gifts, if you haven’t added this writer to your RSS feed you are missing something (even if he is a Leafs fan).
• Michael James gets out his slide rule again and points out that Long-term investing Confuses our Sense of Scale, which shows that simple arithmetic is not applicable in long-term growth problems.
• Canadian Capitalist wonders what is iShares Planning after Acquiring Claymore, a question I am asking myself, given I have some Claymore funds in my portfolio.
• The Canadian Couch Potato wonders Can you Protect Your Investments from Drawdowns? The answer is of course, maybe!
• Boomer of Boomer and Echo  helps us out with Turning 60: Some Things to Consider, given I am 9 years away, I read this closely.
• Miranda at Planting Money Seeds, needed to replace her Quicken 2006 so she gives us Personal Finance Software: Moneydance, being a Quicken lover, I am not as likely to try this software, however, still worth reading.
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade helps us kids out with Mother’s Day Savings ideas, always useful for those of us who must buy things for their Wives/Mothers.
• Preet gives us an interesting point of view on smoking but I think he got the title a little wrong with Quit Smoking or Blow up a Porsche? It really should have been Quit Smoking or Blow up a Porsche (with you in it!).

Other Bookkeeping

Preet's Explodable Porsche

Remember my RSS feed is available too, for those who enjoy reading without looking at my crappy page lay out, and I have added an RSS Comment Feed as well.

Have a look at my micro-blog on Twitter, where you can see a whole plethora of good articles and pithy comments by me as well. Twitter feed where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off colour commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)). I am also on Digg as Big Cajun Man, on reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest and other Social Media sites (look for the BigCajunMan userid) as well.

If you have social media accounts, don’t forget to vote for my posts (see the nifty dashboard on the bottom of each article, where you can cast your votes). As they say in Quebec, vote early and vote often!

This site is iPhone Friendly (and Android , iPod Touch and iPad Friendly), enjoy it on the go, in a readable format for the device. If you are reading with an iPhone or Android device, drop me a comment and tell me if this needs any improvements. This site is also in the Kindle US Blog list, if you are interested, not available in Canada yet (because no Blogs are available in Canada on a Kindle?!?).

Some Comforting Porsche Words

Keeping with Preet’s Porsche theme:

I couldn’t find the sports car of my dreams, so I built it myself.

Ferdinand Porsche - what would he do now with all the investing options? Would he make his own Mutual Fund?!?

Credit Cards, Cheques, and Random Thoughts is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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Previously I have talked about needing someone to blame with C’est La Faute du Federal, but after my current basketball season, I suspect that the real Villains in life are the officials (financially speaking, let’s blame the banks and the people who work there).

I must admit that as a parent, I have spent a fair amount of time “jawing” at the refs and various officials in many sports, and as an assistant coach, I have pestered my fair share of officials too, but at the end of it all, the referees and officials in this life don’t change much (on occasion there are glaring mistakes, but they are very few and very far between).

{Caution off topic rant ahead} Let me first say, that if you are someone who goes to their children’s sporting events, and yells like a crazed mocking-bird at referees, officials, opposing players and coaches and maybe even the janitors at the building, SHAME ON YOU! You have some serious issues living vicariously through your kids and all you are doing is embarrassing  yourself, but more importantly you are embarrassing or alienating your own child (at worst you are teaching them your bad attitude). {Off topic rant completed}

Blind Refs?

I guess the point I am trying to make is that yes the banks and their:

• Service charges that suck the life out of you.
• Mortgage rates that pull the marrow out of your bones
• Credit Cards that are more poisonous (financially) than hemlock
• etc., etc.,

are really not to blame, we are. Am I back saying Canadians are Financially Stupid? Not in this post (but we can talk more about that later).

The financial problems most Canadians have (and I am saying most to be polite, I actually mean pretty much all of us), are of our own making, so we should stop complaining about the Referees (or the Banks in this case (unless you are a financial blogger, since that is our bread and butter)) and deal with the situation we are in.

Everyone else is dealing with the same Officials (mostly), so move on and play through it (or “suck it up buttercup” to quote a few of the coaches I know).

I Blame the Refs! is a post from: Canadian Personal Finance Blog and follow me on twitter as well: Big Cajun Man, daily updates from all over the Blogosphere. Subscribe to my comments feed as well!

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