Back to School

As you could tell the topic of back to school, and more specifically back to University was on my mind this week, with two posts about RESPs, and the situation that I have been having is not resloved yet in terms of how and where I can remove funds from my kids’ RESP accounts, stay tuned on that one.

My actual posts this week were: RESP Money to Get Money,  RESP the Old Switcheroo, RESP Withdrawals REDUX, and an interesting question about Half Price Products.  The RESP story is an interesting one and hopefully good reader you are learning from my “case study”.

With Labour Day looming on Monday, I will most likely not be doing a post on Monday, although it might be a Best of we shall see whether the muse hits me early enough in the weekend or not. I will be traveling around getting ready for the new school term, one day I will go back to enjoying the Labour Day weekend as a time of rest, but it is not likely in the next few years. As for my comments post on Saturday, again, we shall see if time permits for that as well.

My hope is that in a week or two life will get into a more formal pace, which will make it easier to work on things, but then again, it may well stay chaotic for the entire fall, I can never tell.

That was the week that was

In the blogosphere at least, here are some of the hot topics being discussed by other Personal Finance bloggers out there:

• Michael James and the Canadian Capitalist showed that numbers are fun to play with, but aren’t the only part of the Finance answer in Fun with Numbers CC shows how you can get a little optimistic about things, whereas, Michael James posts More Realistic RRSP Contribution Expectations where he points out that numbers can be deceiving.
• Ellen Roseman points out that Mortgage Paid off? Ask for Home Insurance discount is a good idea. Hopefully one day my house will be paid off and I will remember this helpful hint.
• Preet points out there is a New Tool to Search Advisor Background and History however, it does not really track that many advisors, but the ones there you can read about.
• Financial Highway points out 7 Fees the Credit Card Companies Are Getting Sneaky With, like they needed new income streams?
• Money.Smarts brings up an interesting angle on the whole RESP issue with Relatives Battling Over RESP – Who Gets it? in my family, I do pure and simple.
• Larry MacDonald asked an expert Where are mortgage rates headed and the expert said they look OK for now, but also hedged his statements, as well all do in this area. Best mortgage rate is the one you don’t have because you have paid your house off.
• Nancy Zimmerman had a chance to grill Jack Layton with Live Blog: Jack Layton NDP whistlestop in Yellowknife where she even used a question I tweet’ed to her about pensions, Cool.
• Echo at Boomer & Echo, seems to be in love with Dividend Growth Investing and he also seems to enjoy DRIPing as well, which is good to see.
• Bible Money Matters makes the poignant statement 5 Things About Money I wish I would have Known When I was Younger, which is always lamentable, but if you learned from your mistakes that is what is important (i.e. don’t do the same mistakes over and over).

Weekly Reminders

Remember that I also 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)).

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

Remember that this site is iPhone Friendly (and Android & iPod Touch 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?!?).

Random Thoughts: Back to RESP Week 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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Where Do You Draw the Line

Previously I have written about 50% off meat in fact Michael James has even asked if Cut Rate Meat is Safe , and my wife and I have expanded our cut rate shopping to the 50% off rack of various goods that our local grocer has, and enjoy getting some treats for a very cheap price.

Our grocer has in fact made it very easy to see the items he has slashed the prices on, as the product usually has a triangular flaming pink label with the words 50% Off emblazoned on it, so there is no danger you might miss these good bargains. Typically these items are about to reach their best before date , so you are taking a little chance here, but so far we have not run into any issues with any of these products (even the meat).

A few days ago we had to run in to get one or two things, and I needed Anti-perspirant, so we went up the aisle that this product is on, and it is next to the Family Planning section of the small pharmacy in our local grocers.  I quickly chose a manly smelling fragrance, OK, I found the cheapest one I could find but then noticed something odd out of the corner of my eye.

A large 50% Off label on boxes of Condoms

I’ll let that one settle in for a second, yes it was not just one box it was a group of about 8 boxes of various condoms that were 50% off.

Who, in the name of Dr. Spock (the baby doctor, not the Star Trek guy) would rely on birth control that they picked up for 50% off? I leave this as a question to my good readers, would you trust 50% off condoms? Would you buy them for your kids?

Be prepared, I have the ultimate story that my friends know, but my good readers have only had me hint at, that may come out one day, about my Failed Vasectomy, so NO I would not trust cut rate Condoms, ever!

Half Price Products 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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Hopefully the Last Post on RESPs (for now)

I went to the bank with our Free letter from my middle daughter’s University (the nice one in Nova Scotia), which was e-mailed to us, and finally the entire RESP story came into crisp and clear focus. It can be summed up with a simple phrase that we will call the Big C8j Customer Service Rule:

People who work in phone centers for banks (or any financial service) do not know how things really work, in the bank branch.

What do I mean by this? Remember all that ranting I have done about getting letters to get money, and having to pay $12 to get them (and YES that DOES piss me off), well that’s not how it all really works.

How it Really Works?

We showed up at our local branch, with our Letter of Enrollment in hand, and I had no idea what to expect, but luckily Good Providence, Karma or whichever way the Universe works, smiled upon my wife and I. The “teller” we spoke to first was the Branch Manager, this made the whole process much simpler, and smoother running.

First we discussed what needed to be done with this Letter of Enrollment that we had received from the University (this is the Free one that was simply attached to an e-mail). The Manager said it was sufficient to withdraw funds from my daughter’s RESP, HOORAY! HUZZAH! WHOOP! WHOOP! I was hoping for confetti to drop out of the ceiling, however, this is not the end of the story.

The Manager then said if I wanted to make the withdrawal, I could make an appointment with one of the Mutual Fund Experts and then I could get the money.

Insert the sound of screeching brakes, the Process was about to be derailed, because there was no way I wanted to make an appointment to get at this money (sit down for another 1/2 hour with an Expert, later in the week?!? NFW). I pointed out that I usually did all of my banking on line, and if the Manager was able to set the “She is Going to School For Real Flag” on my daughter’s RESP account, couldn’t I simply do this all on line? The Manager thought about it, and agreed this might all be possible, but he was not sure (a small sigh of relief the process was not completely derailed).

The Manager then pointed out that normally I should have made an appointment to bring in this letter, because a normal bank teller cannot do this, hence the statement: People who work in phone centers for banks (or any financial service) do not know how things really work, in the bank branch. I explained that I had been told on the phone this was all do-able with a normal teller,the Manager said no they can’t, but because I was lucky enough to get him as my Teller, things would all work out nicely.

The Manager then pointed out that, in fact, since he was the one setting the “She is Going to School For Real Flag” on my daughter’s RESP account, I didn’t really need a Letter of Enrollment at all, the branch in fact will take a Proof of Payment (i.e. a receipt from the school), a copy of my daughter’s schedule, or a Transaction number which shows the amount was paid to the University (or a canceled cheque I assume).

Let me repeat that important rule I have stated twice now: People who work in phone centers for banks (or any financial service) do not know how things really work, in the bank branch. So, for my oldest daughter’s RESP all I need to do is bring in my proof of payment, and her RESP account will be freed up to have money extracted from it, I will be doing that very soon.

Is It All Over Now?

Not quite,  as a Caveat, I have not attempted to take money out of either RESP account on line yet, so this still may all end in tears, when I attempt to withdraw money from the accounts, I hope this is me being paranoid, but I suspect there are still a few more interesting twists in the road before I reach the promised land. I have also noticed that on the allegedly fixed RESP account on line, there is no button to REDEEM MUTUAL FUNDS, only two buttons to BUY or SWITCH them, which is not good news.

RESP Withdrawals Redux 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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Wait a minute, Good Service?

After my tirade Money to Get Money from yesterday one of the schools involved in my RESP escapades suddenly got very sensible, and I must somewhat retract some of my commentary.

My middle daughter is going to a smaller school in Nova Scotia, and she had not noticed anything on the web site stating about how to get a Letter of Enrollment or such, which might be needed for an RESP, so she sent the Registrar for the school an e-mail asking what steps needed to be taken to get a letter like this and how long it might take.

This e-mail was sent on Sunday night, Monday morning the school registrar replied with an e-mail that included a scan of the official letter asking my daughter if this was sufficient? No money was spent, no forms filled out, no fuss, no muss, no worries, they just sent it. All I can think now is that in smaller Universities they have not taken the courses on how to get as much money as possible from your student population, or the large banks have not contacted the school yet about how their part in the Great RESP Sting is supposed to work.

I was flabbergasted to see this e-mail in my inbox, and now I can go off to my bank and see whether it is sufficient to start extricating funds from one of my daughters’ RESP, I am hopeful that this might do the trick, but if not, I am confident things can be put right quickly.

What is interesting is that I have paid some of this daughter’s fees (a sizable deposit), but that was sufficient for the school to send me a letter of Full Enrollment, which was good of them. The other University I deal with took great pains to point out that they would not send out any letter of enrollment until fees were paid in full, but I have done that now, and I now await to find out how they deal with my request for a Letter of Enrollment (don’t worry good reader, you will hear more about this as soon as it happens).

I guess the only question is, what will I write about when my kids finally go off to school? Don’t worry good reader I actually have a large backlog of articles for your reading pleasure.

RESP: The Old Switcheroo 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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Blood from a Stone

This whole getting money out of an RESP has now turned into a money making business for everyone (except me, of course).

Both universities I am dealing with seem well prepared for me, because on their web sites are effectively the statement:

Dear Parent of our Student,

If you thought that extricating your money from an RESP was going to consist of us simply sending you a letter for free, or sending you an e-mail stating this, think again. We feel that sending out a letter to you that states that you have paid for your child’s education (no the bank won’t take our receipt from your payment, we all agreed that would be too easy) is something we should make some money on as well, so you will need to pay us $11.50 for this letter.

Please note: this is not an actual letter from any Canadian University, it is a paraphrase of the message sent, with much embelishment by me.

Do I sound bitter? If not, I really need to take that creative writing class on how to write in a more bitter manner.

Most of this money is after tax money that will not be taxed if I withdraw it from the account (whether my child is at school or not) or thought about in any fashion, yet to extricate Dime One from this account, I must have this letter, which I must then go to a local bank branch (no this does not work over the phone, or on line) and have them approve me taking the money out. Will there be a fee for my bank to approve this letter? Right now, I would not be surprised (but even more bitter? You Bet!) but I hope not.

I am displeased as punch about this whole thing, as you can tell, however, at least I know about it now, so I may get money out of this some time before Thanksgiving (I hope). The other issue is I must get these documents from two separate universities (in different provinces), and I have not heard from my other daughter what fee her University will extricate from me to get at the RESP.

So when you think about the CESG that you get when you put your money in an RESP, remember to subtract this fee (a yearly thing I must do) from your “takings” in this Government Savings Plan.

RESP Money to get 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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Where are the Videos?

I ran out of videos that I could post that were of Personal Finance interest so I have decided to try out a review of the comments that I got this week, since I did seem to get a lot of comments about a few of my posts. All of the “How to run a Blog” documentation suggests the success of a Web Site can be reflected in the comments that the site receives, but I just like comments because many times that is where I get my best ideas for posts and such.

For CPI up Thanks to HST

Andy R. commented: “Just saw an Ontario HST charge on a parcel shipped to me in Alberta. Doesn’t seem right, but apparently everyone gets to share the pain and pay Ontario taxes now? CPI increases for all around, yeah!”

If you’d like Dalton McGinty’s mailing address I can supply it to you. I bet you can get that rebated if you filled in 6 forms and mailed each of them individually, but then again you will have spent more than your rebate doing this.

With Trust Only In Fire I was mostly fiddling around with video, and was surprised at the number of comments that I got:

Michael James said “It might be fun to shred and then burn. I’m guessing that shredded paper would burn incredibly quickly.”

AndyR chirped in with “The shredded paper does burn real quick. Shred and burn is better than just burning. If you don’t shred, burn AND stir, you soon find that even loose paper may not burn completely, leaving charred fragments that “THEY” may forensically reconstruct to rip you off. BTW, an open fireplace is so last millennium and quite energy inefficient. Install an air-tight unit, use a stainless steel pipe inside the old brick chimney, then you can slow cook those financial records, and scrub the soot yourself with the brush and pole kit from Canadian Tire. In the winter, we have few recyclables since they all get converted to BTUs.”

Tiny Potato added: “I can’t recall where I posted this before, but save the papers until winter and burn it AND get “free” heating!”

I’d like to point out I am nothing, if I am not old School, and as for using this as a methodology for heating my house, I waste more BTUs up my chimney burning this crap than I do getting any kind of heating benefit. Interesting comments though.

My Advice to Future University Students caused a flurry of responses (which just goes to show if you write about Teenage Drinking you can never go wrong). You should go over and read all the comments, but some of the more interesting ones are:

Elizabeth wrote a long tome outlining what you can do in first year to get involved, very useful.

Nancy (aka Money Coach) pointed out “…In retrospect though, I think I would have hung out more with some of the high achievers. It’s a way to start building a network and also pick up good habits and ways of engaging with the world…”,

Garrett commented “There were many mornings in University where I’d wished I’d taken that sage advice from your father!”, see sometimes free advice is worth something!”

Echo of Boomer and Echo Fame, did a thesis on using Gatorade in the equation, lots of useful commentary there.

I don’t condone Teenage drinking, I simply offer this as a service, but the Gatorade comments were an interesting twist on the advice (and at the time, Gatorade was not as prevalent as it is these days).

With RESP Wrinkles I managed to mix up the CESG and EAP and was told about it by a few folks.

Money Smarts Blog pointed out, “This is really interesting information – the government has always required financial institutions to verify enrolment when someone requests a withdrawal, so the fact that TD wasn’t doing that is a serious breach of the RESP promoter rules.”

Michael James added, “Just a few more wrinkles and RESPs will become deposit-only accounts.”

George pointed out my blundering with the wrong terms, but did point out “One thing to note, though – you should be able to make a withdrawal of your contributions to the RESP without ANY documentation regarding enrollment. The contributions are after-tax money and they are always ‘owned’ by the account contributor. You should be able to withdraw some of your contributions to cover the initial payments to the university, and then make an EAP withdrawal later on to pay for subsequent expenses.”

Personal Finance added,“I’m not surprised at all. This seems to work in every field. Just because few “knuckle heads” to quote you, took advantage of the system, now they screw the entire system. I often wonder if RESP is really the best. I have my kids money “in trust” founds. Is less headache and less government involvement and the boys will have a chance to do whatever they choose to.

Do you know how long is going to take until you will receive the money? Do universities charge you for their documentation? “

And Alex C chirped in with,“I’m surprised you never had to prove it before? I always had to get a Verification of Enrollment letter which cost me about $10 each year. (actually it was only $3 the first 2 years which then went up to $10, but that’s a gripe with the university not the RESP system).

Even bigger issues come if you don’t have the cash to cover the tuition prior to the RESP collection, which can often be a while after the tuition deadline. The same thing happens with student loans, in that you dont receive them till well after your tuition is due, causing students who already can’t afford school to incur excess fees and interest while they wait for their loans to arrive.”

All very good points, I think I should be allowed to take out the money I put in directly with no need for documentation, but needing it for the EAP portion (which includes the CESG and growth) makes some sense, but now the Universities are piling on by charging me to get a letter of Enrollment, so I am not too happy about all of that either.

OK Here is a Video

Yes, you have already seen my burning video, but this one is nice because anyone reading on an iPod can watch it as well (isn’t YouTube Great)

There may be a follow on video to this one, showing the whole methodology.

Carnivals this Past Week

I was mentioned in a few Carnivals too:

• Festival of Frugality #244 – pointed out I have been at this for over 5 years and mentioned Snake Mittens too!
• Carnival of Personal Finance #271 – The Secret to Successful Budgeting eBook Edition mentioned my post on Large Wallet Syndrome
• Best of Money Carnival #65 had my post about Dumber Than Snake Mittens as well.
• Carnival of Money Stories #2 – Back To School Editions had my post OK My Man! (Rudeness in my Opinion)
• Carnival of Financial Planning – Edition #154 had my post Found Money Trap

Weekend Comment Wrap Up 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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Another interesting week and with Back to School in full swing lots of talk about going back to school and the costs of this Most Wonderful Time of the Year (to quote a large retailer).

As for me I spent the week writing about: How the HST is Inflationary Too, Fun Burning Things, Fun Advice for University Frosh, and new RESP Wrinkles.  The Frosh advice is legitimately some of the best advice I have ever received, but you might not want to give it to your kids. I even remember, in my day, listening to some Bachman And Turner while using that advice.

What did the other Bloggers of Personal Finance and Investments write about this week?

• Money.Smarts started my journey on RESPs this week with 8 Things You Need to Know about Withdrawing Money From your RESP Account, well worth a read if you are thinking about RESPs, they are becoming more a Save-Only account, it seems.
• Money Help for Christians wrote about How To Graduate from College Without Student Debt, sorry, nothing magical, just gotta work  hard, but nothing in life is free, is it?
• A Shocking Only 6% of Bogus Credit Card Charges are Challenged post by Michael James caused me to scurry over and check out my latest monthly credit card statement. Remember this is an important thing to do every month.
• The Money Coach has a Parable of sorts with A Story of A Proud and Isolated Executive With a Whole Lot of Money, and I know a few folks just like this person.
• A Dripping TFSA is an interesting idea put forward by newcomer TinyPotato. The TFSA is a good place to do your DRiPing, better than in your RRSP, but dividends are taxed at a lower rate too, so it’s an interesting question really.
• Some good Dividend ETF’s You Might Ask, look no further than the Canadian Couch Potato.
• The Canadian Capitalist gives us a reminder to those who hire folks to work with their Kids or Elderly Parents you must have Payroll for Employers of Caregivers to keep track of the CPP you MUST deduct from those fees.
• I got a good chuckle from SteadFastFinances 20 Funny/Sarcastic ETF Ticker Symbols We Won’t See, I pointed out they forgot BDSM and GFY might go on that list too.
• Larry MacDonald gave me another reason why All in All I’d Rather NOT be in Philadelphia, taxing bloggers? WTF?
• Preet let’s us in on a Special Cell Phone Data deal he has wangled for those who are interested. Not only is he a Media Maven, he is now “The Guy” to talk to about getting deals too!
• Boomer (of Boomer and Echo)  goes out on a limb and publishes his Short Term Goals, I can never do this because I am too much of a chicken.
• You can blackmail a blogger, evidently yes, Lazy Man and Money is Being Blackmailed by MonaVie ? Extortion in Blogging, wow, this world is getting weirder.
• Million Dollar Journey points out there can be a Downside to Owning REITs .
• Banknerd.ca points out it has been a bad week for Canadian Banks with RBC Announcing an 18% Profit Drop, however, it is a drop in profit, not a drop into losing money!
• My new favorite non-money web site is Hanzi Smatter where folks submit their tatoos for interpretation, it has to be read to be believed.

Weekly Reminders

Remember that I also 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)).

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

Finally remember that this site is iPhone Friendly (and Android & iPod Touch 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

Best Caption Contest

Please leave a comment on what you think the best caption for this picture might be:

What's a Good Caption for this?

The best one, gets my undying respect and admiration.  My entry, “Well, There is Another Reason to hate Obama-Care!”

Random Thoughts: Universities and RESPs 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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Clerical Change for RESPs Makes for More Headaches

Last week I read a good post about 8 Things You Need to Know about Withdrawing Money From your RESP Account but it really didn’t sink in until this week when I started trying to take money out of my kids’ RESPs.

Last year I took money out of my daughter’s RESP on line and there was really no big issues, it all seemed to work just fine, however, evidently things changed because of abuse, but I am getting ahead of myself.

I checked my daughters’ RESPs and noted an interesting blurb at the bottom of the account info on line:

RESP redemptions are not available through EasyWeb. For details about making an RESP redemption, please contact EasyLine at 1-866-222-3456.

That caused me to go back and read the blog entry again, and noted that the Government is now tightening down the methodology for removal of moneys from these savings accounts. Remember that an RESP is not like an RRSP in that you are putting After Tax money into the account, and there is no direct Tax savings to you for doing this. The RESP funds can earn Education Grants ( i.e. an EAP (Educational Assistance Payment) ) from the Government which is the major advantage to these accounts, and then when the money comes out the growth (and possibly the grants) are then Taxed in the hands of the Student (not the contributors), which is why I opened these accounts.

I dutifully called TD Canada Trust and was told that I could not take money out of my daughters’ accounts on line or even on the phone, until I went into a TD Canada Trust branch with a Verification of Enrollment form from my daughters’ schools (remember I have two daughters going to University this year). This means both Wilfrid Laurier and Acadia must send me one of these forms before my bank will release the funds for their education. I was told that this was due to abuse over the past few years by folks who had kids that didn’t actually attend any educational institution yet funds were removed from the RESPs, so now there is a need to prove your child is in an accredited program at a recognized post secondary institution.

Fudge! I exclaimed when I was told this, because this means I must pay for my kids expenses first and then wait to get the money to cover these large expenditures. In one case I can put the expenses on my Credit Card and get some PC Points, but the other school will not allow this, so I must outlay my own money and then get reimbursed.

Keep this one in mind folks, it’s not as easy as it was, because a few knuckle heads decided to take advantage of the program.

RESP Wrinkles 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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Advice is Best Served with Water

It is the magical Back to School season so many of my compatriots in the Personal Finance Blog world have taken it upon themselves to pass on sage advice to the future leaders of our world.  The advice given is very good and I wish someone had told me some of this advice before I started off at University, but then again, I most likely wouldn’t have listened (after all I was much smarter back then).

Aside from, “A fool and his parsnip are soon baked”, I really don’t have anything to add to the advice to future Post Secondary students, but I can give a piece of advice that my Father gave me the day before I left for school, which I actually used, and still use to this day (no it has nothing to do with money). I offer this slice of life story to those about to send their children off to school, as a helpful parenting hint (feel free to either use it, or ignore it).

Best Back to School Advice Ever

As I sat in my room packing up the last bits and pieces before I got ready to go to University (back in 1980), there was a knock on my door, it was my Father.

He sat down at the end of my bed and asked if I thought I had everything I needed for school, and I said I thought I had most of it, and that anything I forgot I am sure I could figure out how to live without it for a short period of time.

My Father told me that he was the first person in his family to go to University, so he didn’t really know what to expect, and he was, at the time, quite worried, however an Uncle of his who had gone off to College (but hadn’t finished) did give him one piece of advice that he thought might be worth passing on to me.

At this point I was absolutely enthralled, this was the first time I had felt my Father was actually talking to me like an Adult, and now he was going to pass on to me advice that hopefully will make me as successful as he was in University. I sat quietly and asked him, what that advice was.

My Father looked at me and after a short pause told me the following amazing advice:

If you have gone out drinking, have at least two large glasses of water before you go to bed.

I sat there completely confused. My Father’s advice wasn’t how to apply yourself, or some great trick on how to succeed, how could this be?

I finally blurted out, “What about school?”.

His response again was quite succinct, but also quite good advice, “Well, don’t be an idiot,  study hard that’s why you are going!”.

I must say that I did most definitely use my Father’s advice on re-hydrating before going to bed after going out drinking, and his comment about studying hard also resonated more than once, when I couldn’t motivate myself, so as advice I have received in my life, I believe this is one of the best I have received.

So what advice did you receive when you went off to University or left home? Comments welcomed.

Advice To Future University Students 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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No, not another quote from Conan the Personal Finance Barbarian (TM) a true statement, that I learned from Michael James, but also in my jobs over time.

The only safe way to dispose of any sensitive papers is to burn them yourself, and then you dispose of the ashes in whichever way you wish. If you have  a shredder that is better than nothing, but unless you burn whatever comes out of it, don’t be so sure it can’t be used by someone (yes I am being paranoid, but better safe than sorry is my view).

The following is a short excerpt of me burning some actual records. Note the set up is simply a “fire log” which is made of wax, a mandarin orange box (which burns very quickly), and a pile of important papers in the box. Set the log on fire (after opening the fireplace flue, and making sure you have a fire extinguisher close by in case of problems), and then watch your records disappear.

You cannot dispose of anything other than paper this way, but I may show you how to dispose of a hard drive in the near future (on video as well, it will be MUCH more entertaining).

Remember to remove all plastics from your records, and this will create a lot more soot in your fireplace chimney, so you may want to get it cleaned out by a registered sweep more often as well.

Trust Only in Fire 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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