Money Smarts Blog

My Online Opinion On Online Opinions

Mike Holman — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:17 +0000

I’m on holiday this week, so I thought it would be oh so much fun to republish an ancient post (Sept 2008), which most readers haven’t seen before. Enjoy! Online opinions and reviews are everywhere. If you are doing some online shopping, it’s almost impossible to go to a site offering merchandise that doesn’t allow [...]

RESP Canada Learning Bond (CLB) – Why Aren’t More People Claiming it?

Mike Holman — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:00:48 +0000

Part of the Canadian RESP program is a grant, inappropriately named the Canada Learning Bond (CLB). The “Canada Learning” makes sense, but I have no idea why the word “bond” was used. In actual fact the CLB is a grant and the big difference between this grant and the regular RESP grants is that no [...]

LinkStuff – Bowling With Kids Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:00:20 +0000

Over the holidays, my wife and I went bowling with the kids (age 3 & 5). I haven’t bowled in 25 years and all I remember is being in the gutter most of the time. They gave us a lane with rails on it which prevent the ball from going into the gutter. What a [...]

2011 Portfolio Investment Performance – Not Too Bad

Mike Holman — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:38:30 +0000

I like to calculate my investment return each year, so I can see how I am doing. My investment return for 2011 was -1.8%. While this kind of performance won’t secure my retirement any time soon, I was lucky that the numbers weren’t any worse. There were two reasons, I did reasonably well. Low Canadian [...]

2011 Stock Picking Contest Results

Mike Holman — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:00:23 +0000

At the beginning of the year I entered into a stock picking contest with some other bloggers, as I do every year. Once again I decided to short gold which didn’t work out all that well, although it was better than last year. Here are the results: Rank Site YTD Return (%) 1 Dividend Growth [...]

LinkStuff – Happy Holidays Edition

Mike Holman — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:00:37 +0000

I would like to wish all you readers a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Festivus or anything else you want to celebrate in the next little while. I’m looking forward to having a bit of time off during which we’ll be visiting family and hopefully getting the little ones out skating. I’ll resume posting at some point [...]

LinkStuff – I Am Debt Free Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:00:35 +0000

After roughly 12 years of being a home owner, we made our last mortgage payment ever which means that we are now debt free! I don’t think our lives will change all that much as we still have some savings goals to deal with – RRSP, TFSA etc which should suck up some cash. Regardless, [...]

Canadian Tire MasterCard Rewards Card – A Strange Duck

Mike Holman — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:00:53 +0000

Michael L has had a Canadian Tire Mastercard for some time. He was under the impression that it paid out one percent in rewards for non-Canadian Tire purchases. After doing some analysis on his Canadian Tire credit card statement, he concludes that his actual rewards are only about 0.86%. Read Michael’s analysis of the CT [...]

LinkStuff – Winter Is Coming Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:00:44 +0000

It’s getting a lot colder these days – I know because I’m still riding my bike to work and I can feel it! As much as I like commuting on the bike, by this time of year I’m not too disappointed when I have to stop because of snow or ice. Anyone out there into [...]

PC Financial PC Points At Loblaws – Worth It For Rewards Alone?

Mike Holman — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:00:49 +0000

Most people who are interested in personal finance tend to be better at some areas than others. In my case, I love reading about investing strategies, which include rebalancing methods – but I will often not bother rebalancing my own accounts for years at a time, which sometimes can be a drag on performance. On [...]