I can tell you upfront that it is mostly because I have two young children.

Not necessarily improving your lifestyle

When you are moving to a better economic environment, you will not only find a higher income job. You will also find higher housing prices too! I have checked to move in British Columbia at one point in time and I found out that I would probably increase my income by 15K, but I would have to pay about 3 times the price for the same house I am living in. So if I was to move, I would have to accept to live in smaller house or even worst, in an apartment. This is what usually happens when a city goes through an economic boom; everything goes up at the same time!

No more friends or family

Another important point to consider is the “lost” of friends and family around you. You will obviously keep in touch with people that are close to you, but you will definitely not be able to go have supper with them every weekend! I wanted my children to know their grandparents, their aunt and godfathers and godmothers. They already occupy an important place in their life and I surely don’t want to break this.

Not the same culture

Since I live in France for 6 months, I had the time to realize how different it could be to live in another country. There are a lot of my home habits I couldn’t have back there. For example, I couldn’t think doing all my shopping in a single day. Things are much slower in Europe that they are in North America. They might be less stressed but it still takes forever to do what you have to do in a day! Therefore, there is definitely an adaptation that is required. Depending on where you are heading, this could be smooth or very rough. In both cases, this is definitely a “cost” you have to take into consideration.

What if you don’t life it?

I would not take too much time on this point since I believe in changes and this question is possibly the biggest brake to evolution. However, there is a possibility that you don’t life your new life and that you decide to come back. This would result in a huge cost and probably rock your self esteem.

So I personally decided to not move elsewhere to pursue my career. However, I must admit that there is a lot of room for a great career in my field where I live so I don’t really feel the urgency to move. It could be a different story if I was working in the oil industry

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Another Great weekend to come since we are going apple picking

The Financial Blogger hit its biggest month in term of visits with a record 19,264 visits in September (considering the fact that I was sick for 2 weeks, it is quite an achievement ).

Hopefully this will show in the Top 100 PF blogger over Fire Finance. For August, I was #100 !!! yikes! Here are a few good read this week:

Million Dollar Journey is asking is there a Real Estate Crash in Canada. Don’t think so!

Four Pillars explains why you should not worry about the market. After all, your biggest asset is your career. Right on!

I would also like to wish the best of luck to Four Pillars’ second blog; ABC’s of Investing. This is a great start if you wish to learn the basics of investing.

The Digerati Life gives us 10 frugal steps to survive a rough economy. Even if you don’t feel the impact right now, you better prepare… just in case

Canadian Dreams made me laugh with this piece of life “Out of toner my ass!”. He has a good moral at the end of his post too!

For those who like stock analysis, I suggest you go over Zach Stocks and look at his post on Wells Fargo. The guy works for a hedge fund, I guess he knows what he is talking about

Finally, Canadian Capitalist is asking why bailout Wall Street? I think they should bailout the main street instead! Help the poor people instead of the fat cats! Who needs help when you earned 50M$ last year?

Carnivals:

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of Money Stories

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Instead of crying and whining, they decided to listen to their destiny call and revise their whole plan of life. This is when they decided to move out west, in Calgary in order to benefit from the economic boom.

I thought of her two weeks ago when I read a paper on the economic boom in Saskatchewan. They apparently found more oil sand than in Alberta and this small province is now promised for a bright future. People are working seven days a week but a lot of them are making 6 figures income.

In the light of what I read, I decided pull out the good and the bad points of moving out another province/country in order to find a better life. So today I’m going with the good sides:

The hope of getting a better job

For people moving far away from their home, there must be an economic advantage. Since we are living in a beautiful country, I guess the economic factor must be pretty important. I remember my uncle moving to Vancouver about 15 years ago since there was not much job in finance in Montreal back then. Since my uncle and my aunt moved, they found pretty good job and the benefit from the housing boom to create an interesting nest egg.

When moving toward a city where there is a lot of job it will not only be easy to find a job but also to increase your income. You might have to work more at the beginning is there is a major job shortage but in the end, the economic aspect is definitely a plus.

Find out about other nice place to live

While moving to Calgary doesn’t seem that appealing to me, moving to British Columbia or California would definitely be interesting. There are so many cool places to live that we don’t know about. If you do proper research before moving, you definitely be able to find a nice place to live.

Another good point is that you have the possibility to move to a better climate. For example, the sun and the heat of California would surely help me forget about Montreal -20 degrees and 20 foot of snow during winter!

Make new friends

Some people decide to accept 2-3 years contract and they go back to their former city after. This would allow you to make new connections and friends while you are elsewhere. It is fun to communicate with people around the world that live different things. It also make a good and cheap place to visit for vacation!

Start over

Sometimes your life is just a mess and you absolutely need to make a fresh start. Moving in another city would definitely force you to start anew. It is like you have never existed in this new place, it is now up to you to put things in order and move forward!

Improve your resume

Showing that you have been working in a different province or country would surely prove flexibility, adaptability and autonomy to your future employers. I remember seeing the interest in my employer eyes when I explained them my experience in a student exchange program in Europe. Employers love to see people that can think outside the box and have a different kind of experience.

Think outside the box

The more you move in life, the more open minded you become. I have met a few people working in Dubai right now and they definitely don’t have the same thinking they used to. They show a different view of life based on their own experience. If you live your whole life in your neighbourhood, you will not necessarily be aware of what is going on out there.

I would be curious to know if anybody moved in another city/province/country in order to find a better job. It would be nice to share your experience.

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Is it possible that the graph you are looking at is one of a bank, a major US bank? Imagine this.. the stock actually hit its 52 week high today, at 50$. So done guessing? It’s not a small bank, it’s actually JP Morgan, one of the biggest banks in the world and from the look of this graph, JP Morgan is doing fairly well in this crazy environment.

Why? There are actually a few reasons behind it. A major part is that the core of JP Morgan’s operations are actually its banking, it is not an investment bank and had little exposure to these very risky investments that are now killing a lot of the bigger banks.

So JP Morgan has a very solid balance sheet and has had opportunities that simply do not exist in normal circumstances. Think of Washington Mutual, one of the largest banks in the nation that in a matter of days and weeks, went to the brink of bankruptcy. While the Fed was trying to find someone to help WM out, there were almost no banks in a position to do so (the only possibility perhaps would have been Citibank but with its stock now so low, they have less capital than they had not long ago).

For this reason, JPM is currently having possibilities to gain a lot of business and will have less competition when things become a lot calmer with rivals such as Washington Mutual out of the picture.

Tonight, the US senate passed the 700$Billion bail-out plan set up by secretary Paulson and it will now go to the house of representatives (that rejected it days ago) and will hopefully go through. “It’s very important for us to pass this piece of legislation so as to stabilize the situation, so that it doesn’t get worse and that our fellow citizens lose wealth and work,” President George W. Bush said. If that happens, we might be able to set a more stable environment in the financial sector as well as the US economy, something banks such as JP Morgan will be in a great position to profit from…!

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For this 32nd edition of the Money Hacks Carnival, I decided to go with questions most people ask themselves or problems they tried to solve without really finding the right solutions. Hopefully, you will find some answers through these great articles.

LAL presents Socialized Capitalism? posted at LivingAlmostLarge.

AJC presents Why most doctors aren?t rich! posted at How to Make 7 Million in 7 Years™.

The Happy Rock presents Your Health and Your Wealth - Fitness Impacts Wallet posted at The Happy Rock.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Best Places For Your Money When The Stock Market Tanks posted at The Digerati Life.

Tushar Mathur presents Are you disappointed with your mutual fund investments? posted at Invest In India.

Aussie presents Quick Ratio Formula posted at Stock Market For Beginners.

Dividends4Life presents Pocket Change Portfolio - August 2008 posted at Dividends4Life.

Contrarian Profits presents Why US Treasury Bonds Are the Best-Ever Short Play posted at Contrarian Profits.

retirehappy presents Copycat Portfolios Are Dangerous posted at My Retirement Blog.

Hank presents Protect Yourself From These Classic Investment Scams posted at Military Money Might.

Upside Trader presents The Next Capitulation posted at upsidetrader.

Robert D Flach presents DEATH OF A SAVINGS BOND CO-OWNER posted at THE WANDERING TAX PRO.

Heather Johnson presents What Would a Return to the Gold Standard Mean for You? posted at Currency Trading.net.

RC presents Learning from the Stock Market’s Volatile Performance This Week posted at Think Your Way to Wealth.

The Shark Investor presents Where Is Dirt, There Is Cash posted at The Shark Investor.

Steve Faber presents Credit Card Gas Rebates – How to Get the Biggest Rebate | Super Gas Saver posted at super gas saver.

Aryn presents How to Stay Warm this Fall and Winter posted at Sound Money Matters.

Jim presents 40 Money Tips for College Students posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Dale Liebrecht presents Saving Money posted at A Bag Full Of The Real Poop.

J. Money presents Save gas and drive the home stretch w/out hitting the pedal! posted at Budgets are Sexy..

Amy @ The Q Family presents Coupon of the 21st Century posted at The Q Family Adventure.

mbhunter presents Watch out for this grocery pricing trick posted at Mighty Bargain Hunter.

Cash Money Life presents Blockbuster vs. Netflix posted at Cash Money Life.

Bankruptcy Access presents Credit Card Debt posted at BankruptcyAccess.com.

The Smarter Wallet presents 8 Summer Fun Activities That Won’t Break The Bank posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Master Your Card presents The Costs of Apartment Living posted at Master Your Card.

CreditAddict presents Frequent Flyer Credit Cards Getting Worse, Stick With Cash Back Rewards posted at Credit Card Addict.

nickel presents Current Online Savings Account Interest Rates posted at fivecentnickel.com.

KCLau presents Credit Counseling and Debt Management Agency: FREE Financial Education for Malaysian posted at KCLau’s Money Tips.

Hilary Green presents 10 Ways to Save On Gas and Improve Mileage posted at Cars for Girls.

Fitz Villafuerte presents Tips On Selling In Bazaars, Trade Fairs and Craft Shows posted at Ready To Be Rich.

Mrs. Accountability presents Gas From Costco Without a Membership?? posted at Out of Debt Again.

Kevin Fleming presents How to Save $50 a Month on Cable or Satellite TV posted at Satellite TV Guru.

Finance Yogi presents Check your Credit History Before You Apply for Business Financing posted at financemoneyloans.net.

Helene Zemel presents Formulating a Marketing Plan for your At Home Business posted at Work at Home Mom and Dad.

Tanesha Morgan presents A Subway Job Application: The Path To A Shiny, New Car | Personal Finance Analyst posted at Personal Finance Analyst.

Cade Krueger presents How To Start A Small Business Opportunity posted at Small Business Opportunity.

Roshawn Watson presents Dishonorable New Exit Strategy For Desperate Homeowners posted at Watson Inc.

Erika Collin presents Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: What Next? posted at Currency Trading.net.

ChristianPF presents The mortgage crisis and the economy posted at Christian Personal Finance.

FIRE Finance presents Risks Of Cash Advances And Payday Loans posted at FIRE Finance.

MBB presents American Express Black Centurion Credit Card posted at Money Blue Book Personal Finance Blog.

Mr Credit Card presents Removing Your Name From A Credit Card Account posted at Ask Mr Credit Card.

Ralph Jean-Paul presents Make Money During a Slow Economy posted at Bugs Munny.

Penelope Pince presents Learning From Our Mistakes: Our First (Auto) Loan posted at Our Fourpence Worth.

Amy presents Thinking Through the Emergency Fund posted at My Daily Dollars.

Curt presents Bush Warns of Long Recession Without Bailout posted at PennyJobs.com.

Joe Manausa presents Bailing Out The Banks? Actually Bailing Out America! posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog.

Aaron Aiken presents 9 Things To Do With a Bonus posted at Where You Are Now.

Michael presents Consumer Debt Worst Offenders: Banks, Advertisers, and Advisors posted at Small Business Blog.

FFB presents What We’re Looking To Do With Our Finances In The Next Year (And A Contest) posted at Free From Broke.

BTG presents Financial Lessons From Maya Angelou posted at Bridging The Gaap.

Mary@SimplyForties presents Stupid Tax posted at SimplyForties.

FMF presents Do You Exercise Your Brain? posted at Free Money Finance.

RothIRAr presents FDIC Insurance Coverage for IRAs posted at Roth IRA Explained.

fwp presents a thoughtful balance transfer, credit cards revisited posted at the financial wellness project.

SEC Fraud presents Calls for Regulation of Credit Default Swaps Market posted at SEC Fraud.

Scott presents Navigating the Credit Crisis posted at Budget and Finance Blog.

Image source: newsday.com, Paper Money, Charcarson, DC Photos, AJ French, Arabalkan.com.

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Investing in stocks and mutual funds is like having relationships with different people. Sometimes you hate them, sometimes you like them, sometimes you are not sure if you can trust them or not. These days, your relationship with investment must be pretty chaotic; like a bad marriage

Editor’s Pick

Nurseb911 presents 15 Simple Solutions: posted at Triaging My Way To Financial Success. This is a great start for people who want to invest… or start a new relationship?

The Shark Investor presents Where Is Dirt, There Is Cash posted at The Shark Investor. I always say that there is no free lunch in life!

Steve Alexander presents The Week Capitalism Failed posted at MagicDiligence - Optimizing Joel Greenblatts Value Stock Strategy. An interesting analysis of what happened.

Trying to hit the cutest girl / boy

We are sometimes tempted to get into a bar and try to talk to the cutest girl/boy on the dance floor. We know that we don’t have much chance, but if it ever works, it’s going to be the night of our life. Choosing the perfect investment may get you the investment return of your life:

Dan presents 500% Target Return: Apple Debit Spreads posted at Everyday Finance.

Jose DeJesus presents Market Neutral Funds - Hedge Funds for the masses posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

Timothy Lutts presents Sequenom: A Great Biotech Stock posted at The Iconoclast Investor.

Dividend Growth Investor presents Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) Dividend Stock Analysis posted at Dividend Growth Investor.

Dividends4Life presents Stock Analysis: Johnson Controls (JCI) posted at Dividends4Life.

Saj Karsan presents Barel Karsan: World Wrestling Pays! posted at Barel Karsan.

Ralph Jean-Paul presents Make Money During a Slow Economy posted at Bugs Munny.

Disciplined Investing presents Finding Value In The Financial Sector posted at Disciplined Approach to Investing

Long Term Relationship

LAL presents Retirement savings a fool’s bet? posted at LivingAlmostLarge.

Contrarian Profits presents 5 Reasons Why Stocks and Commodities Will Soar Over Next 9 Months posted at Contrarian Profits.

Cade Krueger presents How Do I Find A Small Business Franchise Opportunity posted at Small Business Franchise Opportunity.

FIRE Finance presents Early Retirement Case Study - My Dollar Plan Retires At 29 posted at FIRE Finance.

KCLau presents 8 Money Principles To Stay Bad Debt Free posted at KCLau’s Money Tips.

John Hunter presents Stock Market Decline posted at Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog.

The Smarter Wallet presents Freshman Fund: Save For College With A 529 Plan Registry posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Emotion Control

Kacper Wrzesniewski presents Investing: How to control your emotions? posted at KacperWrzesniewski.com.

Tushar Mathur presents Are you disappointed with your mutual fund investments? posted at Invest In India.

Diane Saarinen presents Autumn Equinox Blessing for Wall Street posted at Wavelength Tarot.

Tyler presents Are Dividend Investors Idiots? | Personal Finance 101 posted at Dividend Money.

Upside Trader presents This Won’t Stick posted at upsidetrader.

Kevin presents CGM Focus: A Perfect Example of Why Chasing Returns is Foolish posted at No Debt Plan.

Lazy Man presents $700 Billion Bailouts - Is My Money Safe? posted at Lazy Man and Money.

Other

Steve Alexander presents The Week Capitalism Failed posted at MagicDiligence - Optimizing Joel Greenblatts Value Stock Strategy.

Michael presents Real Estate Investing Startpoints: Negotiation, Legality, and Referrals posted at Small Business Blog.

Master Your Card presents The Costs of Apartment Living posted at Master Your Card.

Image sources: flickzzz.com, justjared, courier-journal.com, The Johnsville News , betterbutler.com

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Most people are stuck in a catch-22. They want to increase their mortgage in order to finance their renovation and the bank won’t do it unless the property shows a higher value than at the time of the first mortgage. However, in order to increase the property value, you must do the renovation and you won’t get the money first.

Therefore, several people will use their credit cards and will also apply for the “Home Depot pay-in-one-year-no-interest” credit cards. After two months, the renovations are done but their credit score is hurt since they maxed out all their credit cards and they requested new one. Keep in mind that the credit reporting agencies are not aware of your project; they only see an individual maxing out all their revolving credit and requesting for more. This sounds more like somebody that lost his job than someone renovating their kitchen!

So when you go back to the bank requesting more money to pay off your credit cards; this look like you are doing a consolidation instead of creating wealth within your property. Depending on your overall situation, this still may go through, but in all cases, your banker will ask you more questions than usual. If you had the bad luck of missing a payment because you were overloaded with the renovations, then your credit score will drop seriously.

Then what is the solution?

There is an easy solution to this problem and it is to play the system. In order to play it, you must understand it The key is to not start the renovation at all and go see your banker right away. Explain him the project and tell him how much your house should worth after renovations are completed. Ask him to submit the application with your new house value and as the renovation has been done already.

Therefore, the credit department will qualify your application according to your present situation but with the future value of the house. They will most likely approve your request but they are not dumb, they will request for an appraisal of your property as well.

However, your credit decision is usually good up to 6 months in a case of a mortgage. So you can now go and max out all your credit cards and do your renovations knowing that you will get the required amount through your mortgage at the end.

Once the renovations are completed, you ask your banker to request the appraisal, you get the new upgraded value of your property and you get your financing to pay off all your credit cards!

By doing your mortgage request this way, you will save a lot of questions, time and you will make sure you get approved in the first place.

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KCLau reminds us of 8 basic principles to stay out of bad debts.

The Digerati Life asking: “Does The Economy Affect How You Save Money?”. I personally hope that what is going on will convince people to save more money!

The Personal Financier writes an interesting post about how you can see the recent economic crash as a perfect opportunity to make money. You must not hesitate… even if there is blood on Wall Street.

Money Ning is enjoying his Star Bucks Coffee without a guilt (and it is god damn good!!)

Canadian Capitalist wrote a quick but very useful-straigt-to-the-point post about how to pick a winning mutual fund. Not bad for an ETF fans

MDJ relates the pros and cons of a career in the Financial Services. Being a Financial Planner myself, I can say that he did a great job. I’m glad that I have a based salary with bonuses on my numbers so I can avoid a big part of the conflict of interest!

Carnivals:

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of Money Hacks

Investing Carnival

Carnival of Money Stories

Festival of Frugality

Carnival of Financial Planning

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In Quebec, about 40% of all jobs have a union organisation behind them. That mostly includes everybody working for the government, teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters and several other jobs. While some groups are pretty quiet and we don’t hear much about them, some others like to make noise and shout loud and clear that they are not happy and that they will “break” the management in order to get what “they deserve”.

One of my MBA colleague once have half of his staff with a union and the other half not affiliated with any groups. This was the result of a fusion of two branches. Believe it or not, after a year, the employees decided to get rid of the union because they realized they were getting exactly the same benefits than the others but they were paying the union to “work for them”.

I am obviously annoyed to hear all those whistles since the beginning of the week but there is more behind it. I don’t understand the point of pissing off other people because you are not happy. I would seriously never empathize with who are doing such things. If you are really not that happy, just change job!

Honestly, I don’t really see the benefit of having unions anymore. I truly believe that the employment market has exploded enough and there is so much competition that employers now have the responsibility to treat their employees right if they want to keep their business running. Would unions really improve anything? As a worker I don’t want to be protected, I want to be recognized for my work and have the possibility of having promotions, getting bonuses and a nice work environment. I believe that if I work well, my protection will be assured by my value as a good employee instead of having a strong union behind me so I can relax when I feel like it.

I understand that unions were necessary a while ago since employers were treating their employees like dogs. But I think that this time is over.

So tell me, do you find any good point of having a union at work?

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I would say that the answer lies in the fact that we prefer buying company that we know, that we can see than company that we can only read about.

People who were home biased for the past 5 years must be laughing since the Canadian Market beat most stock established stock markets and definitely did a lot better than the S&P 500. Most TSX stocks did pretty well along the way and encourage Canadian investors in their choices.

The major problem with this kind of approach is the concentration level into a small market that is highly dependent on resources and financials. The past few weeks was another good example of what happens when we have all our eggs in the same basket.

We have to remember that the Canadian Stock market only represent 3% of the global economy. In addition to that, take off the resources, the financials and RIM and you don’t have much left in the TSX.

Solutions

The first solution would be to sell your losers and start looking South of the border. The US market didn’t do so well since our Canadian dollar increased by 40% over the past 5 years. If we look at what is going on with our dollar this year, we can determine that it probably won’t go over parity and that the time to invest in the US market might be interesting.

Problems are definitely not over in the States but the market took a severe hit and I think it could be the right timing to move a part or your assets toward that market.

If you want to invest in other countries, I would suggest that you use indexes or mutual funds depending on your level of knowledge and involvement in your portfolio. Some people prefer to manage actively their investment. Those should trade ETFs as they show a low MER and offer a great potential of returns.

If you want to smoother the ride but still participate in the global economy, mutual funds could be a good alternative. While their MERs will be around 2%+, they offer a good diversification and take off the pressure of managing your investment on your own.

The key point is not to let everything in the Canadian market. We had some really great years but the party is now over. It’s time to move your money around and get your hand on other countries where they might be ready to start their party

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