Canadian-Money-Advisor.ca BLOG
Your crash course in market investing
Jean Chatzky's five tips to help you overcome your anxiety of the stock market
As an individual who travels the country on the speech circuit, I hear a lot of excuses for why people don't have firm control over their finances. One of the most common excuse is a fear of investing.
I can surely understand why. The stock market just appears way too big for most of us to wrap our heads around - it is certainly not as easy as paying your bills on time or balancing your checkbook, and because there are no certainty -- even people who claim to know which stocks will go up and which stocks will go down are often wrong - it can be pretty scary.
That is why, at some point or another, the market has intrigued most of us. I certanly was, as well as Karen Blumenthal, who admits that even after 2 decades as a Wall Street Journal reporter, she still did not quite get it. So she allows herself through a crash course of sorts. She made a decision that for a full year she was going to follow one of the country's hottest stocks - and then write a book about her experience.
Her pick? Starbucks. Her book? "Grande Expectations." Why made her decide on America's favorite coffee shop as a model? To begin with, the innumerous number chain of stores is hard to avoid, especially in a big city. But Blumenthal says she really decided on the company because of the profit it generated for early investors - those who bought the stock when it went public in 1992 have undergone a gain of about 6,500% on their initial investment.
Of course, she admits, not everyone has that kind of luck. But her experience in the trenches did produce a few lessons that all investors should take to heart when they are ready to dip a toe in the market.
Consider your options
That does not mean you have to walk through each and every stock on the market. Toan Tran, editor of the Morningstar Growth Investor, advise, "Stick inside your circle of competence." One of the most important key is to know the company you're investing in, and that will be a whole lot easier if you choose a business that already makes at least a bit of sense to you. Think retail versus biotech. Then, answer a few questions:
Is the company and its products or services likely to be in demand for a long time? How does the company liken to its competitors? Does the stock's value accurately reflect what its worth?
Research
Study the annual report, which will give you the previous year's earnings summary as well as an overview of the goals they have set for the future.
It will outline how and where they intend to expand (Blumenthal says China is Starbucks top priority), and any new products they plan to launch in the near future. Besides that, another good way to get an inner look at the inner workings of the company is by listening in to investor conference calls that are often re-broadcast over the net. This will give you access to the same set of information the big-timers get.
At the same time, don't believe everything. You cannot rely solely on information straight from the horse's mouth. It would almost be like letting your kid fill out his own report card. To get a weighted view, check out other sources as well. Besides Morningstar, Toan suggests surfing Yahoo! Finance and the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings on www.sec.gov.
VIA MSNBC
Keyword: Stock Investing
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Coming to terms: long-term investing
Q: I have heard an advice that you should invest in stocks for the long term. Just how long is that?
A: For tax purposes, you should aspire to hang on for at least a year and a day, so that any profits qualify for the long-term capital-gains rate, which is currently 15% for most of us. (Short-term gains, from holdings of a year or less, are taxed at your ordinary income rate.)
In general, most investment professionals say you should aspire to hold on for at least several years, if not many years - as long as the company stays healthy and growing, and as long as its stock has not gotten way ahead of itself. Many fortunes have been borne by people who invested in various companies for decades.
The Motley Fool
VIA Qondio
Keyword: Stock investing
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
Tiger Woods and stock trading: Play through
David Berman
More than one observer speculated on the impact Tiger Woods' on-air apology would have on stock trading volumes on Friday morning. While Mr. Woods may not be a market mover along the lines of, say, President Barack Obama or Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, we've heard rumors that golf is a popular pastime among financial types. This hints that trading volumes could have ground to a halt, if only briefly.
This is not so. The Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal has the figures, and they show the apology did not even register. In fact, trading volumes actually increased during Mr. Woods' 15 minutes of apology.
VIA Globe and Mail
Keyword: Stock investing
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast Interview with Barbara Bryn Klare - Part 2
Monty Loree: What age group are you talking about roughly?
Barbara Klare: When you talk about retirement, I think I'll probably be addressing the 40 and up age group. I want to certainly address people who are just about ready to retire, and of course that depends personally for each person, at what age they're going to retire. But I imagine I'll be talking to a lot of people in their late 50s or late 60s, mid 60s.
Monty Loree: I was interested – I saw on your book, you talked about, I think one of the chapters was Saving Yourself Out of Debt.
Barbara Klare: Yes.
Monty Loree: Can you talk about that for a bit? I was kind of intrigued about that.
Barbara Klare: I think that as soon as you put your debt as a priority, as something you want to change and remove from your life, then it makes saving not so hard. My book really talks about saving every day and how you can make even just really small incremental changes. And I don't even mean, say, getting rid of your favorite hot drink or latte, but I have some other tips on how to do that. One of my favorite tips for saving and getting out of debt is rewarding yourself for something that you – a bad behavior you didn't do or a purchase you didn't make, something like that. So if I go down the street and I don't get my usual Scone at Starbucks, then I take that money that I would've spent and set it aside. So I actually reward myself for behavior.
Monty Loree: Excellent. That's good. I think again, this would be a relevant topic for this economy and I think more people have got through years when you start talking about that. They want to know about saving and techniques and so on, something that's really relevant. Another question I've got for you regarding your blog, upsideofmoney.com, what sets your blog different? What sets your blog apart from other financial blogs?
Barbara Klare: So I picked the name, Upside of Money, partly because I'm interested in technical analysis and I watch charting and patterns and trending in the market. So I liked the word ‘upside', most people do. I think you can really, no matter what your financial situation is, you can have a positive feeling about it and be optimistic and upward trending and kind of get yourself into the black. I do try to alert people to the downside, like scams or problems in the personal finance area as well. The other thing is I don't advertise on my blog. It's really an informational site. I don't have ads next to a credit card application, for example. Now I understand there's a lot of issues with that, when people try to monetize and they can't control the content but I think that bloggers out there really need to do a better job at kind of matching their content to the kind of ads they're running as well.
So I think people need to be really aware of that. That's something that I look at when I look at a blog myself. I kind of judge it by that. Yeah, just hoping people would kind of pay attention to that more. The other thing I try to do is I try to educate myself all the time and I try to keep some kind of journalistic standard as high as I can make it, considering I have quick deadlines. But I want to have my blog be based on knowledge and not just anecdotes. I mean I love a lot of the opinion I read out there and stuff, but sometimes I get frustrated when I can't find a source and I don't understand really where someone's getting that information. Let's see, I have graduate training in finance. I'm actually in the middle of another course right now. So I keep learning. I just feel like it's such a complicated subject area that we all need to kind of keep ourselves well-versed in it.
Part 1 of this Interview with Barbara Bryn Klare
Check out all of our personal finance podcasts
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Conversation with Jon Chevreau - Author of Findependence Day - Part 2
Monty Loree: Well, yeah. That was what I feel. I've seen this book all over the place, so it's pretty popular. I like the approach to it because you're talking about an example. I don't know if Jamie and Sheena are people, but I'm sure you based them off of people that you've met with - people you've interacted with your job and people that, you know, from reading they look like kind of real life situations.
You can listen to the podcast with Jon Chevreau here:
Jon Chevreau: Yeah, I mean I suppose some of my family members might be sort of the opposite of Sheena and some people would accuse Jamie of being different versions of myself. But for the most part, they are fictional. One thing I tried to do, that what Diane McCurdy did in her book - Chief Financial Planner in BC - wrote a book called How Much is Enough. She talked about four money personalities: builders, savers, spenders and givers. Basically if you have two savers, that's pretty good. If you have two spenders, that's a recipe for disaster. What's interesting in a novel is to have a conflict, so I have basically Sheena, the woman, being the spender and Jaime the frugal want to be the saver and builder so they have to have the built-in conflict. I've got a joke which is basically a financial harlequin romance.
Monty Loree: Nice. so I was just wondering, who's the demographic? What age group is reading this?
Jon Chevreau: I would say it's the children of the baby boomers, if I had to make a sweeping generalization. It'd be rare if it's a teenager, I suppose. They probably should read it, but I would think they'd be in their 20s, early 20s. The children of the boomers who have - maybe they just started family formation. They're buying their first house, they're thinking about it. Maybe they're getting a child. They're starting to worry about RESPs - Registered Education Savings Plans. They have some inkling that maybe should get an RSP for retirement even though they have seen this ten centuries away when you're in your 20s. Now they've heard all this stuff about the TFSA, the new Tax Free Savings Account. The book was written at the time to include a fair bit of material on the Tax Free Savings Account. So it's basically, that's what I would call it. Just the kids of the boomers who are just getting launched in their own financial lives.
Check out all of our personal finance podcasts
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Minimize Costs When Investing in Mutual Funds
Eric Tyson and Tony Martin
Published on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 1:14PM EST Last updated on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 1:33PM EST
This is the 4th in a series of ten excerpts from Investing for Canadians for Dummies.
When you select a mutual fund, you can use a number of easy, commonsense criteria to greatly increase the chances of your investment succeed. For any specific type of mutual fund (i.e., larger-company, Canadian stock funds), there are a hundred of choices available. The amount that you pay to purchase or sell a fund, as well as the ongoing expenses for the funds operation, can have a big effect on profit that you earn on your investments.
Remember: Fund prices are an important factor in the profit that you earn from a mutual fund because some fees are taken from your investment returns and can attack a fund from many angles. All other things being equal, large fees and other charges lower your returns.
Tip: Stick with funds that sustain low total operating expenses and that do not charge commissions. Both kinds of fees come out of your pocket and lowers your rate of return. A lot of excellent funds can be found at reasonable annual operating expense ratios (less than 2% for stock funds; less than 1% for bond funds).
VIA Globe and Mail
Keyword: Stock Investing
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Recouping Real Estate Transaction Costs
Eric Tyson and Tony Martin
Published on Monday, Feb. 01, 2010 1:19PM EST Last updated on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 1:33PM EST
This is the 5th in a series of ten excerpts from Investing for Canadians for Dummies.
Financially speaking, we greatly advise that you wait to purchase a home until you can vision yourself staying put for a more than 3 years. Ideally, we would like you to think that you have a solid opportunity of staying with the home for 5 or more years. Why? Buying and selling a house cost a lot of money, and you generally need at least 5 years to recover your transaction costs. Some of the expenses you’ll face will include
*Inspection fees: You should not purchase a property without thoroughly inspecting it, so you’ll spend on inspection expenses. Good inspectors can help you identify problems with the heating, plumbing, and electrical systems. They also inspect the foundation, roof, and so on and let you know whether there are termites living in the house.
*Appraisal fee: Your lender may ask you to get your house appraised so that it can have an independent assessment of the home’s price. An appraisal usually costs from $150 to $300 or more.
VIA Globe and Mail
Keyword: Stock Investing
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Deciding on a Mortgage
Eric Tyson and Tony Martin
This is the 6th in a series of ten excerpts from Investing for Canadians for Dummies.
To go for a short- or long-term mortgage? This is an essential decision in the real estate buying process. You need to weigh down the pros and cons of each and decide what is best for your situation before you go out to buy real estate or refinance.
Unfortunately, too many people let their interest rate predict whether they should take a short- or long-term mortgage. For example, those who think interest rates can only surge up find long-term mortgages attractive.
When a lot of people are trying to choose between a short- and long-term mortgage, they focus on how much they can save over the next little while, and then factor in their sense of whether interest rates will surge in the future.
VIA Globe and Mail
Keyword: Stock Investing
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast Interview with Laurel Ostfield - Capital One Canada - Part 1
Monty Loree: Hey folks, this is Monty Loree here from Canadian Money Advisor and I'm pretty excited. Today I've got Laurel Ostfield who is the communications manager over at Capital One Canada. As everybody's seen on my site - if you've been on my site at least once, you see there's Capital One all over the place. They've got good online base products that people can apply to online and they've been good enough to advertise on the site. Hey Laurel, how are you today?
Listen to this Podcast Now
Laurel Ostfield: I'm doing very well Monty, how about you?
Monty Loree: Good. So you're the guys over at Capital One there. In my opinion, there are three basic credit cards that you're offering to Canadians - secured cards, low interest, rewards credit cards. Can you comment on that?
Laurel Ostfield: Sure. So we do have, as you said we've got different types of cards and they're geared towards people with different credit levels. So people who are trying to establish their credit or they need some help improving their credit, we have cards like our Secure Cards. If you're establishing credit, for example, we have a guaranteed Mastercard for newcomers. That one is in particular for people who are new to Canada and maybe haven't had the chance yet to establish credit history and they see different obstacles. So if you don't have credit history, get your first credit card. We do try to tailor our cards to the individual. We do have, like you said low rate cards. We're coming up with our smart line which is a 5.9% interest rate. That is for people with excellent credit. We also have a rewards card that's travel miles, and there's also cash back.
Monty Loree: So let's go back to the secure cards for a minute. So what are the examples? You said people who are just new to Canada. What are some other examples of people who would use that?
Laurel Ostfield: We have that particular one is for those new to Canada. We also have our . That as well can help you establish your credit history. We have a low rate guaranteed secured Mastercard which has lower interest rates than other secured cards.
Monty Loree: I guess what I'm saying is some of the people who wouldn't have credit are students.
Laurel Ostfield: Sure or people who have had trouble with credit in the past and need to start fresh and having trouble securing a credit card. These guaranteed secured cards, what they do is they put some guard rails in place for people who aren't quite sure how to use credit cards. The other thing we do offer is a credit education website called roadtobettercredit.com. I encourage people to go on if they have questions about credit. We'll try to break it down up to the basic level . A lot of people don't understand the terms, they don't understand the language that they get - the terms and agreement from credit card companies. They don't quite understand what it means, so on RoadToBetterCredit.com, we actually try to put that in as plain language as possible so people know how to use credit cards properly. They are an important tool. I'm sure you've mentioned on your site, Monty that you need it to rent an apartment, rent a car, get a mortgage in the future. So what we want to do is find people the product that will allow them to build that credit but don't put them in a position where they're going to get in over their heads.
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Can you get rich with oil and gold?
Eric Tyson and Tony Martin
Published on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 1:03PM EST Last updated on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 1:32PM EST
This is the first in a series of 10 excerpts from Investing for Canadians for Dummies.
During the worldwide economic expansion of the 2000s, oil and other merchandise increased their value significantly. The rise of oil prices (CL-FT77.350.340.44 percent) certainly garnered a lot of headlines when it rised past $100 (U.S.) per barrel. So too did the price of gold (GC-FT1,120.100.300.03 percent) as it rised past $1,000 in 2008, creating a new all-time high. These prices expressed tremendous increases over the past decade, with the price of oil increasing more than 600% (from less than $20 per barrel) and gold more than tripling it’s value (from less than $300 per ounce).
VIA Globe and Mail
Keyword: stock investing
Money Service Menu
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Quantitative Easing and a Contracting Money Supply in the Real Economy
It was decided by the Bank of England not to expand its asset purchasing scheme for another month but with the increasing inflation many fear that the previous schemes in quantitative easing (QE) have increased inflation artificially beyond its target.
These fears do not seem to be unfounded because asset purchasing is exactly what it says on the upfront, it is purchasing assets with a value of X for the value of X. QE was always only created to increase liquidity by exchanging illiquid assets for readies, not to increase the size of the economy.
So why do we see such sharp rises in inflation with less money available the wider economy and, is this the start of a trend for inflation, or is it just a sharp blip but a blip nonetheless?
An increase in the value of oil will have an obvious impact on the price of transporting all commodities both outward and inward and this may be the reason for the broadening of the trade gap and current sharp increases in the values of importing goods but quantitative easing is not responsible here.
So why are we seeing a stiffening and contraction in all aspects of lending?
Well, let’s please not forget the banks are now required to hold more capital, are still suffering from the continuous fall in commercial property values and investments in countries like as Greece and Portugal and if you considered the bank’s exposure to risk through investments in countries hanging on the edge of defaulting on debt it amounts to over 15 percent of GDP and for lenders, that is not an easy amount to soak up.
All of this leads to the banks asking for a more strict lending practices in order to sustain profit by ramming the borrowers, who ranges from businesses to residential property mortgages and credit cards, into the gaping hole in the commercial property and potential foreign sovereign debt default dike.
This credit restriction is to blame for the reduction of the supply of money in the broader economy. This is coupled with the increasing import and travel costs are driving up the values of goods, not quantitative easing through an oversupply of liquidity within the economy.
VIA Economic Voice
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Square's On-the-Go iPhone Credit Card Scanner Will Cost $1
Written by Chris Cameron / February 16, 2010 9:10 AM /
It was reported Monday night by the blog iPhone Alley that Square, the coming mobile credit transaction service that is co-founded by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, will be launch in the early part of this summer for just the low price of $1. Just by plugging a small square card reading device into theheadphone jack of the iPhone, anybody with the device can immediately conduct credit card transactions using the service's iPhone application.
Running credit card transactions usually means opening a special merchant bank account and dealing with various fees. Any bank account will work with Square, and the only bill to incur to use the service is $1 for the card reader accessory and the application; however, Square can afford to give away the dongles because they will be banking 2.9 percent of each transaction. Users can also choose their favorite charity and Square will donate a penny to it from a dividend of each transaction.
Not only could this application be the new best way to pay back a friend who bought your drinks at the bar, but it could also become a killer application for small entrepreneurs. For just a dollar, anyone can have the capacity of a full blown credit card reader on their phone. Small businesses won't have to resort to transacting only in cash, and data entry would be made simple with the service tracking each receipt. Square recently procured an introductory video to familiarize people with the service.
A similar service and device from mophie which is called "marketplace" plans to bring a credit card scanner to their popular line of iPhone cases. Using this device would mean being stuck with a mophie case, and though the price of this device has not been announced, a mophie's case can range from $10 for a basic hard case to $100 for their battery pack cases.
Frequent users might be more accepting of a case implementation like the mophie over a small, easy to lose dongle like Square. Square's website says that the accessory will work with "any device with an audio input jack," which means very likely that the app will work with both the iPod touch and iPad. One question mobile doubtfuls may have for both of these services is how it will function if the device lacks an internet connection or cell signal and can payments be set to be settled at a later time?
VIA ReadWriteWeb
Keyword: Credit cards
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Tips for Investing in a Down Market
Eric Tyson and Tony Martin
Published on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 1:31PM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Feb. 09, 2010 7:29AM EST
This is the final part in a series of 10 excerpts from Investing for Canadians for Dummies.
Identify Your Portfolio’s Problems
Stock market declines can be efficient at quickly exposing problems with your portfolio. For example, when technology stocks fell in the early 2000s, we started receiving questions from investors who had invested on these stocks and wanted to know what they should do with their holdings. Several of these investors kept pondering about how much more their technology stocks were worth at their peak before it declines.
Our advice was to accept the huge risk these investors were clearly undertaking by putting so many eggs in one basket. We also emphasize the dangers of going after a hot sector, and pointed out that what is a hot sector today often becomes tomorrow’s straggler.
In addition to poorly diversed portfolios, a stock market that’s declining can also expose the huge fees you may be paying on your investments. Few investors care about getting hit with fees amounting to, say, 2% annually when they’re making 20% year after year. But after a couple of years of low or negative returns, such huge fees become quite painful and more noticeable.
Avoid Growth Stocks If You Get Queasy Easily
In a sustained stock market decline, the stocks that get whacked the most tend to be the ones that were most overpriced from the period of the previous market rise (bull market). Like fad products such as hula hoops, pet rocks, and Cabbage Patch dolls, in each bull market, specific types of growth stocks, such as biotechnology companies or Internet companies, can be especially hot.
Tune Out Negative, Hyped Media
When the stock market is falling, such as the huge declines seen in latter 2008 and early 2009, subjugating yourself to a daily dose of bad news and adverse opinions about what the next move is makes most investors do the wrong things. When major stock markets are really failing, it’s not uncommon to find people saying something along these lines: “It seems as though the civilized world as we know it is coming to an end.
VIA The Globe and Mail
Keyword: Stock Investing
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Help for choosing the right credit card
Chaya Cooperberg
I'm quite fond to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) and its website, Moneytools.ca, as much as one can be a fan of governmental agencies. The website from FCAC, a regulatory agency created by the federal government, offers up many effective finance tools for the average consumer.
The FCAC said it has brought its credit card selector tool up to date to include fresh information on more than 250 credit cards from 28 different credit card companies. The tool lets you compare the costs, benefits and rewards of most credit cards available in Canada. The interactive tool organize the different products into categories and analyze and compare their conditions, rewards, options and other features in an easy-to-read, side-by-side type of format. Simple tables are also available for downloads to compare different U.S. dollar credit cards, gold and platinum cards, or student credit cards.
If you're looking for a new credit card, make sure you're not tempted by the rewards that several companies offer. Specifically, the "Introductory interest rates on some credit cards may be appealing," FCAC Commissioner Ursula Menke said, "just remember to ask how long these promotional rates last. Most promotional rates end after a set period of time."
Ms. Menke recommends that consumers ask the credit card issuer some important questions before selecting a card.
"Find out which types of transactions are included in the introductory offer. Ask what will be the regular interest rate when the introductory offer expires and if there are any other circumstances that could cause the introductory offer to end. Make certain you understand how your payments will be applied to your balance, and don't forget to ask the card issuer about any fees and other conditions linked to the offer," Ms. Menke says.
VIA Globe and Mail
Keyword: credit cards
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast Interview with Ivon Hughes - LifeAnnuities.com - Part 1
The following personal finance podcast has been brought to you by Canadian Money Advisor. You can find us at www.cma1.ca/1.
Monty Loree: Hey folks this is Monty Loree here from Canadian Money Advisor and I've got Ivon Hughes from hughestrustco.com. Hey Ivon, how are you doing?
Ivon Hughes: Fine, thanks Monty.
Monty Loree: Thanks for being our second podcast interview in the 100 personal finance podcasts for Canadians event. So basically, what's your deal? What are you all about? You're doing life insurance/life annuities?
Ivon Hughes: We're doing life insurance and life annuities. I've been doing them since 1972 actually. We're licensed right across Canada and we sell a lot on the internet. We sell life insurance on the internet, we give life annuities and generally we just mix them up for all our clients.
Monty Loree: I know that, I've seen your website online for a lot of years. It's close to ten years that you've been online.
Ivon Hughes: We first went online in 1998 and it seems very short if you're talking about age but very long if you're talking about the length of time that you're online. We've been sitting here since 1998. We pioneered a few life insurance and about life annuities, how people could buy them, why they should buy them. We let all questions and people generally ask.
Monty Loree: You said you're licensed to deal across Canada?
Ivon Hughes: I'm not licensed, I can't get licensed in the capital provinces because of residential qualifications. But apart from that, we deal with everybody.
Monty Loree: Okay. So I guess that question goes to somebody in Albert or Ontario or BC?
Ivon Hughes: Absolutely.
Monty Loree: They call you up and they want help. Let's talk about life annuities today because that's something that is pretty interesting. I guess the first question that I've got about that is, what age group do people need to start thinking about life annuities. Let's just start right back up to the beginning of what is a life annuity?
Ivon Hughes: A life annuity is basically where you exchange a bunch of money for a guaranteed payment. In other words, let's say the man/woman/couple are 65/68 or whatever and maybe they're fed up with the interest rates going up and down like a yo-yo, the stock market being extremely volatile and they maybe are just fed up with that. Maybe they've got some fixed expenses and they've got a couple of hundred thousand dollars or maybe only $50,000.00. Whatever it is, they exchange that amount of money or the $500.00 or $1,000.00 or $2,000.00 a month. They don't care whether the interest rates go up or down or the stock market goes up or down. They're fixed for life now.
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast Transcript with Tom Drake - CanadianFinanceBlog.com - Part 1
The following personal finance podcast has been brought to you by Canadian Money Advisor. You can find us at www.cma1.ca/1.
Monty Loree: Hey folks! This is Monty Loree here from Canadian-Money-Advisor.ca. As part of our 100 personal finance podcasts for Canadians, I'm interviewing my first Canadian finance blogger. I've got Tom Drake on the phone here. Tom is the owner and writer of CanadianFinanceBlog.com - Hey Tom, how are you doing?
Tom Drake: Good. How are you Monty?
Monty Loree: Good. So thanks for joining me today. We've got lots to talk about and I'm glad because we're both personal finance bloggers in Canada here. I guess the first question I've got for you is, you've been blogging for about a year now. What got you into personal finance blogging?
Listen to the Podcast with Tom Drake Now!
Tom Drake: Well the timing of it, we had a lot of changes coming up. We'd just gotten married in September of 2008 and we knew we wanted to get out of our townhouse and move up to a full sized house and start a family. So we ended up making a move in May, which was probably the low of the market at the time. The timing was good and the interest rates were record great. Then our first baby came in October.
Monty Loree: Well congratulations. You've had a pretty busy year.
Tom Drake: Definitely a busy year. Gave lots of topics for the website and give me a chance to sort of get my ideas written down and make sure that we're doing the best we could between the new mortgage we got and saving money anywhere we could.
Monty Loree: So you said you live in Edmonton. So the real estate is pretty reasonable there?
Tom Drake: I would say reasonable. There's always a chance that it could occur after as well. But it was certainly a good temporary low, modest winter and it's come back up since the summer a bit. We had to make the move eventually, so if it goes lower later on, it may.
Monty Loree: Also I guess for interest rate, why is – this is the time to get into a mortgage, that's for sure.
Tom Drake: Yes, interest rate was great and with my wife now at home taking care of the child, we want to make sure we had a good rate, so we actually did lock it in for 5 years. Before that, I was always a big fan of variable market. It's just the only way to go. [Zero] is a bit different with the rates. We see everyone to make sure we have that for five years in case it suddenly goes back up again.
Interview with Tom Drake CanadianFinanceBlog.com
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Interac's Request to be a For-Profit Organization Rejected
Interac Association, a Canadian organization, received some disappointing news as their bid to be a for-profit organization was rejected by the Competition Bureau. However, it's not all disappointment as the Competition Bureau agreed to changes in Interac's business model (i.e. they could become aprivately incorporated company with more independent directors on its board) to make it more competitive with Visa and Mastercard.
Mark O'Connell, Interac Association's president and CEO said, "It's not the full solution we need but it allows us a step forward. It's a first down, not a touchdown".
The Retail Council of Canada said they appreciate the bureau's decision to weave changes in Interac's business model to be more effective. Diane J. Brisebois, the president and chief executive of RCC said, "It's impossible when the people who sit around your board table are also making deals with Visa and MasterCard at your expense." Furthermore, the chief executive officer of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business also expressed her disappointment with the decision to reject Interac's request. She commented that to suggest that Interac becoming a for-profit organization would be anti-competitive against giant companies like Visa and MasterCard is "laughable".
VIA thestar
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast Interview with Barbara Bryn Klare - Part 1
Monty Loree: Hey folks, this is Monty Loree here from Canadian Money Advisor and I've got an unusual person today. Barbara Bryn Klare is an award winning finance writer based in San Francisco and is the author of The Daily Cash Machine. She writes the personal finance column for the examiner.com based in San Francisco and is an expert in credit, debt saving and investing. Barbara Bryn is an accredited credit counselor with graduate work in finance and technical analysis. Hey Barabara, thanks for joining me in this podcast.
Barbara Klare: Thank you.
Monty Loree: So you said you've been interested in personal finance, in saving, investing, and credit and so on for quite a few years. What encouraged you to start The Upside of Money?
Barbara Klare: Well, I started Upside of Money around the same time as I was writing an ebook on saving every day. That was the summer of '06. My blog is actually still pretty primitive. I'm kind of hoping this year I'll bring it into a full-fledged site. But I started really blogging in earnest when I started my column last year for the examiner.com San Francisco and they work in tandem right now. So that's what I've been doing.
Monty Loree: So the url of your blog is UpsideOfMoney.com?
Barbara Klare: That's right.
Monty Loree: Oh good. And as well, you said you also do some writing at theexaminer.com in San Francisco there. Your book, which I was interested to read about, was The Daily Cash Machine. So you said that you've been online blogging for about three years now?
Barbara Klare: Yes, about three years.
Monty Loree: What subjects do you like to blog about the most?
Barbara Klare: My absolute top two favorites are saving money and investing money - kind of two sides of the same coin. I'm also going to start writing a book about retirement and catching up late, which is sort of my new obsession.
Monty Loree: I'm sure that's pretty relevant in today's economy.
Barbara Klare: I think it's relevant for a lot of people who've been caught by the economy or who haven't had traditional retirement options to them, since a lot of those avenues have been closed lately. I'm talking about pensions and that kind of thing.
Monty Loree: So you're talking about tensions or pensions?
Barbara Klare: In my book, I'm actually going to talk about how to catch up carefully and wisely but somewhat aggressively.
Download the pdf of this interview
Check out all of our personal finance podcasts
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Conversation with Jon Chevreau - Author of Findependence Day - Part 1
The following personal finance podcast with Jon Chevreau has been brought to you by Canadian Money Advisor. You can find us at www.cma1.ca/1.
Monty Loree: Hey folks, this is Monty Loree for Canadian Money Adviser and I'm pretty excited. I've got Jon Chevreau who's the author of Findependence Day and I'm just going to read an intro here. Jonathan Chevreau joined Financial Post in 1993 and took over the personal finance column in 1996 which continued in the Financial Post. He has authored several financial books on mutual funds and stock market including the Wealthy Boomer: Life After Mutual Funds and now a financial novel, Findependence Day which we're going to talk about today. He has a Bachelor of Science and MA in Journalism. What is an MA?
Jon Chevreau: Master of Arts.
Monty Loree: Okay, Master of Arts.
Jon Chevreau: In the University West of Ontario.
Monty Loree: Alright, okay. He blogs at wealthybloomer.ca. He lives with his wife and 17-year old daughter in a paid-for home in Long Beach, Ontario.
Jon Chevreau: It's still paid for, but she's 18 now. She's off to the university.
Monty Loree: The daughter's paid for it?
Jon Chevreau: No, she stopped paying for it. Four more years and she's paid for.
Monty Loree: Well thank you Jon - I appreciate you taking time and I know our visitors are going to enjoy this as well. But your book is FIndependence Day, one couple's turbulent journey to financial independence and it's a story about Jamie and Sheena, looks like in over a 22-year period. So tell me how that got going?
Jon Chevreau: Well I guess it started with the name. I don't know why, I was sort of doodling about, thinking about the American Independence Day and Financial Independence Day. Findependence Day - well that's not a bad title, why don't I write a book to go with it? It turned out that the website is findependenceday.ca where available so I kind of grabbed them off. Actually, originally the concept was to be sort of a non-fiction book like I've written The Wealthy Bloomer: Life After Mutual Funds was non-fiction and the Smart Funds Guy I've written were non-fiction. But I would've been too much like my day job, so I thought it'd be more fun to kind of try what David Chilton did with the Wealthy Barber and numerous other people, like Richard's State of Mind. There’s a lot of people who followed David’s footsteps, of course none of us would’ve sold 3 million copies that the pioneer David did, but we tried.
Check out all of our personal finance podcasts
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast #2 - Tom Drake - CanadianFinanceBlog.com
I had a nice visit with Tom. We talked about a bunch of different topics.
I was interested to learn that he lives in Edmonton with his wife and new child, and that he works at Sobey`s West as a financial analyst for Western Canada.
Tom has been blogging for about taxes, saving money and earning extra money for about a year now. As a matter of fact, he's celebrating his 1 year anniversary with a contest, that I'll describe below.
He likes to blog about how to save money and earn extra income. He mentioned that as he's starting his new life with With his new family situation he`s finding these blogging topics valuable for himself and his readers.
Tom's Tips for Personal Finance.
Personal Finance Tips from Tom Drake
Toms's a big fan of simple investing & getting the emotion out of investing. He likes TD Series Funds... REITs & TSFAs.
I got a sense that because Tom is a financial analyst he is experienced at looking at numbers and working with them...
He talked about the fact that he's going to be starting a form of Smith Manoeuvre soon. According to Tom "This type of Smith Manoeuvre is about making your mortgage tax deductible by paying it off sooner and putting it into investments".. He learned about this technique on MillionDollarJourney.com
Sites Tom Drakes visits:
twitter/canadianfinance
TheFinancialBlogger.com
FinancialHighway.com
Four-Pillars.ca
WiseBread.com
ManVsDebt.com
canadianmoneyforum.com
Contest on the blog. McGraw Hill Books & Pocketsmith Giveaway.
In order to celebrate the first anniversary of CanadianFinanceBlog.com Tom is running a contest. This Contest runs until February 12th. You need to add a comment to the blog post in order to enter.
He's giving away 10 and the titles are as follows:
Make Sure It's Deductible - Evelyn Jacks
The Meltdown Years - Wolfgang Munchau
Understanding Wall Street - Jeffrey B Little & Lucien Rhodes
Winning the Losers Game - Charles D Ellis
Benjamin Graham on Investing - David M Darst
He's also giving away three 1-year Premium PocketSmith Subscriptions!
Visit CanadianFinanceBlog.com's Book & Pocketsmith Giveaway to see the prizes and learn how to enter!
I enjoyed visiting with Tom.. he and I have a few things in common.. I can relate to his job as a financial analyst for sobey's. I was a financial analyst for Continental Can Company and AFG Glass, both in Toronto, many many years ago.. The financial analyst position was something that molded my thinking about personal finance. As such I know that Tom will bring his knowledge and wisdom to his CanadianFinanceBlog.com blog.
I think you'll enjoy this personal finance podcast.
You can also download this podcast on Itunes:
Download the pdf transcript for this interview
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Podcast #1 - Jon Chevreau - Author of Findependence Day
I had a good visit with Jon Chevreau. Jon is the author of Findependence Day, and is also an editor at the Financial Post - You can see his writing at http://www.wealthyboomer.ca
Findependence Day is a 22 year story about a couple named Jamie and Sheena. Jamie is a frugal saver type & self employed & Sheena is an employee and is considered to be the spender type.
Jon talks about Chapter 2 of Findependence Day - Money Money Money (It's a Rich Man's World)
I would summarize this by saving "the best investment is paying off debt - get rid of student loans and credit card debt, before you worry about investing in the stock market."
He also talks about Chapter 4 of Findependence Day - Baby You're a Rich Man
This is summarized by saying "people already have wealth.. you're richer than you think. You've got a great human capital - a great potential which you convert to financial capital over your lifetime.
He talks four money personality types - builders, spenders, savers & givers and gives a good explanation about these personalities.
Jon describes this book as a personal finance harlequin romance.
I asked Jon which personal finance websites he visits. The following are some of the sites: He replied that he visits the following blogs/sites
As of this podcast Jon's got 17,285 followers on Twitter. As part of his job, he hangs out alot on FinancialPost.com.
Some of the blogs he likes to read is CanadianCapitalist.com, FinancialHighway.com and MillionDollarJourney.com.. These are prominent personal finance blogs in Canada.
Jon mentions that he's also active on canadianmoneyforum.com discussion forum.
Jon does alot of interaction on twitter.com for himself and financialpost.com
He likes to use lists to organize his twitter contacts which is a good idea.
Financial Term - Frooger
I asked Jon what the term frooger means... He said that it is a combination of "Guerilla" & "Frugality" - You need to use the frooger mentality to pay off debts and then continue with the frooger mentality to invest your way to wealth.
My favorite quote from this interview: "Be an owner, not a loaner"
I really enjoyed visiting with Jon, and I'm know I'll see him daily on twitter.
You can download this podcast on Itunes:
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
Investorideas.com Energy Commentary on 'U.S. Renewable Energy'
WA, Delta B.C., www.InvestorIdeas.com, a good investor research portal specializing in sector investing including energy that is renewable, natural gas and oil and gas , reported that contributed content by Karl Miller, energy executive , "U.S. Renewable Energy: A Self-Inflicted Crisis in the Making" is becoming one of the highest read articles on this web site.
This article has gained online traction on many energy and finance websites and blogs based on the back link back to the Investorideas.com website.
The article entitled "U.S. Renewable Energy: A Self-Inflicted Crisis in the Making" was first published on the website 2009-06-29, with follow ups in 2009-12.
Mr. Miller predicted many key trends in the energy sector including the big financial problems experienced with a few of the publicly traded ethanol shares and postured in the June 2009 article "the small fact is that for renewables to endure long term, they must be competitive with fossil fuels, mainly natural gas and coal in an economic fashion without government assistance".
via fastpitchnetworking
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Manure creates electricity and makes profit for OTC.BB:GELV
Green Energy Live Inc. by using its inhouse gasification technology, anticipates creating on-site manure to electricity conversion systems to market sale to the country's 1.2 million farmers and ranchers. It is the intention of the company to build on that growth to go after more acquisitions, increase sales and move forward with more development of technology development.
Green Energy Live recently disclosed strong 3rd quarter financial performance for its wholly owned subsidiary, Comanche. Comanche made an eighteen percent increase in revenue and a six percent increase in net income for the 3 months ended 2009-09-30 over the same time frame in '08.
You gotta love it when farmers and ranchers are using their manure to create electricity!! Very ingenious.
BioFuel Energy Corp.
(NASDAQ:BIOF)
BioFuel Energy Corp. is engaged in the manufacturing and sales of ethanol and its co-products (mainly distillers grain), through its two ethanol production facilities in Wood River, Nebraska, and Fairmont, Minnesota.
eOn Communications Corp.
(NASDAQ:EONC)
Another provider of communications solutions. is eOn Communications Corporation (eOn)
via transworldnews
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Don't hammer the U.S. dollar when it's down - Foreign Exchange
It is explained by Mike Baghdady why investors would benefit to hold off on trading the british sterling for the time being and look rather to the mighty u.s. dollar - it's having a rough time. it's at the bottom and now, the only direction is up...
In my thirty three years of trading foreign exchange, I've never seen such plundering around the US dollar.
The downturn that viewed the collapse and near-devastation of some of the world's biggest financial institutions, changed the playing field for all of us.
But just a few months later, the United States Treasury's 430billion pound bail-out is getting repaid and those same financial institutions are reporting huge profits and paying out very large bonuses. Having said that, house foreclosures, the core of the United States economy, have gone to two million since the year 2006, and unemployment is at ten %.
In life of this contradictory information, it's worth to remind ourselves that, despite the pounding it still gets on the markets, it's never a good idea to kick the U.S. dollar when it's down.
via fxstreet
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
My Wife is going in for surgery/cancer
- Money is secondaryI thought I would write this post for all of those people who get on this site and tell people to "pay their bills and stop complaining."
In the last few months, my wife Lisa has found out that she's got a 21cm tumor growing inside her. It's more than likely a large cyst, however, it could be cancer.
In that time I've been pretty freaked about the situation. I'm not ashamed to say it. I haven't been concentrating on my business and this site as much as I normally do.
The worry for my wife's health is huge, and its something that will be there until she has the operation and is recovering nicely. (Thank God for Canada's health system!)
It's at times like these that we some people coming on the site and talking about how they are having problems with collection agencies. They're not paying their bills and are getting hassled by bill collectors.
I'm not in debt, and I don't have bill collectors calling me, but I could see how this type of situation could cause a person to fall into these problems.
My wife has had to quit work in the last month, as she was preparing herself to have the tumor removed. This means that all of the bills fall onto my shoulders to pay. If we needed her income to pay credit cards and other debts then we would be in trouble right at the moment.
I guess I don't need to mention that my wife didn't didn't decide to have this 21cm tumor. It wasn't part of her financial plan to do the surgery and take time off of work.
The Economy is Bad - These things happen
Where as I believe that people should pay their bills as agreed to, bad things still happen to the economy and to individuals.
These days there are hundreds of thousands of lay offs in Canada. People are losing their jobs because of circumstances out of their control.
They may get behind on bill payments. The collectors might call.
The point is... bad things happen to people to hinder them making payments. It always makes me furious to have people come on this site and laugh at others because they fall into rough situations financially.
The people that say "pay your bills and stop complaining" obviously haven't gone through the traumatic experience of losing their job , or having a loved one take sick for a prolonged period.
I know that my wife's health will get better. I have the greatest confidence in the Canadian health system.
In the meantime.. I am going to work a few less hours in the next few weeks, and I am going to stay worried until my wife gets better. I dont' think I'll have any bill collectors calling me, however, It deepens my sympathy for those who are going through rough times in Canada.
Comments (5)
CMA Blog Home
GM loses $9.6 billion - Let's give them more money?I see on money.cnn.com that General Motors lost almost $10 billion in the 4th quarter. Now they've got their hand out asking for more money.
I keep talking about General Motors because as of last year they had 252,000 employees according Time Magazine, and they were bleeding money all year.
You would think that this company would do massive lay offs and plant closures to shed a ton of its costs.
WE FOUGHT AGAINST SOCIALISM IN THE WAR
Growing up in the 60's and 70's I remember a little talk about how we hated Russia's communism, and how we fought in World War's to fight against socialism.
The U.S. and Canada have prided themselves for being free market countries. These days it doesn't seem like it.
1) General Motors is getting social assistance for people to make $40/hour
2) General Motors is still hemorraghing money
3) Where's the incentive to innovate?
1) General Motors is getting social assistance for people to make $40/hour
It's not like we're helping starving people who are going to the food bank.
General Motors employees are making alot of money relative to other workers.
In trying to tighten its belt in the last decade, Canada's federal government has tightened its belt with Employment insurance, & social assistance. People didn't like the added restrictions and cost cutting but they learned to live with it.
Now the government is handing over public money, without much thought, to a company who is paying its employees several times more than minimum wage.
2) General Motors is still hemorrhaging money
General Motors seems to be incapable of cost cutting to a point where they're profitable. Because of their extensive contracts, they're unable to lay off people and close plants. I'm not sure what the reasons are, however, the company is still losing money.
I understand why General Motors would be reluctant to lay off alot of their staff. It's because it costs them so much money to recruit and train people. That's understood.
However, the problem is... they need to shed alot of costs right now. $9.6 billion in the fourth quarter. That's $3.2 billion per month at least that they would need to shed before they started making money.
3) Where's the incentive to innovate?
Necessity is the mother of invention. That's been a strong rule that we've lived by as a country. When the chips are down, or there is a strong need, we get to work and innovate.
Having General Motors receive money like they are is just delaying the problems.
If General Motors and Chrysler declared bankruptcy, that would focus their minds on actual cost cutting and innovation. The amount of pain suffered would be enough to motivate them to do what it takes to make the company profitable again.
I like General Motors.. They make good cars. I am pretty loyal to their brand. They're just not getting the point right now. They need to declare bankruptcy, shed their costs, get motivated again to start making money.
If we keep bailing out this company, it's going to be a socialistic company. I definitely won't buy a car from a company that's owned by the Federal Government!!
Let's talk about this
Comments (2)
CMA Blog Home
Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway's Stock down $4100 in a dayI was curious to look and see what Warren Buffet's stock is doing these days, during the economic crisis.
The 52 week range for NYSE:BRKA is 74,100.00 - 147,000.00 per share. That's a huge fluctuation in value.. not only percentage wise, but also dollar wise.
I guess even the Oracle of Omaha has bad stock years. His company is legendary for investing well, and making money
If you lose $63,000 per share from their highs of $147,000 per share, and you own 1000 shares ... that would be $63,000,000 you would have lost on those 1000 shares.
That's different from General Motors stock which is currently worth $2.18 per share, or $2,180 for 1000 shares !!
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
Comments (2)
CMA Blog Home
If General Motors goes bankrupt,
will you still get warranty?Never in my life time did I think I would have to think of this question.
If the US car companies go bankrupt, that probably releases them from all contracts regarding living up to their warranties. Unless it was a part of the bankruptcy negotiations.
General Motors and Chrysler could walk away from all of their warranty obligations if they declare bankruptcy.. That would leave millions of car owners fending for themselves.
Will this happen? It's not likely, given the Federal Governments propensity to keep helping out the car companies.
By definition General Motors and Chrysler are bankrupt. So... there is a possibility that they will not live up to their warranties in the future.
Answers on How the GM, Chrysler Restructuring Will Affect Your Car
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 17, 2009; 9:00 PM
General Motors and Chrysler delivered their plans for survival today to the White House in order to receive billions of dollars in loans. Here are some answers to questions about how their restructuring could affect what's in your garage.
Q. Will the warranty on my car or truck be affected?
A. The short answer is no. The automakers are obligated to fulfill their end of the contract as long as they remain open for business, said Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com.
General Motors has said several times that it will honor all outstanding warranties in the United States and worldwide as it attempts to stay solvent. At Chrysler, a spokesman said yesterday that the company "stands by its customers."
However, if an automaker did fall into bankruptcy, the fate of consumer warranties would be unclear. Reed said the issue likely would be addressed quickly in that worst-case scenario.
What happens if one of the automakers goes bankrupt?
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
Economic Crisis - Timeshares don't need a bailout? -VIDEOI was watching the bailout stimuls talks on CNBC and CNN.. The congressmen and senators were talking to Tim Geithner...
RANT Part #4 of 4
One of the congressmen mentioned that Florida's economy was in trouble and that the tourism industry was doing badly. One of the things he mentioned was that Timeshares were doing poorly.
TIMESHARES DON'T NEED A BAILOUT
I couldn't believe it as I watched a congressman actually wondering if timeshares could be helped out by the economic stimulus package of $787 billion.
I sat there in wonderment.. This is the mentality of people right at the moment.
For all of the worry and concern about the economy, wouldn't it be prudent to worry about the homeless, putting food on the table, and getting shelter for those who need it.
While timeshares do have something to do with credit... THEY'RE A LUXURY.. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
If the time share industry needs to go bankrupt because they haven't saved enough money and paid down their debt, then so be it.. The consumer isn't there to service the timeshare industry... the timeshare industry is there to service the consumer.
CONGRESSMEN... GET A GRIP ON REALITY.. PLEASE!!
The point is... if congressmen are wondering about what to bailout, and they have such low priority items to talk about, it's not really a wonder that the ecomony is in the toilet.
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Economic Crisis - Elkhart Indiana, MotorHomes, RV's - VIDEOElkhart Indiana was showcased by President Obama visiting their city.
My heart goes out for the people in this city as their unemployment rate is running upwards of 18%.
RANT Part #3
The problem I've got is that their economy is largely based on Motorhomes and RV's manufacturing. Of course, with the credit crisis, their sales of motor homes and RV's are probably very low right now.
These types of products are hugely credit based.. and there probably isn't alot of credit available for RV's at the moment.
NO BAILOUT FOR MOTORHOMES OR RVs PLEASE
Where as it's bad that there is huge unemployment based on the manufacture of these luxury items... I don't think they should receive any stimulus package money. That would be ridiculous in my opinion.
Again, manufacturers are there to service the consumer... if the consumer isn't buying , then the manufacturer needs to do something else. Hopefully the manufacturer has put money aside and paid down their debt so that they can weather this economic storm.. but it doesn't look like they have.
It's painful for the workers to have to retrain, and relearn new skills, however that seems to be the only answer right now. Instead of looking for bailout money to keep jobs making motorhomes... why not use our god given talents and find out what the market does want and then start to manufacture that!!
It's all about supply and demand. Right now the demand for many luxury items have dropped. It's time to rethink the process and find out what consumers all over the world are willing to purchase.
It's easier said than done... however, this was the approach that our founding fathers used when they came to Canada and the U.S., pioneered everything, and made our country great.
Comments (2)
CMA Blog Home
Why Saving is SAVING the economy-VIDEOThis post is in response to money.cnn.com's article titled:
Why saving is killing the economy
RANT Part #2
It makes me furious to think the media and government are giving the consumers heck for saving their money and paying down credit.
Let's get something straight.. retailers are there to service consumers. It's not the other way around.
IMPORTANT: RETAILERS ARE IN BUSINESS TO SERVICE CONSUMERS
Retailers are in business to service the consumer. If retailers declare bankruptcy because of a bad economy, that's their fault... not the consumers. Retailers had ample time and sales to put away cash reserves for themselves to weather a bad economy.
I want to publicly strongly disagree with media and government who are encouraging consumers to spend their money.
I'm encouraging people to become financially healthy again. Save your money, and pay down credit.. FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES.
Don't get bullied into thinking that it's the consumers responsibility to uphold the economy by spending every last cent they've got.
I want to congratulate all of the people who are saving there money and paying down credit during this economic crisis. I think you'll be much better off for doing that.
I also posted my reply on lthe cnn's talk back blog.
This is my reply on CNN
Comments (0)
CMA Blog Home
Economic Stimulus Package won't work - VIDEOIn this video I give my opinion as to why the U.S. and Canadian Stimulus package won't work.
RANT Part #1
I've been watching TV in the last few weeks and found so many things that made me furious.. I just needed to rant a little.
An example I use is about the forefathers who built the country from scratch.
-- Back in 1620 the settlers knelt down on Plymouth Rock and prayed, "Dear Lord, can you give us a nice stimulus package to help us pioneer the U.S. and Canada.
I have nothing but the greatest respect for the people who risked their lives and took the time to pioneer across Canada and the U.S. hundreds of years ago.
These pioneers were resilient, creative, and enduring and did what ever it takes to build the country.
We've lost that resilience as a nation and have become fat and lazy.
FAMILY MAKING $94,000 LOSES THEIR JOB AND HAVE NO CASH RESERVES
I also talk about a family that I saw interviewed on cnn.com. The father loses his well paying job. He's making $94,000 per year.
I feel really bad that the family is having this crisis...
I'm wondering why a family that made this much money needs to go to their families for help because they only have 2 months cash reserve saved up.!! They should be the ones that family come to for help!
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
Capital One Secured credit cards for CanadiansI made this video as I thought It would be pretty informative for those who are looking to build or rebuilt their credit.
SecuredCC.com
CapitalOne Secured Credit Card
Alot of people ask me about how to improve their credit rating on the Canadian-Money-Advisor website
They're applying for a car loan, credit card, or mortgage and they have "bad credit" or even "new credit".
Let's talk about this for a moment
NEW CREDIT
New credit means that you've never had credit that's reported to the Equifax and/or TransUnion credit bureaus before.
This could be because you're a student, just turned 18, or perhaps you've newly immigrated to Canada.
BAD CREDIT
Bad credit means that you've missed a few payments on a credit card, loan or car payment... or maybe even had some dealings with a collection agency
The Capital One secured credit card can help you get started with a new and improved credit rating
Before I continue, let me give you a little information about what a security deposit is:
A security deposit is just that... it gives the creditor security against your loan, and... the amount required will be based on your current credit rating.
---
By giving CapitalOne a security deposit of as little as $75, you have guaranteed acceptance with their secured credit card. This will give you a credit line of up to $750... credit lines of up to $1500 are available based on your credit rating, and higher security deposit.
This means within a very short period of time, your new credit card will start to report to equifax and transunion and start to develop your credit score.
---
In my opinion.. for only $75 ... this is the least expensive credit card that will help you build or rebuild your credit rating.!!
Apply today at: ---SecuredCC.com--- Again... that's SecuredCC.com
Please Note: Capital One Secured Credit Cards are not available to the following:
Individuals who have not been discharged from a bankruptcy
Individuals who live in Quebec, Northwest Territories, Nunavit, or Yukon Territories
Comments (13)
CMA Blog Home
Bankruptcies were up 47% in Canada - December 2008According to bloomberg.com Canadian bankruptcies were up 47% in December 2008 over December 2007.
The total number of bankruptcies in Canada were 8,299 in December
bloomberg.com
Canadian Bankruptcies Jump 47% in December From Year Earlier
By Theophilos Argitis
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian bankruptcies in December jumped 47 percent from a year earlier, as more consumers struggled to pay their bills amid the country’s first recession since 1992.
The number of bankruptcies filed by consumers and businesses in Canada totaled 8,299 in December, compared with 5,659 one year earlier, the country’s bankruptcy superintendent reported on its Web site. Bankruptcies filed by consumers jumped 51 percent to 7,821 in December, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada.
Comments (2)
CMA Blog Home
Canadian Credit delinquencies rising
Deloitte warns -CanadaConsumers are going to get hit at the credit cards, it seems, whether they have good credit or bad!
According to this Financial Post article: Canadian credit-card users could face a wave of credit checks, limit reductions and even account closures as issuers fight against a rise of between 5% and 10% in the delinquency rate.
I'm thinking that what the credit card companies will do is go through a filtering process of who is potentially higher risk credit card holders and then reduce their credit limits, do credit checks accordingly.
It might be worth a phone call to your credit card company and your bank if you're concerned about having your limit lowered on your credit cards.
I had it happen to me in the past... a line of credit was actually shut down because my credit score dropped. My payments were current, and there were no problems with the account at all. The only difference was that I was showing a lower equifax score. (It was probably due to me having 45 inquiries on my credit report. I didn't understand the term credit shopping at the time )
EXAMPLE: If somebody has a credit card with a limit of $20,000 and they're only using $3,500 of that limit on a consistent basis... at the same time their credit score drops ... this might be a situation where the credit card company feels that they are over exposed and may reduce the credit limit down to a limit matching that person's current credit score.
Bottom line, the credit card companies need to make sure that they're not taking too much risk their current clients.
Financial Post
Canadian credit-card users could face a wave of credit checks, limit reductions and even account closures as issuers fight against a rise in the delinquency rate to between 5% and 10% from 4% before ...
Canadian credit-card users could face a wave of credit checks, limit reductions and even account closures as issuers fight against a rise of between 5% and 10% in the delinquency rate.
Consumer debt on credit-cards issued by Canadian banks has soared nearly 40% since 2004 on the back of loosened standards, according to accounting giant and advisory firm Deloitte.
Now, it's delinquencies that are rising. The average loss rate of between 3% and 4% has risen by between 50 and 100 basis points, according to the firm's new report, Uncharted Waters for Credit Issuers, released Tuesday.
Deloitte puts the total value of outstanding consumer debt on credit cards at $80-billion, putting as much as $800-million at risk of write-offs in the next year if issuers "fail to take action immediately.
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
People are saving more - but backwards?I still can't believe it.. consumers are getting heck for saving their money, because it hurts the economy!!
Finally, consumers have gotten it into their heads that they need money saved. They're paying down debt and saving money. This is fantastic in my opinion.
It would have been a little nicer if they had done this during the boom times, however, I guess people start being conservative when the news gets really bad. Better late than never.
I heard a figure that was saying the U.S. population increased their savings by 4% over the last 6 months. This is almost unprecedented in recent history. It's absolutely wonderful... except....
The problem is... all of this money saved isn't going into the economy to boost the businesses and retailers. Businesses rely on consumers spending themselves into the floor to keep afloat each month.
So ... the question is: Should consumers spend their money just to keep retailers afloat?
What's wrong with this picture?
southtownstar.com
By Lauren FitzPatrick on February 2, 2009 3:51 PM
The U. S. Commerce department today released a report about consumer spending and saving in December 2008, and what came out is that Americans are stashing more money than they're spending.
Seems like good news, right?
The New York Times doesn't seem to think so.
Squirreling away money and paying down debt may be good for one family's kitchen-table economics, but the broader economy suffers in the short-term when millions of families do it.
A dollar saved does not circulate through the economy the way a dollar spent does, and these higher savings rates immediately translate into lower revenues and sales for struggling businesses. Still, some economists said the higher saving rate was a natural consequence of America's spendthrift ways.
You can read the whole story here.
It continues to talk about personal savings rates, which dropped to nearly ZERO during the last boom, when folks were tapping their houses for home equity loans, treating their dwellings like ATMs.
Comments (1)
CMA Blog Home
|
Subscribe in a reader
|
|
|
|
|
Enjoy our "What Is This?" articles
• Taxes
• Credit
• Debt
• Bankruptcy
• Credit Repair
• Investing
• Making Money
• Saving Money
• Retirement Planning
|
Comments on our
Blog Posts
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2012-11-13 23:08:19
Cbv Collection Services Problems
same deal,,these criminals sent a bill saying i owe 18,000$..hilarious,,they call me 5x per day..i am taking rogers to court..small claimes..why not y
Comment By:karen cliff
|
2012-11-13 13:18:44
Retail Theft Could Get You Sued
I keep receiving emails and phone calls from people who think they can simply ignore the letters from these Civil Recovery lawyers.
Don't.
They
Comment By:Gerry Laarakker
|
|
|
2012-10-18 08:23:07
Retail Theft Could Get You Sued
Bank statements can be demanded or balloon a day even fail to repay the debts incurred from the varied lenders. The offered amount in such cash untill
Comment By:Spadiatrere
|
|
|
|
|
2012-10-09 12:42:44
Credit Repair Canada 3 Things You Should Know
to , take up a new job. Also, reflect on investing in generating a payday advance loan while using classmates and more, typically the segments. The in
Comment By:WarbabsjamY
|
|
|
2012-09-30 20:03:01
Cbv Collection Services Problems
I had a telus pay as you go phone from 2003 2008 and now cbv collectons is claiming that i owe over 1500 dollars, the last time they called i called
Comment By:marcus
|
2012-09-25 10:19:31
Cbv Collection Services Problems
Had a bogus 'roaming charge' bill from Telus a few years back. Got mad at them and switched providers. It went to CBV. Yes, they are persistent and
Comment By:Scammed
|
2012-09-23 07:37:50
First Canadian Finance Scam Site
While these aforementioned dangers are a cause for legitimate concern, there are other dangers that derive from perceptions that often have no basis i
Comment By:effomicok
|
|
|
2012-09-16 16:42:15
Retail Theft Could Get You Sued
I am sick of all you so called legal counsel, wanting money from me , there was a reason i was stealing the items in the first place, i have no money!
Comment By:a shopplifter
|
|
|
2012-09-13 11:18:04
Car Repossessed Trouble With High Risk Car Loans
Our car loan was with wellsfargo to begin with then transfered to carfinco,. Have never had a problem with them yet and have less than 2 years left on
Comment By:Darlene Fougere
|
2012-09-02 18:27:17
15 Blog Post Articles That Talk About Equifax
obviously like www.canadianmoneyadvisor.ca however you need to test the spelling on several of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling p
Comment By:promotion site
|
2012-08-31 11:32:19
Retail Theft Could Get You Sued
so i went in zellers and i baught bus tickets. then walked around playing with toys, and i was with a friend, we're both adults who like stupid toys.
Comment By:Aj.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Site Menu
|
|
Canadian Credit Cards
|
Best Canadian credit debt Financial Blog
Canada, British Columbia (BC), Alberta (Alta), Saskatchewan (Sask), Manitoba (MB), Ontario (Ont), Quebec (Que), Newfoundland (Nfld), New Brunswick (NB), Nova Scotia (NS), Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.), credit canada, Canadian
|
|