Investing My Way To Financial Freedom

Ages

2009-09-10T08:50:00.001-07:00

It has been ages since my last update... A baby will do that...

I am now back into the swing of thing with school starting again and work continuing to keep me occupied. Some recent news is that we bought a condo! The subject removal is today. It is a three bedroom place with 1800 square feet. We got it for $239500, a pretty good deal for a completely updated place! This will continue to take time away from my blogging until our move in date of October 8.

Summer

2009-08-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Summer has taken me away from the world of the internet! It is strange what happens when you spend time outdoors, you seem to forget your finance blog... I have not forgot about finances just the blog. We have been able to stay very close to our budget this summer. It is a very good thing because last summer things got out of control. Our spending went up and our income went down. This is not a good combination.

This summer spending has remained the same and for the last half of summer income has gone up! This will allow us to pay down our credit card a little faster as well as to start looking seriously at buying a condo. I get a crazy rate of 1.75% because I work at a bank!

The Condo is three bedrooms and about 1200 square feet. The asking price is $239 000 but it has been on the market for over a year. This number may be flexible. It is close to public transportation that will allow me to get all the way downtown in 50 min. This keeps the options open as to where I can find accounting positions once done school.

Passing of a family member...

2009-07-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

I've been out of touch for a while, attending a funeral... Will be back in the swing of things shortly!

Getting back into shape.

2009-06-18T09:35:00.001-07:00

I have started biking a bit again. I now have a little more time in my schedule so that I am able to use my bike instead of my car for transportation. So far this week I have biked home from school once, to work once, and back from work twice! This means I have biked a total of 35KM. It is not much but It is a start.

Our son is growing like a weed. He is smiling a fair bit ever day and is a very happy baby. There was another baby shower recently, our biggest one yet, where we received may gifts. Since we already had a far bit of stuff we retuned many items and got over $200 in gift cards! We will use these to buy things when needed. It will be a great way to reduce costs so that we can continue with our debt repayment.

Speaking of debt repayment, it is going slowly... We have not had the cash flow to be able to pay the VISA down as fast as we have wanted. This month should be a little better as we will finally be getting our child tax benefit and child care benefit. This will include back payments for a total of $700. I will also be getting my bonus from work of around $500. Now it would be nice to put all of this to that VISA but sadly we have a couple of things that need to come first. Our windshield is cracked so we need to pay our $200 deductible. We also need to get an oil change, I should be able to get another free one via mystery shopping, but it does require cash now. We also need some clothing since all of my pants and shorts are falling apart. All of this combined with the two week waiting period for EI that is coming up for the wife's maternity pay will make it so we will be back down to the normal small payment this month of $150.

Visa

2009-06-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

VISA kindly increased my credit limit by another $2,000...

Garden

2009-06-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

We are lucky enough to have access to a large garden that is shared with many people from our church. We all pout in about $25 for seeds and commit one day every two weeks for gardening. Five or six couples are involved in this and the garden produces enough vegetables for us and our families. All of the food is grown organically with no pesticides or fertilizers.

I figure that we will save about $25/week in groceries once the crop is ready to harvest. Just a little bit of time and effort gives us a chance to build a community as well as save some money.

Went Camping this weekend

2009-06-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

The first time out camping this year was a blast! We were with a larger group of people that we enjoy hanging out with. On Saturday we went for a short hike that included over 200 stairs! At the bottom of the stairs there is a nice set of rapids to relax by. A couple of us decided to go swimming! Yup it was very very cold, snow runoff will do that...

This week I am back to a crazy school schedule again, another midterm and some large projects are really taking their toll. My accelerated accounting class will be done in a couple of weeks, this will make my life a lot less stressful. We have been very good at sticking to our budgets recently, vary little going out and making great tasting low cost meals at home! Our $100 a week budget for food and entertainment has allowed us to go out a couple of times and we were able to save up for this camping trip!

Unlike last summer we will not be increasing our weekly budget to $200 due to our tight financial situation and our drive to pay off the VISA card. It is now at $3700 down from a high of $6200 in January.

I have now transferred a total of $40 with TD's Simply save to my TFSA.

A Job

2009-06-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

I should be complete my BBA come Christmas. I am not sure what I will be doing after this point, jobs at accounting firms are becoming hard to come by and TD is starting to look more promising. I had my Mid Year Review the other day and we discussed my future at TD. They would really like me to a sales position with the bank, this job would start just under $40,000 a year not including bonuses. Bonuses could range from $2,000 to $8,000 a year depending on branch sales and my individual performance. Some other perks I get with any job at TD are free banking, no fee mutual funds, a pension plan, and discounts on loans/mortgages.

If I got an entry level job with an accounting firm I would start off around $35,000. I am not sure what the bonus structure is at accounting firms. Being an accountant I will have a multitude of options to further my career without limiting myself to the banking industry.

It is a hard decision to make and I know that both will allow me to make a decent living. For now I will continue to do some extra training at TD when it is offered to me. At the end of summer I may get my mutual fund certification! Hopefully by fall I will have a better Idea of what I want out of my career.

TD Earnings

2009-05-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

The company I work for, TD, released its earnings today. Net income dropped by $234 million compared to this quarter last year. The drop can be attributed to the slowing economy as well as increased loss provisions. The increase in loss provisions lowers the net income of TD. TD is still a very healthy bank with just over 10% of tier 1 capital. Tier 1 capital is essentially the hard capital that is held in reserve. This reserve allows TD to cover any unexpected losses from a turbulent financial market.

The key figure I care about from any TD report is the dividend. This quarter TD will be issuing a dividend of $0.61 per common share. This is unchanged from the last two quarters. Since I own TD shares from my employee stock plan I am quite happy with the continued and steady dividend. The Dividend is set to automatically reinvest into TD stock upon payment, this way I get a 1% discount on the TD stock price!

A little update on my TD Simply Save. I use my debit card a lot! I have tried to cut back the number of uses so I do not spend as much money. It is harder to buy a $1.50 coffee when you know $2.50 will come out of your account. I have transferred $19 since last Thursday! This is all put into my TFSA where I earn a whipping 1%. When there is a more substantial amount in this account I will buy some TFSA mutual funds.

The weekend is here!

2009-05-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

That day has finally come, I have a saturday off work. I actually have a weekend. Sadly all of my free time is going towards school work and cleaning our house. These things need to get done.

I have just set up my Simply Save service with TD Canada Trust. You will be hearing about this starting next week. It is a program that transfers $0.50-$5.00 into your savings account every time you use your debit card! I have elected to do $1.00. To kick off this new program TD is going to give you $10 for every $100 that you transfer with simply save. The promotion caps at $200 over the next year that TD will give you. I think it is a fun tool that will help many people to save incrementally without having to think about it. You can use the program to snowflake many accounts with multiple simply saves!

The Coming Week

2009-05-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

This week is looking to be very busy. My work is having a baby shower for our son tomorrow night, after the shower I will be visiting with my Mom who is visiting form out of town. I also have shifts at work wed, thurs, and fri. Then on saturday my sister comes in from out of town to see her nephew. She will be staying two nights and will be attending another baby show that is put on by one of our friends on sunday night!

Needless to say this on top of my three classes and a baby will completely fill up my time, busyness seems to always happen in spring!

Taxes

2009-05-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

A comment on my previous post asked how I have got into doing taxes, and where I learned the skills to do so. Other than my courses that I have taken towards my BBA in accounting I have some work experience that has helped me tremendously in figuring out how to do taxes.

I worked for Intuit in their QuickTax support team. This gave me a great base of knowledge about how the Canadian tax code works as well as the computer skills needed to complete tax returns. For 90% of people these are surprisingly easy and you can do it yourself with QuickTax Online.

Because I am a small tax preparer I use this software to complete the returns I do for others. It costs me only $13.00 per return that I complete. If i were to use the professional version called profile it would cost $25.00 per return until I have done enough returns to cover the $400.00 cost of the software. In other words I will need 31 clients to recover break even on cost with the professional version.

The best thing about using quicktax online is that you do not need to pay until you want to file your return! Give it a try at www.quicktax.ca. Or you can contact me to do your next Canadian tax return. It is never too late to file, failing to file your return is against the law.

canadianfinanceguy at gmail dot com

Tax Returns

2009-05-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

This tax year I have been helping others do their tax returns. This has turned out to be very lucrative for the amount of time that I have put in. I charged $33 per return completed and my costs for the software was $13 per return. Each tax return too about 20 minutes to complete. This tax season I completed 9 returns for a total profit of $180 for about three hours of work. I know my rates are crazy low so next year I will have a proper business plan along with business cards. This will be accompanied with a new fee of $40 per return.

I will be attempting to line up clients throughout the year in order to get the maximum number of returns in. I am hoping to get 50 people signed up, this will give me just over $1300 in my pocket less taxes. This client base will also allow me to offer financial advice to assist people in getting out of debt. I have been working on this for a long time and I believe I can offer assistance to people i order to live their lives in a financially responsible way.

Low Interest Rates

2009-05-03T05:57:00.001-07:00

If you are buried in high interest debt you should be looking into different debt instruments in order to speed the debt repayment process and to reduce your cost. Some departments store credit cards have interest rates up to 29%. This is outrageous! Most traditional credit cards have a interest rate around 19%, still outrageous. There are a variety of low interest cards out there that have decent rates around 10%. Or if you have a good credit score you can get a line of credit with rates as low as 5%.

I have made a chart on how much money you could save by changing your funds to lower interest debt instruments. This exaple is if you have $10,000 in debt and you want to pay it off in five years.

It is crazy to see how much money you are throwing away by keeping balanced on the high interest cards, why not transfer the balance to low interest cards or other low interest debt tools.

Home

2009-04-28T15:26:00.001-07:00

Everything is going well with our son. He is healthy and growing! My parents visited us fort he weekend and helped out a fair bit. They also bought us diapers and some toys. THe diapers will save us around $100 is expenses over the next two months. It is very helpful when family members give cash and items that you will be going through such as diapers and wipes. All of the larger stuff gan be bought on craigslist for a fraction of the price so I kinda feel bad when someone buys something new for $60 when you could have got it for $10, but everything helps.

My parents also finally got the contact information for someone who was calling relentlessly from Wells Fargo. This made me a little worried that there was an outstanding debt that I was not aware of. I talked to them today and all they wanted to do was offer me a $10,000 unsecured line of credit! Like I need more debt...

Baby

2009-04-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

On monday April 20th we had our baby! We just got home today as the baby was delivered by c-section. I should be back posting shortly>>>

Quick Trip

2009-04-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

We had a quick trip to the hospital the other night. The contractions were getting worse and closer together for my wife. We arrived at 11PM and after being checked out the midwife thought that it would be a good idea to stick around for a while to see if anything changes over the next four hours. ... Nothing changed.... We came back home very tired. I know it will happen soon but the excitement is making it very hard to be patient.

I have been very bad at entering information into my personal finance program recently. Once I get my AMEX bill I will be able to enter all of the data from last month. I will then post a update. I am looking forward to my net worth increasing dramatically since the beginning of January. This is for the sole reason of a large tax return.

We are in the process of re budgeting everything in order to accommodate the baby and the increased costs and income associated with the little one.

Late

2009-04-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Well the baby is officially late. This is not surprise as it is our first. The due date was yesterday and there was no birthing happening. I am okay with this as it gives us a little more time to get prepared, I still have to clean some more...

We went out for Indian food in Langley last night. Since we have moved back from London we have not found an Indian restaurant that we really like, but this one looks like it could be our regular Indian food place. The prices are great, we both ate for $25 including the tip! We only drank water to keep the tab down.

I have my last class of school today. Thank goodness I only have three final exams to worry about.

Easter Weekend

2009-04-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

With classes just about over and all of my major projects handed in I will actually be able to enjoy this weekend! I have today off to just sit and relax. Tomorrow I have a short shift at the bank and then in the evening we are off to the in laws for turkey dinner! Sunday will be another day of relaxation... and then monday it is back to work for me.

These are the plans as of now. Anything can change at a moments notice as my wife is due to have our baby on monday. As you know the babies are never predictable as to when they arrive. This will be our first child and we are both very excited.

We have been hitting craigslist for the majority of our baby needs. This has saved us thousands of dollars. From the crib we got for $50 to the bags of clothing for $5. If you are not picky about what you want colour wise then craigslist is the way to go. We have also received allot of gifts from friends and family. Baby showers are great fundraisers.

Mutual Funds

2009-03-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

I hold some mutual funds that I have had for around eight years. They have preformed fairly well up until this latest little downturn. The overall value of the mutual funds has now dropped just below my average cost per unit. I used this opportunity to transfer the mutual fund into the new tax free savings account (TFSA). This way I will be able to receive all of my dividends and increase in value on the account with no tax implications!

Since I made the change to the new account two weeks ago my mutual funds have increased five percent in value. It makes me happy to know that I will be able to keep all of that increased value if I choose to sell. I have also decided that while I am in school I will be putting $50 a month into this account in order to get some extra money socked away for the purchase of a house.

We have been looking at condo's or small houses in the 2-300,000 range. This will get us a decent size three bedroom home. It is a nice goal to look forward to and it motivates me even more to finish school and to find a job.

Car Insurance

2009-03-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a change in our driving habits, my wife is not working anymore, we were able to reduce our car insurance from 1700 per year to 1550. This is great news! We will be able to put a little more on that credit card. In other credit card news I have been able to get a rate of 3.99% on the $3500 balance until the end of August. This will allow the money that we put on the card to be applied to the principle rather than it being sucked up by interest.

Tax Refund

2009-03-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yay! We received our tax refunds in the mail! I will be putting them in the bank and then transferring them directly to our credit card. The $2,700 will go towards paying that crazy card off as well as paying for our $1,700 car insurance bill that is due at the end of this week.

I am a bad blogger

2009-03-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

It has been many days since the last update. School is taking over my life...

I am getting just over $2400 from my tax return this year. This cover my car insurance of $1700 that is due at the end of the month. I pay the entire year just to get it out of the way. The rest of the money goes to the visa. It has been slow going paying this thing down since my wife has been on medical leave due to pregnancy and no EI cheques have come in yet. They are saying that we will be getting back paid when the money comes in by the end of the month. It looks like we will be getting $399 a week from this, thus our budget is going to need to be followed very closely if we are going to survive.

I should be getting more hours in the second half of summer as I will only be in two classes for July and August. May and June I will be in three classes one of which is accelerated.

And Yay for the Canadian Dollar recovering a bit and the TSX going up up and up last week!

It is laundry day!

2009-03-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

Yay today is laundry day... It is a good way to kill a couple of hours if you are bored... Too bad I am not bored. I wish I was bored so that I could actually be excited for this.

Coping.

2009-03-03T06:59:00.000-08:00

I have entered everything that I need to get done for school into my iCal. This lets be visually map out what I will be working on and when it needs to get done by. This system works well for me so that I am able to accomplish small goals in short periods of time. this also seems to give me more free time because when I am done the task alloted I no longer need to think about what I need to do next, I can just relax!

On another note Apple just released a new mac Mini and new pricing for its iMac line today. It is really tempting to get one of these... Only if I did not have all of this debt I would be able to use the tax refund to get myself a flashy new desktop...

Stressed out.

2009-02-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

I am getting very stressed with all of the thing on my plate at the moment. Shool projects are piling up, we are getting ready for our first baby, and I am keeping 15-20 hours a week at work. I have found that biking has reduced the stress slightly but I think I am still on the way to burnout.

The blog has fallen to the backburner, but it is also a good form of stress relief for myself.

My aunt and uncle from Edmonton are coming down to visit next weekend. We should be going out for coffee with them next friday night after work.

Good news on the finace front, I was able to pay $800 on the VISA card!

Reading Break

2009-02-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

It has been a nice reading break, sadly all good things must come to an end. I am now back to writing another paper...

I am looking forward to putting $800 on my VISA this month! It is going to be great! Sadly this will be the last large payment I will be able to make until my tax return comes to me. It is looking to be around $2600. I would love to put all of it onto VISA but our car insurance renewal is due soon so that will eat up $1700 of the return. At least $900 is another good dent in the debt area. So in the next two months that is $1700 gone off the credit card! It feels good.

Nice weekend.

2009-02-17T09:15:00.001-08:00

We had a great time in Seattle! It did not rain on us so we were able to enjoy many of the sights. We walked around the Seattle Center area for a while. There are many attractions in this area including the Space Needle. We did not pay to go into any of them as we thought they were a little pricy for what we can afford at the moment.

That evening we went to our hotel that was paid for with AirMiles. We went out for supper at a restaurant that was just down the block. The hotel had a pool so we took a dip and then went back to our room to watch movies!

The next day we went to Pike Market. This is a great market with many interesting stalls for those shopaholics out there. We got on a harbor cruise for half price so it was only $17 for the both of us. Then it was time for the drive home...

I will have some photos up soon.

Another week another paper.

2009-02-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

This is the life of a student. Every new week brings new and exciting papers. For example this week I need to write a ten page one on the ethical behavior of hedge funds! It is riveting. I also have a staff meeting at the bank tomorrow night that will take a good chunk of my study time away.

I have been neglecting putting information into my finance software so I am not sure how I stand and the moment. I know that I have not been going over budget so there is no need to panic. I just am feeling lost as I am not sure how much debt I have paid down.

I have also been buying lunch way too often and have come up with a plan to make me stop. I am going to pay myself to not buy a lunch. Every day that I go without buying a lunch at school or work I will transfer $5 from my account to a new ING account. This way I will be able to visually see how much I was wasting before and how much extra I can put towards debt.

Another goal I have set for myself that I must accomplish by the end of the month is to increase my readership. I have not made an effort to increase readership in any major way since I started a year ago and it has slowly grown. I will be adding a bunch of pages to my blogroll in hopes that they will do the same. This should not be too hard as I already read 20 to 30 personal finance blogs.

Stats

2009-02-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here bored out of my mind in my stats class. Why do they put first year math programs in the third year of a business degree program is beyond me. Chances are I will survive but it just seems like a waste of time...

I have 3 major papers due in the next two weeks so life will be getting a little stressful. For Valentines day my wife and I are going to Seattle. We have Airmiles points to cover the hotel and gas will only be $30, gotta love a fuel efficient car. We are going to go to the Pike Market to see the fish throwing. Do any of you have any suggestions for some other free/cheap things to do?

Apple's New iLife

2009-02-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

I have recently received a copy of the new iLife 09 for the Mac and I thought I would share my experiences with the software. I have not had the time to play with all of the programs as of yet. I have had the chance to spend allot of time with iPhoto. There are three new features that come with this version of iPhoto.

New Slideshows

Apple as added themes to the slideshow feature that allows you to pick from six different options. They also addressed an issue where you could not select more than one song to pay for the show. You are now able to make playlists and the slide duration to make sure the show is the same length as the music. Once you have selected the options you want for your show you can then export it to a video that can be played in your iPhone, iTouch, iPod or any computer.

Here is a sample slideshow that I created from 22 photos take in Brighton, UK.

Places

The new places feature takes your Geo Tagged photos and puts them on a map for you visually see where you have been. The iPhone automatically Geo Tags your photos same with may other smart phones with GPS such as the Blackberry 8900. If you do not have any photos that have this information embedded in them you are still able to manually tell iPhoto where the photo was taken. I love this feature, it looks incredibly cool with little pins everywhere your photos were taken.

Faces

iPhoto now has built in face recognition software. The program will automatically detect all of the Faces in your photos and then it will allow you to name that person. Once the person is named iPhoto will then figure out where that person appears in other photos. This is fairly accurate, the more times a person is tagged the smarter iPhoto gets. It is a really easy way to find all of your "People" pictures. This is also used in the slideshows to make sure a persons face is not cut off.

These improvements to iPhoto have made it easier to organize my photos. Now I am able to search many different ways to ensure that I can snag the photo I want out of the 30,000 that I have.

Hope you liked my review/summary of iPhoto. I will be using iMovie in the future and will be doing a review on that as well.

More Snow

2009-01-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

It is snowing here again. I would not mid the snow as long as it did not make people drive like idiots. There are some people going 30km/hr on the highway and some people going 120km/hr. Crazyness!!

Mutual fund statement

2009-01-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

I just received my Mutual Fund Statement in the mail. I knew how bad it was because I keep track of the price in my personal finance software. It is still depressing to get the actual statement that kindly summarizes 12 months worth of losses. The funds that I have lost me a total of 24.51% over the last 12 months and 10.94% in just the last quarter. I think I am going to take this opportunity to move the funds into the new Tax Free Savings Account. Since I purchases the mutual funds back in 2003 my annualized gains are just under 4%. This sudden drop will make it so that I will not have to pay much in capital gains and any movement after this will be tax free.

Does this sound like a good idea?

Change in Government

2009-01-21T08:55:00.000-08:00

I had the opportunity to watch the entire ceremony yesterday. I am excited about the changes that will be happening with our neighbor to the south. With Barack Obama in power he has already started making changes that need to happen.

In the world of my personal finance I just received the last pice of information needed to complete my December net worth report. It is not a good month... That is to be expected with Christmas gifts and traveling to Edmonton.

The interest rate in Canada fell again yesterday. The prime lending rate is now 1% the lowest in history. The banks followed the lower interest rate by adjusting their prime to 3%. This makes looking for a condo even more attractive. I know that we cannot afford to buy anything at this point but it makes me want to pay off our debt even faster so that we can start saving for a down payment.

A new networking website.

2009-01-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

social network

Check it out.

Photos

2009-01-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from my trip to Jasper. We went for a walk in the snow and ice then went to Jasper Park Lodge to have some coffee and warm up.

I an just starting to do my takes with the little bit of information I have from pay stubs and it looks like we will be getting over$2,500 back!!!! Looks like our good old credit card debt will be nocked down a fair bit!

Update from the Holidays

2009-01-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

I had a great time visiting my family in Edmonton over the holidays. The weather was great for skiing and very cold the rest of the time. It is the prairies so the cold was to be expected.

There were some unexpected costs that came up such as a fee to change our flights because we checked in 2 minuets too late... We also had to purchase some gifts that we did not budget for. Overall we should be okay financially but it still sucks when you end up having less than expected.

I am back in school today, yesterday was canceled due to snow. I will only be in five classes this semester so I should have some more time to blog and play with the new iPhoto and iMovie that are coming out at the end of the month.

How were your holidays?

Stock Update

2009-01-03T22:33:00.001-08:00

I received a suggestion to do an update o my green energy stocks. I will get around to this in a couple of days. We are just getting settled back in to our routines and I will have an update on life early next week.

Early Christmas gift

2008-12-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

My Mom called yesterday and offered to fly us out to Edmonton. This is great news that will save us over 20 hours of driving! We fly out tomorrow morning at 7AM.
I am preparing myself for the minus 25 weather......
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

The weather

2008-12-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

Looks like it will be a fun drive to alberta... It snowed about half a foot yesterday and it is going to be cold for a couple of days so it will not be melting. I have to bike to work this afternoon, we will see if I survive.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

No credit Christmas.

2008-12-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

My wife and I made it a goal to not use any credit cards this year or if we do use them (for online purchases) we must put the money on immediately. This is making our budget very tight at the moment due to a fair bit of cash being spent on gifts. We will make it through this season without going into any more debt. We will not make it through with decreasing our debt.

I am looking forward to January when our VISA statement will not be any higher than it was this month and we can continue on our debt reduction process.

Have any of you readers decided to to the same?

We are leaving for Alberta friday morning so I am not sure how often I will be able to update next week with being on the road but the Blackberry should allow me to send some short updates.

New phone

2008-12-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Our contract with Rogers was up this weekend so we decided to get new phones! There are no deals for regular phones so we are now BlackBerry users. This means that I can now send regular updates to the blog. They may be short ones but it will still be fun.

Police Gear

2008-12-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

This is a paid advertisement.

Are you a fan of police gear? Do you have an interest in high tech spying gadgets? If you do then check out LA police gear for a wide rage of real gear that the police actually use. They have some amazing sales on for the Christmas season like Blackhawk CQC Holsters that are only $45! The site has an easy to use customer service function where you are able to chat with a representative that will help you with your purchase. This level of customer care will make your online shopping experience a joy.

Be sure to get your Christmas order in soon! You only have a day or so left so that it can make it in time for the holidays!!!

Exams are complete!

2008-12-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

As of saturday ad 12 noon I was finished this semester. With the last ECON exam out of the way I now have time to sit back relax and get ready for Christmas. We are driving to Edmonton on Friday this week and will be there until Wednesday. From Edmonton we will be in Jasper skiing for a couple of days then back home. I am really looking forward to this time with my family.

On the money side of things we are well within our budget for Christmas. This is a good feeling as none of it is on Credit Cards, a big change from previous years. I also received a raise from the Bank! Yup, I got 0.48 an hour raise! I will be getting another one in January as I change positions and take on more responsibility. I also received a $60 bonus, this is very low compared to previous bonuses that my co-workers have received in the past. Gotta love the poor economy in the banking world.

Cash Flow for November

2008-12-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

It is finally done! I have received all of the information I need to complete the cash flow statement for november. It is split into two parts for you to look at. Some things that my need to be explained are:

Bank Charges - This amount includes the insurance protection on all of my credit card products
Groceries - We went way over this month our budget is $100/ week plus $120 for a once a month US shopping spree. It should be less than $520...
Dining - This should be part of our general food budget but we spent allot extra here as well...

Any suggestions for December?

ECON

2008-12-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

My first final exam is complete! The Economics Exam was easy, it is a first year class and I am in my third year of my degree... The ECON class I took in Alberta did not transfer so I needed to go back and take another two ECON classes. I now only have four to go. The next one will be tough, it is Intermediate accounting. This will be the hardest exam of the five and I really hope I do well.

I am still waiting for some bank statements to complete my financial position for last month. It looks like our new worth went up around $800-1000. December should will not be as good but every little bit on the road to being Credit Card Debt free helps!

Done! - Now it is time to think about...

2008-11-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

The paper is done and handed in! I now have some time to myself before I need to start studying for examinations! I will use the time to write up our budget for next month. The month will be a costly one as it is the season to spend. We have been able to draw names for most of our families in order to reduce the number of gifts. This is great for the pocketbook. We will also be driving to Edmonton for a week. Because gas is now half as much as it was in summer the trip will not cost us much at all.

I will post our budget here so that you can see how we live and where we will be spending our money!

My goal next month will be to pay down our Credit Card another $500 thus reducing the interest cost by just over $8 a month.

Procrastinating...

2008-11-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

I do not want to write this paper that is due tomorrow morning at 10AM...

I am now telling myself to suck it up.

The Home Stretch

2008-11-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

This is the final week of classes and I only have one paper to go! I am really looking forward to the end of this term so I can have more time around the house and some extra hours at work. The extra money from work will help us with Christmas gifts as well as the drive out to Edmonton.

Last weekend I went a way on a retreat with some friends from church up to a cabin in the mountains. There were about 20 of us there and we all just relaxed and played games! The were not simple games like Monopoly but we all enjoy German board games. For those who do not know what I mean check out boardgamegeek.com to see some of the best games that are out there!

My wife and I have decided that we will only be spending $50 on each other. This is a great feeling as we really do not need anything and it will allow us to nock some money off of our credit card. For the month of November we should be able to put $500 on top of interest towards the card. We need to get this down as soon as possible because it is sucking so much money away from us!

If you are heading to Europe anytime soon check out BMI for discount flights that leave from Heathrow!

Mid Term

2008-11-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

I am finally finished my last mid term! I know there are only two weeks of school left but my instructor thinks that this is a good way to examine his students. I am now on the home stretch with finals starting December 4th!

In my financial life I have been able to participate in two company savings plans. The first is a plan where there are no management fees on mutual funds. I have been putting $30 per pay into this. Sadly the funds are going down but that is to be expected. The second program is an employee ownership program. Here they will mach my contributions dollar for dollar up to $250 per year and then 50% after that. This is all in TD stock. I am putting $15 into this one.

I have also been able to pay down some credit card debt, not near as much as I have hoped but is tis some...

Zi6

2008-11-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

I went to the states the other day and picked up my video camera! It is a great little thing, the video quality is pretty good! The limitations of the digital only zoom and grainy video in low light are not as bad as I originally thought. Someday I will put some video up on the blog for you to see for yourself.

The reason go getting the camera is so that I can save some memories that will begin in April when my wife will give birth to our first child!

Survey

2008-11-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

A slight setback

2008-11-10T15:43:00.001-08:00

Winter is coming! It is not really a surprise. Our honda Fit is needing some tires that will let us drive in the winter months, especially since we are driving to Edmonton for the holidays. This will cost us $266 for 4 winter tires. We get a good deal because the father in law works at a garage. It could have been much worse...

Work Boots

2008-11-09T18:26:00.001-08:00

When working in m just about any manual labour job a sturdy work boot is needed. The work boot is intended to protect your feet from being injured while on the job. In the Netherlands clogs are still an official work boot and they are still worn by many workers! In North America a person needs a certified boot.A website that provides a wide selection of work boots is Work Boots USA. Here you can find the steel toed work boot that you will need on the job. They have steel toed and waterproof boots that will fit just about any workers need. Be sure to check with your employer about company reimbursement programs for your required footwear. One of my previous employers had a program that reimbursed up to $150 per year to cover the cost of certified boots. All I needed to do was to bring the receipt for the boots to my manager and then the reimbursement would be added to my paycheck. I don't think I would get reimbursed for buying clogs...

Zi6

2008-11-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

This month I had my birthday and my parents kindly gave me some cash to buy a video camera. The $300 will allow me to purchase the new Zi6 from Kodak. It is released in the USA and should be released in Canada very soon. This is a pocket camera that shoots HD video and it is only $179USD! The camera does not have an image stabilizer or any other fancy features but hey it is only 179 bucks! With the cost of any other HD camera sitting at around $900 I think I will be very happy with my decision.

The one drawback is that I will need to buy an external Hard Drive to store all of this Video...

Charity

2008-10-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

Back when I first started this blog I did a list of some of my favorite charities. I have recently come across another one that I found interesting. It is called DonorsChoose.org. The purpose of the charity is to help teachers in the United States to get some extra funding for their classroom. Check it out with the link below!

I am done!

2008-10-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

I will be taking today to do some much needed cleaning around the house as I have been neglecting everything around home to get ready for the mid terms. I work tomorrow for 8 hours and Saturday for 5 hours. Sunday will be a good old day of rest and then it is back to the daily grind...

My wife has not been working s much as expected so our debt repayment plan is not going as well as expected. We are also needing to buy some winter tires for our car that is going to set us back $200. Other than that we will nock $300 off the credit card this month and $1000 next month.

I have decided not to take 6 classes next semester as I am slowly killing myself. I will take 5 classes and keep my work the same at 15 hours a week. In the summer I will try to take three classes and find a job at an accounting firm to get some work experience as well as get my foot in the door. I am hearing that out here in the Fraser Valley many firm are not hiring. Many people are needing to go to Vancouver, Calgary or Edmonton.

Regular Posting

2008-10-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

My exams are finished on wednesday this week so I should be back to regular posting soon. Here is a short vidoe on the Zenn Car to tide you over.

Thanksgiving.

2008-10-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Here in Canada it is Thanksgiving! That means I get a day off, and boy do I need it. It has also given me some time to take a look at the stock market. The US market is up today, let us hope that it lasts all day...

I have also poked around some stocks in the banking sector and if you are the type that likes to receive dividends the then you NEED to take a look at the European banks. Some of them have yields as high at 15%. With a simple DRIP you could potentially make a killing even if the stock stayed the same!

Paying Down Debt

2008-10-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

With the interest free status of my student loan in place I can focus all of my efforts on my stupid credit card debt. The $545/month that was going to the student loans will now be going to my visa. This along with any other money I have. I am hoping that on average I will be able to put $1500 every month towards the VISA. I will be able to do this for six months, or a total of $9000. Since my card is at a stupid high of $10,550 I will be a little short, this is where the tax return will come to my rescue! I am estimating a $2000 return this year due to my education credit and student loan interest deductions.

After paying off the VISA I will lower my credit limit from $17,000 to $5,000 (the minimum for my card). This will increase the amount the bank will give me for a mortgage. Many things are starting to fall into place for buying a home. The first is the gift from my grandparents for a large down payment. The second is the Bank of Canada lowered interest rates yesterday. The third is I get a lower staff rate on mortgages that I can lock in for five years even if I leave the company. The last reason is that house prices are starting to fall.

In a year when we are more out of debt we will be able to seriously look at buying a 2 to 3 bedroom condo!

Election Time

2008-10-05T15:06:00.001-07:00

Elections are happening in both Canada and the USA. This video below explains one of the many reasons why I am voting Green in the Canada election. For my American readers please think about the environmental impact of your vote.

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

A crazy week

2008-10-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick update. This week I am working a total of 23 hours, have a 6 page paper due, a mid-term, a summary due, a group project and I am biking over 130KM! Next week should be a little better, I am hoping to reflect a little on what happened in the states with the bailout not happening...

Another wedding

2008-09-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend we are off to Vancouver Island for another wedding! We will be getting on a ferry tonight after my wife is done work. Once there we plan on touring around a bit on saturday and then go to the wedding sunday. We will not be able to party all night long as we will need to get a ferry back home that night. (I should probably print out a schedule...)

This week has been packed with homework and it will not be letting up for a couple of weeks. There has also been interesting news in the financial sector. We will find out if the US Government decides to borrow just under a trillion dollars to buy bad bonds. The hope is that this will get the financial markets moving again and it should reduce the number of banks declaring bankruptcy.

My green investing experiment should have an update soon. With the market they way they are investing in general had been bad. Hopefully we will see some surprises!

Another down day

2008-09-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

After a great friday on the TSX and the DOW monday is back to the craps! Looks like my savings are slowly evaporating. If you have the extra cash now many be the time to put a little extra in so that you can take advantage of the rebound. This will be a little risky but if you have the extra cash and like a little risk why not just do it!

Wow a week flies by!

2008-09-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

This week has gone faster than I am willing to believe. With classes, homework, work and social activities there has been no time to sit in front of my computer to do the things I love to do! The $100 a week budget for food and entertainment has been working out well, every week we have a little bit left over for us to go out for some cheap food or for a movie.

The stock markets have given my small investment portfolio a beating. I am not stressed about it but it does suck! We recently found out that my grandfather helps his grandchildren with buying a home! This comes to the tune of a five digit cheque that must be used on the down payment for the house. This has got us seriously thinking about getting a two to three bedroom apartment here in Abbotsofrd. They are less than $200,000 so it will give us our 20% down so that we will not need to get mortgage insurance! I also get a discount of 1.5% off posted consumer mortgage rates because I work at TD Canada Trust. This rate is locked in for 5 years even if I leave the company! Therefore we should buy the home before I get a job in an accounting firm.

Link Exchange

2008-09-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

I was taking a look at my links over on the right and noticed that the list is really short! If you are interested in getting a little more traffic and want to exchange links just write a comment with your information and I will add you to my blog roll.

Weekend Wedding

2008-09-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

My Sister in Law is getting hitched this weekend so we will be doing allot of visiting with family. All of that on top of working my 15 hours a week and school I am trying to keep my sanity. I already have 4 assignments due next week, two of them are easy and should only take 20 min each. The other two are 5 page papers. The papers should not be too bad since they are all double spaced. My goal today is to get all of my papers and reading done so that I can enjoy the wedding tomorrow.

We went down tot he states yesterday to do our grocery run. Many things are cheaper there including Organic Chicken, Organic, Milk and Organic Cheese. Since we eat all organic this little run to Bellingham saves us 50 to 60 dollars a month!

The Biking Test

2008-09-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day that I will be biking to and from school and work all in the same day. Once the day is done I will have biked 44KM or just over 27 Miles. We will see if I survive this day and still have enough energy to go out tonight!

The new budget is working well, we are sticking to our $100.00 a week for food and entertainment. We will really feel the pinch at the end of the month due to payments coming out 5 days before my wife gets her pay cheque. If we keep on track it looks like we will have just enough money to make it. The only trouble is that we have two weddings this month, one here locally and the another is on Vancouver Island. We have budgeted for the ferry to get over there but it will be hard to not spend money when away from home.

No School Today!

2008-09-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

This semester I have managed to avoid having any classes on Fridays! This will allow me to work a little bit this semester so that I can get some debts paid down. I start my shift today at 10am and work until 6pm so I have some time this morning to blog and do some homework.

The last two days I have biked to and from school, it is a 16KM ride each way. Needless to say I am pretty bagged by the time I get home. Yesterday I made it in record time to school in just over 50 minutes! My average time is about 58 minutes. I am hoping to improve drastically over the next couple of weeks and hopefully I will not be as tired in the evenings.

The long weekend and so on

2008-09-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

It was a great long weekend with my parents. They stayed with us for two full days and I enjoyed every minute of it. On saturday we went to the U-brew where my Dad and I made some wine. In Alberta they are not allowed to have U-Brew stores. The deal is he pays and I bottle. He gets the majority of wine and I get a couple of bottles. We are never short on wine in our house! My Mom and Wife went shopping and boy did they shop. My mom loves buying things so my Wife ended up with a bunch of new cloths. That evening we went out to our favorite Pizza place.

The next day we drove out to Cultas lake and went Mini Golfing at Giggles. This is a great little Mini Golf that is very well themed. It is always fun having a competitive round of Mini Golf. That evening we went over to some family friends house and visited the night away!

This week has been a crazy week, with school starting and still getting used to a new job I am a little stressed. I have got into 5 of my 6 classes this semester and will find out tomorrow if I will be in the sixth. I am also trying to buy as many of my text books from other students as possible. This will hopefully greatly reduce my book cost from $650...

We have also started our new budget this week and everything is going well! An essential part of the budget is my Wife bing called in to teach and she has the next 8 teaching days booked already!

My bike ride

2008-08-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

It took 59 minuets to get home. Looks like I need to get in better shape to do it in 45 minutes. I was soaked to the bone...

Done my final!

2008-08-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Well that is finally it! I am done my summer classes, and just in time too. Next week fall semester begins where I will be taking another 5 classes. Thank goodness they are not distance learning ones as I really suffer with them. But with the little bit of time that I have in between I am able to actually do stuff! My parents are coming down from Edmonton this weekend so we will have a nice couple of days with them. Tonight we are having some friends over that we have not seen in a while and I am going to kick up my feet and relax.

I am also excited for September because we will be using our new budget that will allow us to knock up to $3000 of debt off every month! It will most likely average out to $1800 a month because my wife is a substitute teacher that only gets paid when she gets called in, so no pay over the holidays...

I biked to work yesterday and it only took 20 minutes. I am quite happy with this since I was expecting 30 to 40 minutes. After a month of biking I expect I will be able to get the ride down to 15 minutes. It is 6 KM from my house to work so it is entirely possible to go 24Km/hr because it is flat. I will be biking home from school after this post is up and it is 16KM with some fairly large hills. I think it should only be about an hour to get home but when the weather is crappy as it is today that may be a grueling one hour.

Well it is time to go get wet in the rain!

Clicksmart

2008-08-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a service in your area and find the Yellow Pages to be too much of a hassle Clicksmart could be the answer for you. If you are looking for a tucson realtor it is very simple to find one using Clicksmart. Just go their webpage and select the type of business you are looking for like a realtor. You can then select your city or enter your zip code. If you live in Tucson you can select it from the list and the hit go! This will get you a list of realtors in Tucson.

Your search is not limited to real estate, below is a list of the other service you can search for:

Contractors

Florists
Home & Office Services
Massage Therapists
Mortgage Brokers
Weddings and Events

One day down.

2008-08-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well the first day at the bank was great! My manager is super friendly and nice. The other employees are all happy and upbeat. This should be a great place to work. I have my schedule for the next two weeks and should get another couple of weeks soon. My manager does her to get everyones schedule a month in advance. This does not always happen as there are many students working and classes are finally starting to get solidified.

Now I need to crack the books since my Taxation course final is on thursday...

My first day at work!

2008-08-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well I am back off to work! It is my fist day and it is only a five
hour shift so it should fly by. Wish me luck!

Zenn Motor

2008-08-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

Zenn Motor is a Canadian company that designs and builds electric cars, ironically they are not able to sell their product in most of the country. Quebec just recently allowed their low speed electric car to be operated on its roads. Other provinces have either made it difficult or impossible to drive low speed electric vehicles on their roads. This is one area that the United States is way ahead of us. Zenn is able to sell its cars in just about, if not all of the states in the union.

Zenn currently sells only one model of car. It looks like a mini SUV. It can only go around 40KM/hr and can travel up to 80KM. If I lived in the City this would be a great commuter vehicle. Since I live on an acreage I drive up to 80 one way to destinations that I need to get to. IT takes around 4 hours to fully charge from a standard electrical outlet. The car is competitively priced at around $21,000 USD. The new car that may be coming out will use a new battery technology called the EEstor. This will enable the car to go up to 130km/hr and have a total range of around 500KM! Plus the car will only take 10 minutes to charge! Zenn has the full rights to this technology for small cars. The cost of the car should be substantially reduced since the batteries are cheaper and lighter than current batteries.

Having recently watched Who Killed the Electric Car I started looking into the EV1. This is the electric car that was released by GM in 1997. The last version of the EV1 in 1999 cold travel up to 130KM/hr and it had a range of up to 225KM's. If this car was still around it would be the perfect option for me as it has the range I need. It took 45 min to charge the battery from 20% to 80% and about 4 hours for a full charge. You should watch Who Killed the Electric Car to see what happened to these amazing cars.

I will keep an eye out to see what will happen with the EEsotr battery and how son it will be in a car near you!

EntreCard

2008-08-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

EntreCard advertises itself as the business card of the internet. The program works by putting a small advertisement on your blog. Other websites then pay you EntreCard Credits for their website to appear in that little box. You receive 1/4 of the payment price unless you are on the bottom two levels, then you will receive one. The advertising levels are based on how many advertisements you have lined up for your blog. The first one will pay 2 credits and the second ad will pay 4, the third 8, the fourth 16 and so on. Generally the more you pay for an advertisement the more clicks you will receive.

There are other ways to earn credits as well! One of them is for you to drop your card on other sites. This will give you one credit per drop. You will also receive one credit when someone drops their card on your site. It is a good idea to return any drops your receive as this will build a relationship between your two sites. You also receive 25 credits for every blog post up to a maximum of 25 every three days. You can also buy credits.

If you get your website advertised on a high profile webpage your page views will increase drastically for that day. This spike should entice some readers to find something that they like and to come back. Most of the page views that day will be a one time thing. This is the negative side of EntreCard since most views are just there to drop their card and leave.

If you operate a new or old website EntreCard is a good way of increasing your sites popularity and visibility.

My first shift.

2008-08-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

I have my first shift at the bank on tuesday and it is only five hours. This will just be a get to know the company training session and possibly some job shadowing. I am looking forward to getting some work in before school starts so that I can get some money in the bank account. I am now setup with the staff banking account so when we did our US Grocery shop we saved 1% on the exchange rate. I know this does not sound like much but every little bit helps.

It is my Mother In Law's birthday tonight so we will be going over there to make her dinner and to spend some time with the family.

Banzai DVD Game

2008-08-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

ScreenLife Games is at it again. They launched a new Banzai game. Check it out:

Banzai

This is a fun group game that you are able to play on the TV. The point of the game is to bet on what will happen on the screen, whoever gets it right wins! It is that simple. The events that happen on the screen are strange and random stunts that were recorded for the Banzai TV show. In any group of people this will provide hours of entertainment, and if you are lonely I am sure you can just watch some funny movie clips.

If you are too lazy to head town to the local games store or Toys R Us the you are able to purchase the game online and download it. They have both an Mac and PC version so us Mac users do not need to feel left out of this one. And it looks like of you head over to their MySpace page at www.myspace.com/takotheocto and add them to your top 8 you will get a free copy of which there is a limited supply. There is nothing wrong with getting something for free, it won't hurt to have this game lying around for a spontaneous party game that will get everyone laughing.

ScreenLife Games is at it again. They launched a new Banzai game. Check it out:

Blackberries

2008-08-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Blackberries are coming out on our acreage! This is exciting for us as we go through allot of fruit. I picked two large bowls of them today for us to have an afternoon snack! Having fresh food available for free is a great thing. Next year we will be planting a garden so wee will have fresh veggies all summer.

A small investment in seeds at the beginning of the growing season will pay great dividends for many months. And since we eat all organic it greatly reduces the cost at the grocery store.

Win a Vespa LX50

2008-08-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

Stouffer's Panini is running a contest for Canadian's. By entering the contest you will find out instantly if you win one of the many prize packs. There are several Vespas to win as well as many other prizes. This is a great chance to win a vehicle that can significantly reduce your fuel costs on any commute. I have been looking into a Vespa as a second vehicle for me to zip back and forth to school with and other than the initial cost of buying one the are great!

Be sure to try your luck by entering the Stouffers Panini Contest.

If any of you win anything be sure to leave a comment!

The Budget

2008-08-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

My wife and I sat down the other day and did our budget. It is amazing how we will be able to pay down our debt if we are actually working and getting paid! If all goes well and my Wife is able to get 4-5 days of teaching in a week we will be able to allocate just over $2,000/month to DEBT! Once the paperwork gets processed for my student loan interest relief we will be able to put all extra money on that stupid credit card.

I have three shifts at the bank next week, each of them five hours. I am really looking forward to working here, everyone seems so friendly and upbeat. They have guaranteed me 15 hours a week and with my school schedule it is going to be tough but doable. I am also happy that my banking benefits will be kicking in today! This means no fees and lower interest rates as well as preferred saving plans. My health care and other perks will kick in after 90 days.

I went to the drive in movie theater last night. It was the first time I have ever been and it was a blast. The first movie was horribly cheesy. Journey to the Centre of the Earth is, well, umm, over the top and Brendan Fraser is my new hero... The second movie was Step Brothers. If you ignore some of the crude and gross humor this is still an incredibly funny movie. The cost of the movies was $8.50 per person to see both of them. This is an amazing Tuesday night price!

Well gotta get back to the books, I have one for final exam and two assignments that are due next week. Looks like no social life for me!

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Not a good summer for the accounts.

2008-08-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

I have not been the best at sticking to a budget when I needed to the most. This has been a rough summer as I have not been working and the wife is on EI. I had saved some money to make it through the summer but it is looking like a fair bit of the expenditures from the summer will be on the good old VISA. Come September I will be working 15 hrs a week and my Wife will be teaching agin. She is a Teacher On Call so it will be a little slow in September but it will be enough to pay the bills.

Any extra income on top of minimum payments will go directly to the emergency fund to get that back up to $1000. I will then save $500 for Christmas presents. After these accounts are topped up I will begin to rapidly pay down my VISA. This is the tentative plan. I will go through this with my wife and we will come up with a complete budget. This will be done together so that both of us will be responsible to adhere to it.

I want to et this sinking ship turned around ASAP, so starting September I will be posting expenditure updates compared to what I have budgeted. This will also make me more accountable as I will have all of you to keep me on track.

Ethical Investing

2008-08-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Ethical Investing is getting to be a hot topic among investors and the general public. Ethical Investing is where a company is screened not based solely on profitability but it takes in many social factors as well. Many banks are now offering these ethical funds. When you talk to your financial advisor at the bank they will know what type of fund it is but most of the time they will have no clue as to what the screening criteria is.

Below is what Jantzi uses as a base for ethical investments:

In deciding upon specific rating criteria for the Jantzi Social Index®, Jantzi Research considered several underlying questions that provided the foundation for decision making. These questions included:

Is each rating criterion researchable?
Is each rating criterion measurable?
Does the environmental, social, and governance rating framework reflect the current state of social investing in Canada?
Does the rating framework reflect recent developments in socially responsibile investing; in Canada and internationally?
Is there is a business, corporate social responsibility, and/or scientific foundation for each rating criterion?
With these questions in mind, Jantzi Research developed a rating framework for the JSI. For most issue areas, including aboriginal relations; community involvement; corporate governance; employee relations; environment; and human rights, the framework calls for a complete examination of each company's performance record in that area, as well as an evaluation of each company's record in these areas overall.
The JSI also incorporates several exclusionary indicators, which eliminate firms from contention regardless of what their record of performance may be in other areas. The JSI does not include companies that have significant involvement in:

the production of nuclear power;
the manufacture of tobacco products;
weapons-related contracting.

http://www.jantzisocialindex.com/index.asp?section=1&level_2=3

I think that this is a good start to move towards a more ethical portfolio. I believe that in the future these criteria will become more stringent as more people realize that an ethical company is a worthwhile investment that betters the community.

FeedBurner

2008-08-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

I have just added feedburner to my page so that you readers can subscribe to my blog! To subscribe click on the link located in the right hand column.

Thanks!

100th Post! - GREEN INVESTING

2008-08-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Wow! After just a couple of months I am up to my 100th post! Thanks for all of your support!

Now time for a green investing update. Below are the values of the green stocks I picked on June 20th:

Western Wind Energy Corp. (Public, CVE:WND) $2.50
Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc. (Public, TSE:KHD) $4.75
Finavera Renewables Inc. (Public, CVE:FVR) $0.23
Nevada Geothermal Power Inc. (Public, CVE:NGP $1.03
Polaris Geothermal Inc. (Public, TSE:GEO) $1.19
Zenn Motor Company Inc. (Public, CVE:ZNN) $4.29
PURE ENERGY VISIONS CORP (Public, CVE:PEV) $0.60

Here are the values as of this morning:

Western Wind Energy Corp. (Public, CVE:WND) $1.95 DOWN $0.55
Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc. (Public, TSE:KHD) $4.72 DOWN $.03
Finavera Renewables Inc. (Public, CVE:FVR) $0.17 DOWN $0.06
Nevada Geothermal Power Inc. (Public, CVE:NGP $1.07 UP $0.04
Polaris Geothermal Inc. (Public, TSE:GEO) $1.20 UP $0.01
Zenn Motor Company Inc. (Public, CVE:ZNN) $5.01 UP $0.72
PURE ENERGY VISIONS CORP (Public, CVE:PEV) $0.58 DOWN $0.02

It looks like the green energy stocks are taking a hit just like the entire financial market. The only company that is bucking the trend is ZNN. This is due to the hype around the new car that they may be releasing. The car will be able to go highway speeds for 4-5 hours on one charge and it will only take then minutes to recharge! The battery is also lighter and does not use any harmful chemicals.

I still believe that in the long term green companies will do extremely well due to the fact that energy and the cost of polluting will continue to increase.

Some day I will get this into a chart so we can track it over time.

Link Exchange.

2008-08-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a fun link exchange!

New World Record by Suplado, Angelina Jolie by Magazine, On Rising Early by Denice, Cats or Dogs, Dream Baby by Denice Samosa, You Digg I Dugg, White Peony, Blog Editor, A Good Trader, Donations Buttons Tacky, Free Photo, Izea Feast, World Oldest Blogger by Beautiful Blogger, If you’re Going to San Frans by Table 4 Five, Rss Showdown by CoolAdzine, Shape Up by Reward Rebel, No Replacement by Isamans world, Windows Live by RMO, Healhty Mommies by Mommies Home, See my World by Redsox Mommy, Link Back by suplado, Late Payment by Makemoneyonline, The Shepherd by Mel, Ocean Blue by hueymei, Self Fulfilling by Random Thoughts, I Do follow by Snapshot, Traffic Loss by Makinthemoney, I Corinthians by Blogecca, ABC by Digital Polaroids, Daycare Dilema by Happy rock, Increase Pagerank by Suplado, Mike Tyson, Investing My Way to Financial freedom by Canadian Finance Guy

You can add your blog by going here.

Canadian Tax #5 - Pension Income Splitting

2008-08-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

When a person reaches the age of retirement they may be given a pension from a previous employer. In many cases this income is close to equal the amount that the earned when working. If this is the case they will still be in a higher tax bracket and thus will have to pay high taxes on the RRSP's that they withdrawal. This can come as quite a shock for many Canadians!

Any tax payer that is receiving pensionable income is able to re-allocate up to 50% of their pension income to a spouse or common law partner. This will allow the tax payable to go down significantly especially if the spouse has little or no income. This transfer should also lower the pension earner's income so that they can withdrawal from their RRSP at a slightly lower tax rate.

Previous Tax Posts:

Canadian Tax #1 - Intro
Canadian Tax #2 - Basic Personal Amount

Canadian Tax #3 - Random Fact

Canadian Tax #4 - Child Tax Credit

The summer rolls on!

2008-08-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

I just finished another accounting exam. I believe it went well... Now that the accounting course is done I can re focus on my taxation course. I am also stating work at the TD bank soon, as part of the training I will be heading to Vancouver for 2 days as part of their intensive training. This should be a fair bit of fun as I believe they put me up in a hotel and give me a food allowance!

I am now attempting to register in all of the classes I need for fall. I am in half of them but I need to see what I am able to do for the other half of the classes... This time of year is always an adventure for a University student!

My wife is going away this weekend with her sister so I will be bacheloring it for the weekend. It should be a fair bit of fun since I have not done this in a couple of years!

Some Photos from Camping

2008-08-09T07:47:00.001-07:00

The next to photos are of the old irrigation system that was built in the early 1900's to move water from the top of the mountain to the field below.

Rubber Stamps

2008-08-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

I have recently found an online store that has a wide variety of office and business products. The services that this company can provide includes rubber stamps , Business Cards, and Marketing Materials. Any home business needs to have many of the items that VistaPrint has to offer. The prices that are offered are very competitive compared to other major office suppliers such as Staples.

By ordering items via an online store I find that it saves valuable time and money. With just a couple of simple clicks you are able to completely stock an office and have all of the items delivered to your door. There is no more hassle of having to go down to the store and find the items you are looking for.

Vista Print also has some free services so that you can try out some of their print services at no cost to you! Some of these free service include business cards, rubber stamps, magnets and many more. Once you have received the free items you will then be able to see if VistaPrint's service are of value to you. I find that even if you are not an executive or salesperson it is a good idea to have some business cards on you, this it a great way to get some for free!

Back in town.

2008-08-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

I am back from a couple of days of camping an boy was it hot! All three days we were out there it was over 32 degrees Celsius. We stayed at Fintry campground just steps away from lake okanagan. One day we went for a short walk up to a waterfall, I extended the hike for myself by taking some unmarked trails up further. Some photos will be up after I get them loaded into iPhoto.

I have to go into the Bank today to sign papers for them to do my criminal record check and so that I can give them permission to call my references.

Sadly it is time to continue studying again... it will be even harder now that the Olympics are on...

Gosh!

2008-08-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

Looks like my website is clean!

Going Camping Again!

2008-08-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning we are heading out to the Okanagan Valley in BC. This area has many lakes and it is hot all of the time (I need HEAT!!). My in laws have a campsite booked for the week so we will be pitching our tent on their site for no extra cost! It will be one of the cheapest vacations in a long time. The only crappy thing is that we have to use a toll highway that costs $10 each way. I may be able to convince the wife to go around another way on the way back just for some change of scenery as we have taken the toll road 5 times this year.

When I get back I should be able to start on the Green Investing Experiment. I am thinking of just putting $1000 of my fake money into each of the companies I have listed here. I will then track them to see how much gain/loss occurs each month. If any of you have any other stocks that you think I should look at please leave a comment. I am also wanting to start another "experiment" with ethical stocks and I would like some advice on what a company should do to be ethical.

Squamish Days

2008-08-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

We has planned to go up to squamish days this weekend. This is a festival where we should have watched a lumberjack competition. My wife and I have never seen one of these before and we were both quite excited to go! But a nice landslide has blocked the road that we would have used to get there. The other road takes 8-9 hours instead of the original 2-3 hours. We now have a free weekend! (other than the fact I have a final exam on monday...)

Yesterday I started my Skype out plan for just under $3.00 a month. This gives me unlimited calling to any number in Canada and the US. Pay monthly with Skype
is the way to go if you do not have a landline. We are able to make the call cook like it came form our cell phone! This makes it so that people will be able to return our call. With the monthly plans there are no contracts as well so I can cancel at any time and start at any time.

So what should I do this weekend...

Eco Auto Rebate

2008-08-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's mail brought great joy to my house. After months of waiting we finally have our Eco Auto Rebate. This is the federal program that gives purchasers of fuel efficient cars a rebate of $1-2000 depending on the make of the car. Our Honda Fit qualified for the $1000 and the cheque came yesterday!

I plan on heading to the bank today and slapping that cheque onto my VISA. The sad news is that I have not been too good about keeping the balance down this summer. With practically no income it has been hard to decrease the balance. This month should be better as we are now getting EI money and I am starting to work soon.

I will also be applying for interest relief for our student loans. This is a program where when you have a low income level the government will pay the interest on your loan for a period of 6 months. Since summer is the only time our income drops below this threshold we will be taking full advantage of this. Every Canadian that has student loans is eligible for up to 30 months of interest relief, this is the first 6 month block we are using. I do not intend to reduce my payments for the loans, this will allow my money to fully go to the principle for the next three months thus reducing the debt even faster.

Fish Cook Off

2008-07-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

When I was a canoe guide in Northern Saskatchewan the best fish we made were fish tacos. They were incredibly simple to make and they had the best flavor. This recipe can be used with any cut of fresh or saltwater fish. It is also good for people who do not like fish since the "fishy" smell is not there.

In order to make fish tacos you will need all of the ingredients of regular tacos or burritos. The only additional thing you will need is pancake batter and a frying pan with oil or deep fryer. Once you have made the pancake batter dip the fish into the batter and cover the entire filet. Then stick into hot oil or deep fryer. You will only need to cook for 2 to 3 minutes. After you have fried the fish make your taco! This will be a great contender for a Cook off of as it is fast and easy. Caution! This is not a healthy meal by any means.

It is always best to know where your fish comes from, try to make sure it is a local provider that is not a fish farm. Also make sure that the type of fish you are eating is not being over fished in your area.

Birthday

2008-07-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the Wife's birthday. We will be going out for supper in a small town called Lynden just south of the border. This is where she wanted to go for her birthday supper and who am I to say no. We made sure that we have enough money left over in our food and entertainment budget to handle the dinner so there is no financial worry there.

She also got her first EI cheque today. This is such a relief because our accounts where getting pretty slim. Now we will be able to pay rent and other fun thing like that.

I have been looking into how to lower our phone costs as our cell phone contracts will be up shortly. My current plan is to go pay as you go on my phone since I hardly use it. My Wife will get more minuets on her plan and a new phone. We currently do not have a home phone but since I will not have a cell phone I have decided that I will get Skype for $30 a year plus $5 a month for the Canadian telephone number. I will also need to buy a Skype handset that will cost around $100. With buying the handset and all of the Skype fees this home phone service will be half the price as my current cell phone plan!

Getting back into shape.

2008-07-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

After realizing that I am not anywhere close to as good of shape I used to be in I have decided to exercise every second day. I have been pretty good so far with hiking in the weekend and I went for a small bike ride on monday. Today I just got back from a 16Km bike ride! At this rate I should be feeling more fit within a couple of weeks.

This is nothing compared to what I used to do but every little bit is a step in the right direction. Since I have started hiking again I have noticed that is can be difficult to find trail information. One of the sited that I have found is Trails.com. This site provides users with detailed information about hikes in their area. I have just started my 14 day free trial. I will tell you of I think the service is worth its $4.15/month. You can also have a 14 day free trial if you click on the link below. Please write about your experience with the website as a comment, I am curious to know what others think.

An annoyance.

2008-07-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

I have recently noticed that many of the gas stations are now charging for air. This is something that has alway been free as a courtesy to customers. I know that in some states the government has passed laws that force gas stations to still provide free air. I think that this is something the BC governments should look into.