Category: Announcements

First off – I’m proud to say that Rob Carrick of the Globe and Mail mentioned my RESP book in his newsletter today – thanks a lot Rob!

Pensionize Your Next Egg

Earlier today, I reviewed the very good retirement planning book, Pensionize Your Nest Egg.  One of the authors – Alexandra Macqueen was kind enough to offer a copy to give away to a lucky reader.

The contest is now closed!

Rules of the contest

This one is simple – leave a comment explaining why you are interested in the book.  The winner will be chosen randomly from all eligible entries.

Deadline

Thursday, October 7 at 8 pm.  Winners will be announced Thursday night or on Friday morning (depending on how good the Leafs/Habs game is).

Good luck!

I wanted to draw your attention to an interview I did with Kevin Press of the Today’s Economy Blog about my recently released book The RESP Book.

I had the pleasure of a phone interview with Kevin a couple of weeks ago – we talked about quite a few things so go on over and check out the interview for yourself!

We talked a bit about RESPs, but mostly about the self-publishing business.

In other news – on the weekend, I participated in my first book signing. It wasn’t a real “meet the author in a bookstore” signing, but instead was just me trying to sign a copy of my book for some friends while my kids were trying to maul me. 🙂

Exciting week here with the announcement of my book, The RESP Book which is available on Amazon.  Make sure you tell everyone you know about the book!

The first ever Canadian Real Estate Carnaval was published this week over at Land Lord Rescue.  It’s a great collection of real estate articles so check it out.

My friend Tom over at the Canadian Financial Blog has launched a new site called “Money Index” – it’s pretty good.  It shows the last 5 posts for various personal finance blogs, so it’s a great way to catch up on your favourite sites as well as find some new ones.

Top stocks competition

Once again, I’ve entered in a stock picking competition with some other bloggers.  When you look at my performance for this year (Four Pillars), you can see why I had to change the name of the blog.  🙂

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The financial links

Beating the Index wonders if plug-in electric cars will reduce oil demand.  It doesn’t seem very likely.

Consumerism Commentary wrote an interesting piece on specialism vs. generalism.  It’s hard to know which way is better.  My career as a computer programmer has definitely been the result of specialism, but this blog represents generalism.

Have you heard of one of those charities where you buy some livestock and send it to a farmer in Africa?  One person decided to track down their goat.

Canadian Dream wrote about a real estate investment “deal” that wasn’t so great.  Really good article.

MapleMoney goes over the basics of the Smith Manoeuvre.

Michael James takes a look at the Canadian Tire high interest savings account teaser rate.

Larry MacDonald really likes the book 10 Things I wish someone had told me about retirement, written by Jim Yih.  In fact, he said the book left him gasping.

Today’s Economy finished off the series Class of 2008.  Very interesting story.

Investing Thesis has 10 stocks which are trading above their pre-2008 highs.

The Oblivious Investor says that stocks are not a Ponzi scheme.

Free From Broke wrote about portfolio diversification.

Boomer says that some hobbies are expensive.  She suggests trying it out in a class first.

Canadian Capitalist asks if retirees require guaranteed minimum withdrawal products? It would be nice, but the ones available in Canada are way too expensive.

Million Dollar Journey covers some methods to track your spending.  I should try this sometime.

Young and Thrifty reviews the iPhone 4.

Financial Blogger tells us what is cool about living in Quebec.  I’d add proximity to Mt. Tremblant to the list.

Nothing to do with finance

For any fans of Men Without Hats out there (I used to love them), here is a very bizarre video spoof of their most famous song.  Thanks to Brip Blap for that one.

Fall is here, but the weather is still pretty nice here in Toronto.  I will likely be launching my book next week.  Look for it!

On with the links

One of the common myths of the stock market is that it will go down when all the boomers cash out.  Larry Swedroe explains why this idea is nonsense.

Preet explains that the super-cheap new ETF released last week by Horizons BetaPro is not that complex or risky.

Canadian Couch Potato gives us more fun with TD e-series funds.  You really have to want these funds apparently.

Investor Junkie gives us a detailed look at his retirement asset allocation.  The most shocking part of the article is when he says he has 3 kids – 4 years old, 18 months old and 3 months old.  Wow – I don’t know where he finds the time to blog.  🙂

Monevator gives us five reasons why you will love index investing.  Preaching to the choir around here.

Gen Y Wealth wants to get an MBA but doesn’t want to pay for it.  Check out his DIY MBA program.  A great idea.

A neat story about a woman who went from living in a van down by the river to selling her company for $91 million.  I have my doubts as to the homeless aspect, but it’s still a good story.  Thanks to Jeremy from GenXFinance for this one.

Jeremy Siegel says that dividend stocks are a better investment than bonds at the moment.

Larry MacDonald wonders if China is the next Enron.

Michael James says that Jack Layton wants to take away your credit card.

Today’s Economy had a good story about a 2008 marketing graduate who is having a hard time finding a job.

Financial Blogger tells us the jobs he would like to do if he was a millionaire.

Canadian Capitalist says that energy-saving claims are often exaggerated.

Million Dollar Journey covers some of the risks of corporate bonds.

This week, I’d like to highlight a few carnivals of Canadian content that have started recently:

• The Canadian Personal Finance & Investing Carnival just ran it’s 5th edition and is chock full of top Canadian personal finance and investing articles.  Go check it out.
• Rachelle from Land Lord Rescue is starting a Canadian Real Estate Carnaval.  This should be pretty interesting – it runs every two weeks starting on September 30.
• Tom from MapleMoney has also started a carnival which features Canadian personal finance content.  Here is the 1st edition.

On with the links

Rob Carrick wrote a very useful article on how to save money with your online broker.

Canadian Capitalist gives a thumb down on the new Horizons BetaPro TSX60 ETF.  It’s very, very cheap but might not be worth the risk.  As I said in the comments – this ETF is competing against XIU which is already a great deal.  They should have picked a different sandbox to play in.

Michael James looks at a recent report which says that 60% of Canadians would be in financial trouble if their paycheck were delayed 1 week.  As Michael points out – this doesn’t really mean much.

My Own Advisor is happy with his RioCan purchase.  I used to own RioCan as well, but then I sold it.

Larry MacDonald reviewed Pensionize Your Nest Egg.  I’d review it too, if my review copy ever shows up. 🙂

The Oblivious Investor explains why you should plan for retirement, even if you plan to never retire.

Free From Broke explains asset allocation.

The Financial Blogger says that the housing bubble is not going to burst.

Boomer and Echo says that women need to be involved in family finances.

Million Dollar Journey teaches us about corporate bonds.

I was reading about the book launch party for a book I’m eagerly waiting for – Pensionize Your Nest Egg by Moshe Milevsky and Alexandra MacQueen over on Jon Chevreau’s blog.  Apparently it was quite the affair with catered food, financial celebrities and whatnot.

It had never occurred to me to have a launch party for my book, but I can assure you that if I did – it would not be any kind of fancy black-tie affair. In fact, it would look a lot like Mr. Cheap’s Dream Wedding (one of my favourite posts).

The rest of the links

Canadian Couch Potato wrote an excellent piece Why every portfolio needs bonds.  Equities are not “all that” all the time.

Jim Yih wrote an excellent article about setting up in-trust accounts for the grandkids. He points out some of the many potential problems with these accounts.

The Oblivious Investor asks Do you have an investment backup plan? Some good ideas about how to deal with a retirement shortfall.

Here is a look at some very old currencies used in the 30’s. Very colourful.

Million Dollar Journey is having a book giveaway for Rob Carrick’s latest book. Contest ends soon!

Canadian Capitalist spent hours looking at two Time magazine covers and concluded that the media doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

Michael James reports that University students pay for meals differently.

Boomer and Echo wrote about how they bought a rental house for their son at University. It sounds like it worked out, but I would think a short-term real estate play is risky.

Congrats to Preet who has a new job writing a column for the Globe and Mail. I hope he still returns my calls.

Big week around here. Mr. Cheap announced on Tuesday that he would be leaving the blog and on Wednesday I mentioned that I’ve written a book.

The book is completed, but I’m working on some of the final publishing details. The final copy was submitted to the publisher and I received a proof copy yesterday. The idea of the proof copy is to make sure the book looks ok and doesn’t have any errors. Unfortunately, there was a major problem with the cover, so there wasn’t much suspense about whether I could approve it or not.

There is always one more step.

My fave links

My Journey to Millions says that money does buy happiness. Funny post.

Invest It Wisely had a great post on Vanguard ETFs. These are a good deal for Canadians.

I really enjoyed this story, which is about the results of taking deal-making too far:  The Parson’s Pleasure by Roald Dahl.

I found out about this story from some commenters on a recent yard sale post. The post (which wasn’t worth linking to) asks if it is ethical to buy something at a yard sale which is underpriced.

The rest of the links

Canadian Capitalist says that investment advisors are a lot like babysitters.

Larry MacDonald explains how mortgage rates are determined.

Boomer and Echo have some advice on dividend growth investing.

The Oblivious Investor shows how even cheap hedge funds are not cheap.

The Financial Blogger tells how to get a raise on top of a raise.

Today’s Economy takes a look at the truth about health care inflation.

Preet reveals an investment banker’s portfolio.

Million Dollar Journey says his net worth is on track.

Michael James does some analysis on when to start taking CPP payments.

As Mr. Cheap announced yesterday, our blog partnership has come to an end.  It’s been a great three years and I only hope that he continues to write elsewhere, so I can still enjoy his posts.

Future direction of Money Smarts Blog

My plan for Money Smarts Blog is to make the blog more focused on personal finance.  There will be the usual range of personal finance topics, but there will be an increased emphasis on investing topics such as investing accounts and investing products.

I’m going to do one post on Wednesdays and a roundup on Fridays.  I may try doing the occasional extra post, but my hope is that by only having one “real” post per week – the quality will be higher than if I try to do several posts per week.

I wrote a book!

I have written a book – it’s very, very close to being published.  I’m not going to reveal the book topic just yet, but I hope to announce it sometime this month.  Writing and self-publishing a book has been a very interesting project. It’s a lot like doing home renovation – there is always one more thing to do. You might have noticed the name change underneath the post title – this is a result of the book. It’s hard to sell books that are written by “Mike”. 🙂

Thanks a lot for reading Money Smarts Blog and thanks to Mr. Cheap for all his great posts!