Category: Announcements

A while ago, I wrote about how we have a very loose budgeting system in place, which involves keeping an excess of cash in our bank accounts.  This makes it easier to manage bill payments etc, and it came in very handy this week when we had a $1,700 car repair bill.  It still sucked to pay the money, but I didn’t even have to think about how I was going to pay the bill.

On with the links

First off, is a great article by my favourite personal finance writer – Rob Carrick, who wrote a nice piece on the two winners of the recent Best of Blogs competition.  Make sure you check out the photos, where you will find Preet doing his best Mary Poppins imitation and Kerry who appears to be living on the set of Little House on the Prairie.  🙂

The Amateur Financier wrote a very good article called “Does Success Skew Your Perception?“.  If someone is successful at something, then they will often talk about how “easy” it is to do or how “anyone can do it”.

The Oblivious Investor explains how to deal with a pension in retirement for the purposes of asset allocation.

The WeighHouse blog wants to know why active portfolio managers don’t move to cash before the market drops?

Jennifer Wells of The Toronto Star had an interesting article about excessive personal debt and how it’s been around for a long time.

Million Dollar Journey had a guest post on the importance of paying attention to financial statements.

Preet has built a know-you-adviser tool to help evaluate current or prospective advisers.  Go check it out and give him some feedback.

Blessed by the Potato wrote about the BP oil disaster and investing.

Financial Blogger went to Quebec City for a weekend of “business”.  I’d like to know how to get my wife to agree to look after the kids for a whole weekend, so I can do that too!  🙂

Canadian Capitalist reports that BMO Investorline had some major trading glitches recently.

As most of you know the Globe and Mail just had their annual blog competition.  This year there were two categories (investing and personal finance) and only Canadian blogs were entered.  Money Smarts ended up getting 4th place in the personal finance category.  I was happy with this since the first three blogs are much bigger and presumably have an easier time rounding up votes.  We ended up getting 517 votes which I thought was quite good.

Unfortunately the Canadian Capitalist was part of the blog picking panel so his blog wasn’t in the competition.

Congrats to the two winners – Squawkfox and Preet as well as everyone else in the competition.  And thanks for anyone who voted for Money Smarts!

Here are the final standings for the personal finance category:

1. Squawkfox – 1034 votes
2. Million Dollar Journey – 809 votes
3. Gail Vaz-Oxlade – 793 votes
4. Money Smarts – 517 votes
5. Canadian Personal Finance Blog – 490 votes
6. Canadian Mortgage Trends – 382 votes
7. Michael James on Money – 364 votes

And in the investment category:

1. Where Does All My Money Go – 978 votes
2. Canadian Couch Potato – 831 votes
3. Larry MacDonald – 609 votes
4. Think Dividends – 470 votes
5. Canadian Financial DIY – 461 votes
6. Humble Student of the Markets – 443 votes
7. How To Invest Online – 357 votes

We’ve just passed the third anniversary of Money Smarts Blog otherwise known as the blog formerly known as Four Pillars.  Three years, about a thousand posts and I feel like we are just getting started.

Thanks to all the readers who have read our stuff, commented and bloggers who have linked to us.

Globe and Mail Best of Blogs Competition

We are honoured to once again be an entrant in the Globe and Mail Best of blogs competition.  There are a lot of great blogs in the list so go check them out if you haven’t already done so.

You are welcome to vote for Four Pillars in the personal finance category.  The way the voting works is that you can pick 3 blogs as your faves so that will allow you to pick two good blogs plus this one.  🙂

This is the link to get to the voting page.

First time visitor?

Feel free to check out our blog and subscribe to our feed to get new articles everyday or subscribe to posts by email.

We’ve got lots of articles on investing, real estate, RESPs and just about any other topic you can imagine!

Here are some of our most popular posts:

• Don’t underestimate small savings or income.
• Why you can’t trust your real estate agent when buying a house
• 3 years of peer to peer lending.
• Real estate agents – the other side of the coin
• Why are some parents morons?
• How to save money when breaking your mortgage.
• Getting started in real estate investing
• House wars – ignore the asking price when buying a house
• Travelling cheap
• Toronto cheap eats
• Do you really earn your investment income?
• Savvy Consumers
• RESP contributions rules

Check out the archives for more articles.

Thanks for visiting!

For anyone checking out the Four Pillars site you might have noticed that the domain has changed to MoneySmartsBlog.com.  This is the big change I alluded to a month ago.

I picked the wrong weekend to do this switch as I haven’t even had time to change the header or a bunch of other stuff – but oh well.  It’s done!!

Please let me know if you see any problems with the new site.

Mike

Over the last year I’ve started to get into a number of “web television” productions.  These are short (ranging from 3 or 4 minutes to 15 minutes per episode) videos, made for release on the internet.  The Guild (especially their music video, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?), The Legend of Neil and the utterly brilliant Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog are examples of some of the best of this new entertainment medium.

I was intrigued when Quietrose recently e-mailed me a link to “Saving Penny“, a web-based video series on Bell Sympatico’s finance site yourmoney.ca.  Created by Stitch Media, starring Sarah McCarthy, directed by Mark Mullane and written by Emily Amos this series was “written in the style of Sex & the City and targeting 20- and 30-something women, these videos provide useful and non-threatening financial tips and information.”

Each short episode targets a specific financial concept that Penny runs into a problem with, such as budgeting, whether to buy or lease a new car, stock investing or insurance.  Her boyfriend Doug (or friend Allison) smugly and condescendingly sets her straight and then there’s an animation with voice-over explaining the concept.

The first thing viewers will probably notice is the remarkably bad acting.  For some reason this seems to be pretty standard with Canadian television (we can grow comedians and divas in this country, but acting seems to be beyond us).  A particular low point is the “drunk slut” in episode 3 (I’m pretty sure *I* could be a more convincing drunk slut – heck, I *am* a better drunk slut after I’ve had a couple of beers!).  It might not be fair to blame this entirely on the actors, as the dialogue is pretty cheesy and was probably tough to work with.  I’d never heard the intro song “Don’t Let Your Feet Touch Ground” by Ash Koley, but it’s catchy and a lot of fun. The animations are very well done.

I think the financial information is pretty solid (nothing jumped out as bad advice to me).  I think in some places they went a bit too “middle of the road” in their advice. I would say most people shouldn’t lease a car, should use a fee-only advisers and should avoid pet insurance like the plague, but each of these is presented as a debatable issue.  I can understand that they’re trying to convey the fundamentals of money management, not advocating for a specific perspective, so I suppose this can be forgiven.

Overall, I found the series to be fairly sexist.  In the animations, Penny always wants to buy shoes, and her boyfriend always wants to buy a big screen TV.  The men (Penny’s boyfriend and her friend’s unseen husband) were consistently presented as knowing more about financial topics.  This seems like a strange choice, given that the series was created for 20 and 30 year old women.  If any women watch the series, please comment on whether you find it sexist or not.

The production values were quite good, and I think they did a reasonably good job blending entertainment and financial information (which can be tough).  I watched all 10 episodes the same day I found out about the series, so it was good enough to keep me watching!

Check out the Squawkfox review on 5 Money lessons learned from Saving Penny.

Episode 1:

More episodes here.

Thanks for the link Quietrose!  Anyone who watches it, please comment with what you think.

If you missed Part 1 of this post last week, go check it out first (I’ll wait for you here).

Last week’s post focused on criticisms of the Canadian Capitalist and the Canadian personal finance blogger community’s support of him.  I didn’t think either of these criticisms were fair.  Beyond, hopefully, demonstrating that bloggers are far from blindly loyal to one another, I tried to articulate some of the reasons why we choose to blog beyond what seemed to be considered in the Canadian Capitalist’s case.

In addition to “An Independant Voice”, “Money”, “Opportunities”, and “For Attention”, we blog:

To Inform Others

Some people just like to selflessly share what they know with others.  I think people claim this is their motivation more often than it genuinely is.  It takes a rare person to love a subject so much that they devote themselves to learning about it and helping other people learn about it.

I suspect that Dividend Growth Investor is an example of this, that guy LOVES dividends (and his passion is reflected in his blog).

To Inform Ourselves

Paul Graham has written that he feels students are done a disservice when they’re taught essay writing in order to analyse literature.  His feeling is that the proper perspective on writing an essay is that it’s an attempt to figure something out.  This is very much my perspective on blog posts.  I’ll make an assertion in a post, wonder if someone might challenge me on it, and go searching for something to back it up (which I can then link to).  Sometimes, I’ll find my original assertion was incorrect and I’ll have learned something (and update the post).  Other times I’ll find that the topic is more nuanced than I realized, and I’ll learn about these other considerations.  Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a post and will have to go off and research it in order to know enough to write a post about it.  I’ve had an idea about a 4 part series discussing the evolution of currency, and I’d be comfortable writing about barter, bills of credit and the gold standard, but haven’t wrapped my head around currency as debt after the US moved off the gold standard (anyone want to do a guest post? 🙂 ).

Beyond learning from writing, comments are often an amazing source of very valuable feedback.  I’ve had major blind spots identified and we’re particularly fortunate at Four Pillars that we’ve got some wicked smart readers who often are able to teach us a thing or two in the comments.

In last week’s post, the Canadian Capitalist identified this as the primary reason he blogs (and I certainly don’t see any conflict between it and his MoneySense deal).  Thicken My Wallet also seemed to identify this as his primary reason too.

To Meet Famous People

Blogging has brought me in touch with economists, journalists, members of parliament, authors, TV personalities and the lovely Kerry K. Taylor.  Twice I’ve been contacted by the Globe and Mail wanting to use me as a source for an article (unfortunately their editorial policy wouldn’t allow me to stay anonymous).  It’s cool meeting famous, accomplished people, but it REALLY rocks when they seek YOU out!

To Take Revenge on Those Who Have Wronged You

One of my favourite phrases goes something along the lines of:  “Never argue with a priest or a newspaper editor.  The priest will invoke God that he’s correct while an editor always gets to have the last word.”  It certainly isn’t the noblest part of blogging, but having a platform to denounce those who have mistreated you is certainly a perk.

For Weird Personal Reasons

Some people will set up blogs for bizarre, individualistic reasons.  This pretentious douche thinks of his blog as his gift to his children.  Sorry dude, I bet they’d rather have a Wii.

In Conclusion

I think everyone with a blog has their own mixture of these reasons why they blog.  Probably they’re all in there to SOME degree for most of us, whether we admit it or not.  Just because a reader *THINKS* they know why someone is blogging, we’re real people behind the words and our motivation may be more complex then it appears at first.

Apparently Simon Pegg has gotten a hard time from some fans that he’s gone “too mainstream”.  He responded to this that he understands the feelings of fans, it’s the same reaction when some indie band you like makes it big, you feel like you’ve lost something that was privately yours.  At the same time, he doesn’t feel like he should have to apologize for success (and neither should the Canadian Capitalist).

If you’re a blogger, why do you blog?

The Canadian Capitalist announced last month a re-branding of his site and a partnership with MoneySense magazine.  I wanted to let the immediate reactions die down, but thought there were a few interesting reactions.  Some readers were unenthusiastic about the change, while bloggers were pretty unanimously supportive.  One of the more interesting comments seemed to suggest that support from other personal finance bloggers was somehow self-serving.

I don’t think support from other bloggers came from some sort of collusion or our own plans to “sell out”.  For the record, I think the partnership was 100% a good thing for the Canadian Capitalist, his readers, and MoneySense.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to say so, but this is a good thing.  Bloggers (at least the ones I know) are about as far from “unconditionally supportive” as it’s possible to get.  If we disagree with what another blogger is saying or doing, we say so!

For example:

• Mr. Cheap disagrees about insurance with Thicken My Wallet and Riscario Insider
• Mike tells the Baglady her ads are annoying
• Mr. Cheap and Mike disagree about a real estate investment strategy
• The Canadian Capitalist asks me what was I thinking when I went 58% on margin
• Mr. Cheap spends a whole post telling Squawkfox why she’s wrong about debt (then hits on her and makes comments about her underwear)
• Potato tells Rat “You’re Nuts!” after Rat details his leveraged investing strategy (many other bloggers pour into the discussion and dump on Rat)
• Mr. Cheap and the Canadian Capitalist disagree about children
• Big Cajun Man calls Mr. Cheap a hypocrite (to be fair, I think he’s joking)

Few things amuse Mike or I as much as the other one being on the receiving end of a blistering attack.  My favourite e-mail off all time was in response to Mike’s post on “The “Myth” of Weekly Mortgage Payments” and read:  “What’s wrong with paying mortgage off faster. Fuck off you dumb, fat, fucking pig.”  I still giggle every time I read it.

The reason why we were so supportive of the Canadian Capitalist is we realize that we all have multiple reasons for blogging.  Even if our “mixture” of these reasons is different from the Canadian Capitalist’s, we understand why he did what he did and why it’s a good thing for everyone:  CC gets some money, MoneySense gets some exposure, and readers keep getting free content.

Some of the reasons why we blog include:

An Independant Voice

Some blogs certainly exist to provide a counter-point to traditional media.  The Canadian Capitalist is an excellent example of this, and even it he has some other reasons for blogging, that doesn’t discredit the work he’s done on promoting passive investing, explaining new Canada-specific investment vehicles and skepticism about certain real estate and dividend investing strategies.

Consumer Reports, NPR and PBS all try to avoid advertising, but instead you get regular “pledge drives” where people consuming the content are expected to pay for it (or subscription fees).  Personally I’d prefer CC to re-brand his site with MoneySense instead of starting to guilt-trip us to send him a few bucks (which he has never done).

Money

Part of blogging is for money.  Often this will be pitched as “to cover hosting costs”, but the reality is that hosting is pretty cheap (there are a number of free options) and many of us are making money above and beyond hosting.  Are teachers, doctors and firefighters not helping society because they draw a pay check at the same time that they do their worthwhile jobs?

I make $20 / post here at Four Pillars, and *I* think I’m worth every penny of it.  I think Million Dollar Journey is making the most in blog revenue out of Canadian PF blogs and I don’t think any of us resent him for it:  we try to learn from him.

I don’t think cash is the entire motivation for any of us.  I can make far more than $20 programming in the time it takes me to write a post, but there are other things I enjoy about blogging that make up the rest of the incentive.  I suspect this is the same for all other bloggers too, even the ones who are doing much better financially.

Every blogger has their own perspective on ad styles, sponsored posts, donation requests, specific advertisers and where to draw the line.

Opportunities

Blogging can get your name and ideas out there and sometimes lead to further non-blogging opportunities.

SquawkFox and Preet both leveraged their blogs into other opportunities.  SquawkFox used her blog to help her get a book deal, while Preet used his to help him get a TV show.  Good for them!

For Attention

I’m a total comment whore (and will be quite sad if, at the end of the day, there aren’t any comments on a post I’ve written).  Part of the joy of blogging is to get immediate feedback on the ideas you’ve written, and to be able to interact with readers.  I don’t always respond, but I read every comment left on a post I’ve written.  Beyond commenters, it’s interesting to see your page views and realize that a ton of people have taken time out of their day to consider what you have to say.

This post got too long.  Come back on Tuesday, May 4th for 5 more reasons why we blog.

This post highlights a family in Britain that lives entirely on government benefits.  Not only are they getting by, I’d say they are doing very well.

You want a nanny state?  Well, how about paid travel vacations for everyone?  The head of EU thinks that it is a basic human right.

Speaking of scumbags – this lady is preventing an elderly couple from using a shared driveway they used for 33 years.

And now for something completely different…

PT Money has quit his day job and is blogging full time.   He points out that health care costs are an issue for him since they would like to have another baby.  It seems like private health care costs in the US end up being a huge tax on entrepreneurs.

Frugal Dad is clearly thinking along the same lines as PT, but is still working on his plan to become self-employed.

Something even more different

A college student in Indiana is going to show some skin on Monday in order to start a worldwide earthquake.  Check out boobquake.

More great links

Rachelle from Million Dollar Journey wrote about the battle between the CREA and the competition commissioner about control over the MLS.  Lots of stupid comments from real estate agents.

Kevin Press wrote about his experience with poverty.  A good read.

Squawkfox has some great baked bean recipes – I’ll be trying some of these.

The Financial Blogger sold his house without an agent – he did well, but he chickened out on the last few thousand dollars.  He still did much better than if he used an agent however.

Canadian Capitalist reviewed “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis who wrote “Liar’s Poker” – an excellent book.

An interesting post explaining why movies suck.  They are mostly written for teenagers – apparently 70% of movie goers are under the age of 21.  I did not know that.