Category: Announcements

Clever Dude’s wife made him save some gas. Maybe his wife should buy him a miles-per-gallon meter?

He also had a problem at a restaurant recently because he didn’t want to split the check evenly. I agree – splitting the check works only if everyone eats/drinks roughly the same amount. Check out the comments – pretty entertaining – my favourite was from Sara – “Stuff like this makes me kind of glad I don’t have any friends, so I don’t get into this kind of situation.”

Blunt Money has started a number of small businesses and wrote an excellent post on starting a small business.

Frugal Dad is having a problem with his emergency fund. The post is good but the photo he used is awesome.

Canadian Capitalist reminds us that if you are in the accumulation phase of your investment career then you should be loving the bear market. This is tough to do which is why it is important to read books like the Four Pillars of Investing and A Random Walk Down Wall Street which will remind you why it’s a good idea.

Squawkfox has come up with 50 great reasons not to use plastic bags. I think getting rid of plastic bags is a great idea but it seems that for some people it’s the ultimate solution – ie it’s ok to drive your huge SUV 1 half kilometer to the store as long as you have a re-usable bag.

MoneyNing had an interesting post on two families trying to avoid foreclosure. He also wrote out some good thoughts on passive income.

My Two Dollars says that friends don’t let friends drive frugal…or something like that – very good post!

That’s right – the link post is moving from Saturday to…well this week it will be Friday. 🙂 We’ve decided to do the link post during the week and cut back on one of the regular posts.  Summer hours!  🙂

First off – Squawkfox did a very creative and exciting job on the stripped down, bare necessities version of Festival of Frugality – her best move was picking Mr. Cheap’s Everyman’s guide to earning $30/month in passive income post as a “tighty whitey”. If nothing else then please go and check out the photos and find out what a “tighty whitey” is.

Where Does All My Money Go did a neat video on how to read a stock quote – it’s a beginner type tutorial but if you want to hear the soothing sound of Preet’s silky voice then check it out.

Million Dollar Journey is wondering if BCE is a buying opportunity.

Frequent commenter Shevy has started her own blog which I urge you to check out since it’s pretty good. Her most recent post is a response to a comment I made this week about not traveling with my kids ever again!

Blunt Money is the one blog in our new network that I wasn’t familiar with until recently and I have to say I’ve been pleasantly surprised since I really like reading her stuff. Here are a couple of articles I enjoyed:

• Are single stocks too risky? She questions Dave Ramsey’s advice on this one.
• Staying Motivated. Blunt talks about how she and her husband have done the ‘easy’ work on their new business and now have to find the motivation to get the other 90% of the work done. I can relate to this as I have another website I’m planning to “launch” (as we say in the biz) but getting it ready with material etc is just plain hard work. Of course I can use my new baby as an excuse, but I can only do that for so long!

Million Dollar Journey talks about his idea of retirement and invited his readers to share their visions.

Amateur Asset Allocator (one of my favourite blogs lately) says that investing in bank stocks will pay off in the long run. A good post if you own any bank stocks!

Canadian Capitalist talks about one of my favourite subjects – ETFs!! Vanguard has a new all-world ETF and he explains why it’s not so great.

Financial Blogger talks about the bizarre Quebec tradition of everyone moving on the same day.

Clever Dude wrote about how he gave his economic stimulus check to his father-in-law’s church and the father-in-law wasn’t too happy.

Squawkfox created a neat calculator for gas mileage which I’m going to try. She also created a video which explains how to use it

Moneyning signed up for some “free stuff” and is wondering if he got scammed. Nothing is for free!!!

No post today so enjoy your Canada Day holiday.  For our American readers, get ready for the big July 4 holiday.

Mr. Cheap and I are proud to announce that we have joined up with some other bloggers and created a new blog network called the “Personal Finance Network”. In case you are wondering exactly what a blog network is, it is generally a group of blogs that collaborate together and help promote member blogs via links. There are a number of potential benefits to the individual member blogs but I think the biggest one is the possibility of increasing our regular readership by getting some referrals from the other blogs. The readers of our blog won’t notice much difference except more links to the other member blogs.

Without further delay, here are the members of the Personal Finance Network:

Blunt Money – an American woman who talks about a variety of finance related topics.

Canadian Capitalist – most of our regular readers know him and his highly regarded blog. Mostly Canadian-related and investment topics.

Clever Dude – a very clever (or so he claims) American who is pretty funny and writes about “Family, Marriage, Finances, Life” – in other words pretty much anything!

MoneyNing lives in California but grew up in Canada so although he wasn’t born here, I’m including him as an honourary Canuck!

Squawkfox – another Canuck who writes very interesting posts on very interesting topics. Regular readers will recognize this blog as well.

Quest For Four Pillars – and of course this blog which you are probably already familiar with.

Please note that because of Canada Day there will be no post on Tuesday.

Once more I’m going to try to make Mike’s claim of no more Saturday posts incorrect :-).  What should we put the odds at that we’ll get a Saturday post out of Mike next weekend?

Weight was 171 this week.  I’m back on program, eating healthy again and seeing the results.  I’m *SUCH* a fan of logging information you’re trying to change (be it spending, saving or weight).  Come to think of it, that might make a good post…

I’m just going to give one link this week, and its from an older post. I just came across an interview on Financial Jungle that I really liked.  It was posted back in January, but I missed it somehow.  Good to see the results of someone who has pursued this strategy over the long term.  Of course, his results are no indication of what ours will be, but encouraging nevertheless.

I always love interviews:  bloggers should do more of them!  (I don’t think I’ve ever done one on this blog either, that’s something I should change).

Adapting to life in Kitchener-Waterloo has been going well.  The sushi here is over-priced and inedible (and the Pad Thai is just minimally better), so there may be regular trips to Toronto in the future.  Mr. Sushi was good when I was here before, but its gone downhill.  I can make sushi, but its A LOT of work.  Probably it’d be worth learning how to make a decent Pad Thai…

I got my funding all sorted out, and it should be enough for me to live off of.  It looks like I’ll be clearing $1418.40 / month (before my condo or dividend income) and spending around $1300 (given my current estimated and recent spending).  Tight, but manageable.

2 months ago I made a prediction that Toronto was in a housing slump and it’d be clear to everyone by today.  Its still uncertain (although I still feel the market is cooling), so I guess I’ll call myself wrong on this count.  Please keep this in mind any time I make predictions in the future :-).  I keep counseling friends and family to hold off buying, so I hope I’m not leading them astray.

I’m bouncing around the idea in my noggin’ of putting together a book about living cheap in the big city.  Mike suggested that there might be interest in expanding on some of my “frugal living” posts (I had previously suggested expanding his RESP series to a book and us writing a book together so this might have just been a suggestion to get me to stop bugging him).  I’d probably set it up as a print on demand book from Lulu or some such site.  One of my life goals is to write and publish a book, and this may be the time and topic to do so.  Any thoughts about what the level of interest might be in such a beast?  Would any regular readers consider ordering it?  Do you think there’d be interest from people who don’t read the blog?  Do you think this is a topic that’s already covered well by existing books?  Which ones?  What topics would you be particularly interested in if you did purchase it?  Would another topic (maybe a romance novel about a frugal man and the women who love him) be of interest instead?

Ok, I know I said I wouldn’t be doing any link posts for a while but I just can’t help myself. Some great posts this week – all these blogs are quite excellent so if you are looking for more reading material then check their other posts as well.

Big congrats to Million Dollar Journey who was mentioned in the latest Money Sense magazine (my favourite). I already recycled it, but if I can paraphrase from memory “A super informational blog, we love him, great guy, read his blog!”.

Jeff from My Super Charged Life wrote a fantastic post about surviving a class-5 tornado which wrecked his house. Read the post and check out the photos – we’re not talking about a Toronto-style storm where you might get a couple of lawn chairs tipped over.

Brip Blap is going back to work after a brief pro-blogging career. This post really resonated with me since I have the exact same frustrations of not working (for a while) but not being able to write anything because of the kids. I think I wrote two posts in May. I definitely wouldn’t trade places with anyone since I rather like the kids, but this post might be a good lesson for someone who is planning to work at home with the kid(s). Not possible!

Lynnae from Being Frugal wrote a great post about health care in America. She wants coverage for low income Americans but no government involvement. As I pointed out in the comments – that ain’t never going to happen. Lots of great comments too, although for some reason most of them seem to be from non-Americans.

The Canadian Financial DIY wrote about the Canadian Pension Plan investment strategy in a very well researched post. A must read for any Canadians.

Since Mike’s stopped the Saturday posts, I figured it’d be worth giving you one last one :-).

Weight was 177.5 lbs this week. Not bad compared to Mike’s 180.5, but pretty miserable compared to my 145 lbs low. Mike’s taller than I am, so from a BMI perspective he’s kicking my ass.

You can see some of the sites / posts I recently viewed and liked at my StumbleUpon page.

Paul Graham wrote a thought provoking piece Cities and Ambition. I lived in SF, and I agree that the ambition there was power. No idea *what* Toronto’s ambition could be. Maybe envy?

I came across PF Buzz this week. It’s basically Digg for PF blogs.

I had a laugh when Thicken My Wallet worried about not spending enough on wedding gifts. I’ve been budgeting $50 for most friends who get married. TMW is increasing from $100. I guess Mr. Cheap has to loosen the purse strings a bit. A while ago I had another laugh at TMW’s site. I clicked over to Greezeo since he was answering some questions there. The by-line was a woman’s name, and for a second I thought “is TMW a woman?”. Its amusing, since a blogger’s (or any writer’s) gender doesn’t make much of a difference most of the time, and I wasn’t 100% sure whether TMW was a man or not (his writing has always seemed pretty darn masculine to me, but I couldn’t remember whether I’d read anything that definitely said he was a man). Turns out, the by-line was someone else and he is a man.

Growth in Value had some great links to info about the recent Canadian banks reports.

Million Dollar Journey has some good tips on getting discounts. I haggle like a demon when I’m traveling, but find it hard when I’m at home. His approach is pretty well what I use, so I should try it in Canada. He got a 60% discount off of WAL*MART, which is pretty damn impressive. I wonder if he’s ever convinced a store to pay him to take something away?

Money Gardener added some GE to his portfolio. Without having dug too far into the company, I really liked the looks of it right now too, so I’m jealous (I don’t mind the STARVING part of being a student, but not having extra cash to buy stock kinda sucks…)

Note – Mike added this link later.

Violent Acres wrote yet another brilliant post on gift giving on which I couldn’t agree more.  People getting married are the worst – I know people who are in their 30’s, make good money (ie $75k+ each), own their own house/condo and STILL insist on having some sort of fund raising events just because they are tying the knot.  Screw you!!