RRSP contribution room of over $200,000. I have never in my career seen that much contribution room for one person. Goodness, gracious.
RT @JonChevreau: The rise of DIY investing. Package in FP Weekend, including call for hybrid DIY plus fee-only advice: http://go2cut.com/TD
Way to piss off the people who butter your bread, Morningstar: http://bit.ly/Mk3RV
Are cars *really* a waste of money? http://bit.ly/KRKOT
The Financial Blogger put out a post yesterday, about suppressing the urge to buy a nice car because…well, just because. I get that the monthly payment was going to be higher than he was aiming for, and that some of the car’s features might not have been necessary.
On the other hand, I’ve found that when people don’t get the car they wanted in the first place, this tends to happen:
Day 1: Ehhh, who really needs a Bose sound system, GPS, automatic shift, power windows and all of that hoopla? [Grinds gear pulling out of Costco parking lot]
Day 30: Yannow, I really could’ve used AC. [Girlfriend asks “OH REALLY NOW”, as her windblown hair clings to the ceiling fabric]
Day 100: Screw this noise, I’m buying the car I want next time [Flexes biceps, shredded from window roller-uppering]
I’d trade $40 or $50 a month to drive a car that I enjoy owning, rather than cheaping out on some of the better perks, while still paying the finance/lease costs that are in the hundreds of dollars a month anyway.
Additionally, as I mentioned on his comments page, a car doesn’t always lose value. In fact, it can add value.
Yes, it will depreciate in terms of resale price, but a car isn’t a financial investment in and of itself. For an HR manager working downtown, and living near a subway line, the car can indeed be a drag on net worth. Most of her transportation needs can likely be accomplished via public transit. On the other hand, for an outbound salesman living in Milton, who takes calls all over the GTA, a nice, reliable car does several things for him:
1) Allows him to take calls wherever he needs to, leading to high sales volume (assuming he’s good at what he does), leading to increased income.
2) Doesn’t require excessive maintenance, or break down and leave him stranded by the roadside, thereby holding its functional value.
3) May boost his image among the people he does business with.
Early on in the practice, I used to knock cars as well, buying into the idea that if you can’t sell it for at least what you paid for it, it’s a bad investment. Now I know better. I say buy the car you want, as long as it fits within your transportation budget*.
*Not to be taken as advice to increase your transportation budget. I get enough grief from wives, as it is, for giving hubby the okay to buy nice toys.
I get mixed reactions form other advisors on Ivy, but I’m a fan of this group of funds. They’ve stuck to quality businesses which make money even in slumping markets, and for a group of funds that is comprised of 90% stock holdings - or more - their volatility is remarkably low.
Not to mention their managers look like a breeding experiment between MENSA and the Algonquin Round Table. Look at page A2. They look ready to jump through my screen and mathematically deduce what I ate for breakfast this morning.
Hat’s off to the web-savvy Jonathan Chevreau, who retweeted my tweet faster than a bucket of chicken disappears at Oprah’s place.
Gas prices have gone right back up again. Looks like I’m going back to pouring milk in my cereal, and bathing in water.
Can’t say I’m very surprised to see this. When the wheels started to come off the equity market wagons last fall, Canadian hedge funds took a beating. Some have withstood the storm - Sprott, for example. Others folded, or their managers just packed up and left, e.g. Brendan Kyne’s Leeward Hedge Funds [Note: this guy really got under my skin with the parting shot “I didn’t want to deal with whiny clients”. Yeah, whiny-ass, house-losing, no-security-having client, who entrusted me with your money. Shut your mouth and be thankful as I ride it into the ground].
Still, I like Eric Sprott, and even though some of Sprott Asset Management’s offerings have had inexplicably poor performance (e.g. Sprott Global Equity), I still dig his investment philosophy (Big-picture value investing in companies with low price/earnings ratio and good cash flow). Dispassionate as I am about most fund products (More precisely, the companies who manage them), I’d like to see how Sprott Asset Management makes its way out of the post-apocalyptic rubble of the equity sector.
Hey, there’s an idea. Eric Sprott in the Thunderdome. Shoulder-spiked and gladiator-helmeted, dragging Kyne’s mangled corpse behind him, for the viewing pleasure of Tina Turner.
BRB, writin script now.
Tweet-based financial plan, by National Post’s Jonathan Chevreau. Pithy, I say. http://bit.ly/Mw3yo
