MANAGING MONEY PROBLEMS DOESN’T START WITH EARNING MORE. How many of you are in a state of financial trouble? I don’t want to know because that is a question for you to tackle possibly signaling time for a financial stress test. If you really want to fix your financial stress it takes more than just earning more money. Let me explain. If you answered yes to my question you might want to take a bow, raise the curtain on your debt show and start a new chapter. If you can’t make ends meet don’t sit around waiting for collapse get ahead of the game because if you suffer from financial stress now it will only get worse. Unfortunately not everyone may be able to get ahead especially if living on a fixed income. For those who are and can manage the bills with what they get financial stress looms over them just as much as the next person. If you believe you can’t get ahead because your income doesn’t cover the bills and you’re debt free then something must change. We can all say no to credit and creating debt we don’t need but we can’t all rush out […]
Crack the Whip Potluck Etiquette For Hosts and Guests : The Grocery Game Challenge #4 July 24-30
THE RULES AND RECIPE IDEAS FOR A FUN POTLUCK PARTY Today I want to talk about potluck do’s and don’ts and how you can have a frugal party without extra expenses. Accepting an invitation to a potluck party means that you will put some thought into the dish you plan to make. This doesn’t always happen which ends up in potluck nightmare. What is a potluck party? A potluck is a party where a host offers their home or backyard and guests bring planned dishes. Some friends host parties once a month to balance the costs of food during the summer and winter months for each other. The host typically makes the main dish but this is not a rule. The worst thing you could do for a potluck is drop by the local grocery store on your way to the party to purchase something pre-made. That’s a no-no in my books unless you have a legit emergency where you were unable to make something. Ideally planning your potluck dish ahead of the party would make things easier. Potluck Host Etiquette The perfect potluck would have a variety of dishes but to achieve this the host must […]
Magical 4 Ingredient British Sponge Cake
The best sponge cake recipe you will ever try is made with love and only 4 ingredients. The aroma of this British sponge cake recipe trailed my mum’s kitchen since I was a little boy. She was a stay-at-home mum for the most part unless she was helping my dad with our business and always had a cake baked inside her cake tin. (she still uses the same tin, no kidding.) Most often it was a sponge cake to enjoy after tea with a lovely cup of coffee or tea. Other times we’d sneak a piece just because the sponge cake was so light and fluffy it was hard to resist. A sponge cake is one of the easiest cakes you can make and a great cake for baking beginners and inexpensive to make. British sponge cake has 4 ingredients and that’s all you need to make this delicious cake that everyone will rave about. Once you dress up your fluffy sponge cake with accessories you’ll see that you’re working with a blank pallet that you can bring to life. This makes the sponge cake the perfect birthday, anniversary, baptism, graduation or even wedding cake for your special day. […]
How To Build An Inexpensive Summer Highway Survival Kit : The Saturday Weekend Review #228
THE BEST MONEY YOU WILL SPEND IS BEING PREPARED JUST IN CASE SOMETHING HAPPENS ON THE HIGHWAY. Having a summer highway survival kit in your trunk is not just important to have, it’s vital. A few days back there was a chemical spill from a truck that crashed which closed the 400 series highway by Newmarket, Ontario between Hwy 89 and 9 for 11 hours. Related: Frustrated drivers trapped for hours on 400 highway for chemical spill Reports of tweets from parents complaining that their kids have not had food or drink to eat were popping up and overall frustrations of the slow chemical spill clean-up. Generally any time I’ve been held up on the highway between Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area all the way up to Windsor and London I plan for a holdup. They do happen and happen often and I’m always ready for the, ‘just in case’. Although concerns are important from motorists stranded on the highway especially medical emergencies motorists need to be responsible when travelling. Don’t have the “It will never happen to me attitude”, because it could. You might not have everything you need in your prepared highway summer survival kit BUT […]
How To Avoid Turning One Dollar Into A $29 Credit Card Fee
A CREDIT CARD HAS ONE MISSION-TO MAKE MONEY. Would you open your window while driving and empty your wallet out? Laughable, however too many of us do this without even knowing it. Never ever just open a credit card bill or any bill and just pay it. If you do this then you run the risk of throwing money out the window. This almost happened to us but thankfully we DO read our statements and found a surprising credit card fee that was not expected. Related: Why you should always read your grocery receipt Besides earning rewards some people they pay a heavy price for holding a credit card balance and paying the minimum. That’s really not what I’m going to talk to you about today though. Quite the opposite actually which not only sent us to the telephone with our jaw dropped but to find out almost all credit card companies do this. Credit Card Fees…. there’s more than 1. We’ve never once paid any interest to a credit card company and don’t plan to begin but this isn’t an interest charge it’s an over credit limit charge. If you thought that your credit card would send out […]
How I Turned Grocery Shopping Into A Daddy Vacation : The Grocery Game Challenge 2017 #3 July 17-23
WHEN GROCERY SHOPPING BECOMES THE HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR DAY. Parenthood is more than just having a baby, it’s about finding ways to keep sane in a busy world of dirty nappies, feedings, work and lack of sleep. Things have changed as they should since we’ve become parents especially for myself since our son wants to do everything with me. If you could imagine me coming home from work and attacked by a toddler while Mrs. CBB waves and says, “have fun” that’s how it all goes down. At times he’s like a television that has no off button but I appreciate his inclination to learn and talk non-stop from the time he wakes up until he falls asleep again. It hasn’t been until the last year or so that we are really feeling the push from dealing with the terrible two’s. I read a meme that stated how parents who go grocery shopping alone attribute the experience to a vacation. Mrs. CBB laughed because some of the other moms she chats with has said the same thing. I wanted to see if I got that same vacation feeling so I put myself up for the daddy vacation challenge. When […]
How A Life Changing Illness Shaped Our Financial Future
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT EVERYTHING WAS GOING WELL YOU’RE HIT WITH AN ILLNESS THAT WILL FOREVER CHANGE YOUR LIFE. I’ve been writing about money for much of the past decade but I didn’t always have my act together, financial speaking. In fact, I spent most of my twenties deep in debt, and it took a big, scary, life-changing event for me to have my financial awakening. I’ll never forget the day when my world changed. It was 2008, and my wife had complained of a headache – a pain behind her right eye, to be exact. She was in excruciating pain and nearly went blind, temporarily, seeing only red spots out of her affected eye. An ophthalmologist confirmed it was optic neuritis, an inflammation that affects the optic nerve. After prescribing an incredibly high dose of prednisone to bring down the inflammation, the doctor referred my wife to a neurologist who diagnosed her with Multiple Sclerosis. We were devastated. At the time, we didn’t know much about MS and how this disease would impact our lives. All we knew was that each flare-up of the disease caused nerve damage, which would gradually get worse over time and lead to […]
Should you Invest in an RRSP, TFSA or Non-Registered Account?
UNDERSTANDING HOW YOUR MONEY IS INVESTED IS HALF THE BATTLE One of the most common questions I hear in my job is ‘what type of account should I be saving in?’ If you are just getting started with investing, then you may have heard about RRSP’s and TFSA’s but not really know the difference between them and when you should be using each one. That’s what I’m here to talk about today, the pros, the cons, and the best time to use each of these accounts. When it comes to basic investing you have three main account types you can use; an RRSP, a TFSA, or a non-registered account. Each of these have their own positives and negatives, so it’s helpful to figure out the most valuable for your current situation. You can hold a variety of investments (stocks, mutual funds, ETF’s, etc.) in any of these accounts; there are a few limitations in RRSP’s and TFSA’s, but unless you are a very high risk, speculative investor, this will likely never come up. RRSP’s (Registered Retirement Savings Plans) Since you are here reading a blog about finance, I’m going to assume that you have heard of an RRSP. […]
