June 2009
Why do my condo fees keep going up?
Posted by admin on June 9, 2009 in Real Estate
Our condo corporation passed its budget recently; we got by relatively unscathed with a small increase after several years of no increases. But for many condo owners in newer or older buildings, this may not be the case. Why do condo fees escalate, setting aside natural inflation of expenses of time, and what are the [...]
Alternate strategies to improve your credit score
Posted by admin on June 8, 2009 in Credit Score
June 30th is typically the busiest home closing day of the year. For most home buyers, it is also that time of the year where a credit score is thought of since the difference between a good or bad credit score could mean hundreds or thousands more dollars a year in mortgage payments. As the [...]
397 Ways to Save Money
Posted by admin on June 5, 2009 in Misc.
The personal finance blogsphere is a small place. Blog for long enough time and you get to know one blog through another blogger. For the non-professional bloggers, we sit on the other side of the fence from the business media, who have access to the players and are fed stories by pr folks (which is [...]
Should your home really be seen as purely an investment?
Posted by admin on June 4, 2009 in Real Estate
There is an interesting, sometimes surreal discussion, going on at Canadian Money forum about buying real estate. It is a bit surreal because it is like listening to two sides have different conversations about the same thing. Those who discourage anyone from buying real estate primarily speak from an investment angle- valuations cannot be maintained, [...]
How higher long-term interest rates affects you
Posted by admin on June 3, 2009 in Investment Information
Depending on what side of the fence you sit on, the recent spike of the benchmark 10 year treasury yield from as low as 2.23% in mid-January to 3.71% last week is either a good thing or a bad thing. The spike has been very rapid. On May 19, I wrote about investing in a [...]
Woe to the taxpayer
Posted by admin on June 2, 2009 in Taxes
If you ask me what one item a household should increase its expenditure on in the upcoming year, my answer would be to think seriously about paying for a good tax accountant. A tax accountant is different than an accountant that helps you file your taxes. On a very general basis, a tax accountant structures [...]
Why are some banks doing better than others?
Posted by admin on June 1, 2009 in Investment Information
With most of the large North American banks reporting their last financial quarter’s results (a quick and dirty summary of Canadian banks and insurance company financial reports can be found here), and the dust settling somewhat on the financial sector as a whole (emphasis on “somewhat”), market analysts are beginning to pick winners and losers [...]
