My frenetic writing pace has slowed, but it hasn’t stopped. What have I been writing about? That is a good question. March Madness from Me Do you have Financial Phobias? I found this while spring cleaning this site. There are plenty of things to worry about when it comes to money. Effective Interest Rate of Service Charges a rewrite of an older post from about ten years ago. Why is anyone paying service fees on their banking? Don’t stand for that. Nineteen Years Ago, This Started. What is more interesting is that I have been writing three separate sites for the past 19 years. Check out my tec ..read more

A long time ago, Michael James discussed an interesting article by Colleen Jaconetti about Rebalaphobia, where Couch Potato investors are afraid to rebalance their portfolios (at the appointed time to balance it). I know I sometimes have anxiety about whether I should balance at the appointed time, but remember, you shouldn’t be worried about market timing, so just do it. I guess this could be viewed as Agoraphobia, where you are afraid to leave a “safe” place, or you feel helpless. You do realize there is a phobia about money, right? Chrematophobia, is the fear of money, that might be my ..read more

Bank Fees as Simple Interest What if banks had to tell you their service charges as an interest rate? Bank Fees are clearly displayed as a dollar value. As an example $15.00 for our Extra Special Banking Service. However, what if we do a little simple arithmetic? Michael James could do the more interesting compound interest version of this equation. Assume that you hold a balance of about $500 in your chequing account over a year and that you receive no interest on your balance. You do, however, get charged $12.95 a month for the Extra Special Banking Service offered by Leech Banks. No Bank Fe ..read more

I have been writing here for more than 19 years now. Why? I am still not sure. Cathartic wailing? I hope to help a few folks. My hobby? I am not that sure, but some of that and many other things as well—time to reflect on these past 19 years. To begin with, I thought I’d make money doing this. I didn’t. Thought I’d gain a level of fame? I didn’t. What I did was make some good friends and acquaintances. I hope I helped a few folks, and I know I learned a lot. I have been reworking and rewriting many of my older works, mostly to read what I wrote early on. My opinions were a little over the top ..read more

What happens when your son’s DTC from the CRA expires? Plenty, but not much of it useful. I received my son’s Statement of Grant a week ago and got a follow-up call from TD. I hope it was TD, otherwise, my investment accounts are severely compromised. No matching benefits to RDSP As you can see below, currently there are no benefits for my son’s RDSP What does the CRA tell you when your DTC expires? See AboveNot allowed to deposit into RDSP TD Investment called me to inform me the CRA won’t allow any more deposits. They then informed me that when the DTC is in place, I’ll have to wait for anot ..read more

Saint David always has to take a back seat to his much more raucous brother (in Sainthood) Saint Patrick, but for those with Welsh blood in them (and those that wish they did), we still all proudly celebrate this day with a plate of faggots and mushy peas (look that up in one of your fancy gourmet cookbooks). Faggots, Mushy Peas and Mashed! Saint David is the patron saint of Wales, but also of Vegetarians, so if you love your lettuce, Saint David is your man! I am sad about Saint David’s for me, as my favourite son of Wales is no longer with us. My Dad passed away a while ago, but I will celeb ..read more

February is Black History Month. Odd that they chose the shortest month of the year for that. I wrote and re-wrote a fair amount this month. I think I have found a rhythm, although very few folk have noticed. So be it, I write for me. Enjoy the Leap Day! February 2024 Writings by Me “Alas, I am Dying Beyond My Means” Explore what Oscar Wilde & Lotus F-1 racing teams knew about death. Plan your end-game status: enjoy or leave behind a packet of cash? FinTech’s Foundations COBOL FinTech enjoys selling itself as the next generation in banking technology, but it has a very old friend helping ..read more

Michael James wrote an interesting review about Parkinson’s Law. I commented on his site and quoted The 3rd Lemma of Money, which is one of many simple lemmas I have about how money and finances work. One day, I will publish the entire list. This simple Lemma states: Any increase in income (e.g. Pay Raise) will then cause a 115% increase in spending in reaction to that increase so that after a short period (no more than 6 months), effective income will have dropped by 15% Lifestyle Creep The Rules, Lemmas and Theories of Life It’s time to break the cycle of getting a pay raise only to end up ..read more

If we are to believe these were the last words of Oscar Wilde, how many of us will be thinking this at our end? Lotus F-1 racing cars used to have a philosophy that the best car, would be one that ran the race and fell apart driving across the finish line. On your death, what will you be leaving? Do you have a plan for your end-game status? Are you going to leave a packet of cash to your family or are you going to burn it all and enjoy it? Leave a nice corpse but an empty wallet? Good questions to ask. If you are planning to scorch the earth financially and leave a lovely corpse, warn your Est ..read more

I stand by the statements I made many years ago. COBOL programmers continue to make a lot of money maintaining risk-averse monetary systems. A fascinating article from the Wall Street Journal confirmed what I had always suspected. In terms of technology, all banking is still based on, COBOL (at least on the banking side). The world of banking is very risk-averse when it comes to technology. There are backups to all systems and multiple power sources. Every system must live up to “5 9s” availability. This means the system is up 99.99999 % of the time. As the Canadian Government found out, chang ..read more