Gails Blog

 

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. We are buried in snow here at Wits End (yes, I named my house), and all is well. Pony and Llama have been feed, as have the deck-cats. The birds are yelling at me, but they’ll have to wait a minute or four. I’ve got two squashes roasting in the oven to make squash soup (one with mango, the other with curry & coconut milk), and I’m almost all caught up on the laundry. Wow!

 

I’m sorry I can’t answer all the questions I’ve been receiving. There are just too many of them and not enough of me. One question I will answer is about my plans to travel and do more speaking engagements. Credential and I are talking about doing some more gad-abouts in the Fall, maybe down East. But I’m about to go back into production for the TV show and it’s hard to do a lot of traveling when I’m shooting.  It’s bad enough being away from my kids as it is, so I limit my time (usually) to just two days a week. TV uses that up during production, so anything extra I do is at significant personal cost. That’s why I’m not doing tons of speaking.

 

When I do speak, it has to be for an organization that is willing to let me be who I am. That’s not always easy to find. Most times, organizations have an agenda that is somewhat different from mine. I’m about telling the truth and educating people. If I think something is a good idea, I say so. If I think it’s a bad idea, I say that too. Most organizations can’t deal with it. I’m very happy to say Credential could, and I thoroughly enjoy my relationship with them. 

  

Lots of people are writing to asking me what they should do with their money. Here’s my answer: I DON’T KNOW. I don’t know you. I don’t know your circumstances. I don’t know your goals. Geeze Louise! Go find someone who can get to know you so that you can start building a relationship with THEM and they can start getting to know YOU.

 

I know, I know, whom are you supposed to trust? It’s a good question. Start by asking family and friends who they turn to for advice and how happy they are. No luck there? Then ask at work. Ask your boss (you’ll look proactive and future-focused, both good attributes as an employee.) I can’t believe nobody you know has a good advisor.

 

I take that back. I can believe it. Because I get a lot of questions every day – I can’t answer them all, but I’ll deal with some of the “major issues” in my blog. YOU also have to take some initiative. Search my blog. Search my site. Look to see if I’ve answered the question you’re asking before (I may have, since there’s lots of stuff here.) If I get a question I’ve received before, I’m not going to repeat myself. So look around.

 

There are some good advisors out there. I’ve met some of them (sorry, no referrals). My best advice is to go to your community-based financial institution and build a relationship there. Community-based? What’s that? It’s a financial institution where you know the people because you live and work with them. You’ll hold them accountable and they’ll do the same to you. They’re genuinely interested in helping you do well, and they take great satisfaction from their role as guide.

 

If you feel you’re not important to your financial institution, then you aren’t. If you don’t feel special, you’re not. If you don’t enjoy your interactions, if you aren’t greeted warmly, if you don’t have a sense that you come first – not just a slogan, people, really come first – then you should find yourself another financial partner.

 

Some people want to know what’s in an office in a box. Y’know, you probably have most of the stuff you need at home, but here’s a list of things you might want to include.

 

• Box of file folders
• Box of hanging folders + tabs
• Box to hang folders in
• Labels
• Pens coloured
• Pencils plain
• Eraser
• Small stapler
• Staple remover
• Scissors
• Scotch tape
• Paperclips
• IN box tray x 2
• Post-it notes
• Calculator
• Envelopes
• Stamps
• Accounting book (sometimes described as “columnar book” for WRITING IT DOWN!

As for making the interactive budget downloadable, Marnie, it’s simply an excel spreadsheet. If you want to keep your budget on your computer, use mine as a model and create your own. 

 

And finally, since we are in RRSP season and I’ve gotten several questions about RRSP loans, here’s my take:

 

• If you were in a really high tax bracket last year and hadn’t done any RRSP saving — but you’re all ready to be a good toad this year — then go ahead and get an RRSP loan, make your maximum contribution, get your tax back (or don’t pay the tax you would have to). Then pay off the loan within six months. If you can’t do that, don’t do it at all.
• If you’re thinking of taking out a whopping loan to catch up on unused RRSP contribution room, think again. Instead of paying interest on a loan, simply make the payments you would have made on your loan directly to your RRSP as contributions. You’ll be caught up in no time, and you won’t have paid a penny in interest.
• If you’re trying to figure out how to make a bigger RRSP contribution when you barely have enough to get to the end of the month — and you already have a third job — try this: when you get your tax refund from making your RRSP contribution (and whatever else you’ve done to minimize your taxes), add that refund to your next RRSP contribution. There. You’ve increased your RRSP savings and it hasn’t cost you a cent more from your cash flow.

If you haven’t made an RRSP contribution for 2007, let 2008 be the year you put inertia to work for you. Go to your financial institution today and set up an automatic savings plan. However much you choose, have it deducted from your main account and automatically contributed to an RRSP.   If your next question is, “So what should I be investing my RRSP money in?” we’re right back where we started. GO FIND AN ADVISOR.

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under RRSP, This & That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.