Announcements

Mike recently hinted at some upcoming changes and got frequent commenters intrigued. In the past, it’s often take us a couple of stabs to clearly convey changes to the blog, so this is my half of the description of what’s happening.  Mike should be providing more details tomorrow. Mike recently called me up, reminded me [...]

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The Toronto heat wave is finally over. I think it started sometime in February? Lots of big announcements regarding Money Smarts Blog next week, so make sure you come back and check them out. One announcement on Tuesday and another on Wednesday. My wife sent me a couple of great quotes regarding inactivity this week [...]

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A while ago I reviewed Rob Carrick’s excellent book – new book “Rob Carricks’s Guide to What’s Good, Bad and Downright Awful in Canadian Investments Today“.  I managed to get a copy of his previous book, “How to Pay Less and Keep More For Yourself: The Essential Consumer Guide to Canadian Banking and Investing” out [...]

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With the hot weather we’ve been in enjoying in Toronto, it’s hard to believe that September is only a few weeks away. September will bring changes to the temperature as well as school for younger folks. It will also bring my announcement of the big project I’ve been working on, and big changes for this [...]

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Hope you had a great “holiday” week. I managed to get my home office setup. I’ve been blogging from a laptop on my couch for the past 3 years and I decided that having a proper workspace would help with productivity. I’m also hoping it will allow me to set “office hours” so I can [...]

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Busy week here at MSB with posts every day. Next week will be a bit lighter since Monday is a holiday, however I will be publishing the last post from the “tenant from hell” trilogy. The last post is very much on the disgusting side and I’ve changed my mind several times about whether it [...]

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Any cycling fans out there? I’ve managed to convert my wife to an avid fan.   This year’s Tour de France was quite exciting and you just can’t beat the scenery and interesting historic buildings along the route. It looks like Contador will win this year. I am cheering for Schleck, but I always thought [...]

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I personally think kids are great and I enjoy spending time with mine. However, like everything – too much of a good thing isn’t so good. It can get tiresome after a while. Judith Timson wrote about how parenting is no fun. She is reacting another post about parenting in New York Mag which outlines [...]

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Nike+ is a really neat systems that basically puts a sensor in your running shoe, records the data to your iPod, then helps runners analyze the data and use it to understand their training and health.  I’ve written about the power of measurement in the past, and I’m a big believer that when you give [...]

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Wow, it is hot, hot, hot in Toronto this week.  But not as hot as last weekend during the G20 summit – what a complete embarrassment for everyone involved (including the city of Toronto). On with the links! Canadian Capitalist republished a great post on why you should invest your own money. Well worth the [...]

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I was going to include this post in the “week of romance” back around Valentine’s day, but there wasn’t room (I guess I’ve just got too much love to give).  Marriage and divorce can be two of the biggest factors in personal finances:  the right partner can help us get what we want out of [...]

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Best Personal Financial Planning and Personal Investment Articles this Week from Personal Finance Blogs Welcome to the June 18, 2010 Edition #146 of the Carnival of Financial Planning. The Carnival of Financial Planning takes a long-term view of personal financial planning for individuals and families. We focus on efficient and sustainable personal financial planning practices [...]

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Here in Toronto, we are gearing up for the G20 summit next week. I think downtown Toronto is quite possibly the stupidest place to hold this sort of event, but needless to say, they didn’t ask my opinion. I doubt there will be any trouble at the summit. With the number of security people on [...]

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I really liked the business principle “under promise and over deliver” from the first time I heard it.  It made total sense to me:  follow through on your commitments and exceed what you said you’d do.  I think this is a good approach to all facets of life, not just running a business.  Your boss [...]

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Toronto will be hosting the G20/G8 summit towards the end of June.  It will cost a fortune to host this event and I really don’t see what the benefits are.  Many people will be inconvenienced and the only publicity the city will get will be CNN videos showing various protesters getting beaten up. The worst [...]

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A while ago, I wrote about how we have a very loose budgeting system in place, which involves keeping an excess of cash in our bank accounts.  This makes it easier to manage bill payments etc, and it came in very handy this week when we had a $1,700 car repair bill.  It still sucked [...]

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As most of you know the Globe and Mail just had their annual blog competition.  This year there were two categories (investing and personal finance) and only Canadian blogs were entered.  Money Smarts ended up getting 4th place in the personal finance category.  I was happy with this since the first three blogs are much [...]

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We’ve just passed the third anniversary of Money Smarts Blog otherwise known as the blog formerly known as Four Pillars.  Three years, about a thousand posts and I feel like we are just getting started. Thanks to all the readers who have read our stuff, commented and bloggers who have linked to us. Globe and [...]

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