I was fortunate to be a guest on the CBC radio program “Ontario Today” this week. I was a stressed-out, nervous wreck for a couple of days beforehand, but I managed to get through it without sounding like a complete moron. 🙂
Here is the link to the show if you wish to listen. The show was quite interesting – lots of great callers.
A related link – James Altucher says he’s never owning a home again.
100 pushups
I’ve been working very hard on the 100 pushup challenge. Unfortunately, as I predicted, the program is too aggressive. I’ve already had to repeat 2 workouts because I couldn’t do all the required pushups. Stupid gravity!
I think finishing the program in six weeks is too optimistic and I’d like to do a longer time line. The hundred pushup challenge only has one “stream”, so I made my own. From now on I’m going to do each workout twice before moving on. This effectively turns it into an 11 week program (I’m in the 2nd week) which is a lot more realistic (for me, at least).
The downside of the more aggressive 6-week program is that you feel like you have failed whenever you have to repeat a day. By planning to repeat each workout, I’m hoping the experience will be a bit more positive.
On with the links
Jeremy from GenX wrote a fantastic investing article called This is why you can’t make money in the stock market. Read it.
Ken Jennings from Jeopardy fame needs some help after getting ripped off by Europcar.
Financial Uproar had a sad story about a poor retirement plan.
Sustainable Personal Finance has 34 house staging tips.
The Blunt Bean Counter gives us Reading Financial Statements for Dummies. A great primer for someone who is interested in analyzing stocks.
Million Dollar Journey is on a real estate kick. Canadians buying property in Florida has a lot of interesting comments too.
Canadian Capitalist hopes that the abusive charity crackdown will continue after the election.
Rob Carrick says that smart investing decisions are hard to make.
MacLeans wonders if the CMCH responsible for a Canadian housing bubble?
David Milstead from the Globe & Mail, thinks that the rumoured Groupon IPO is no bargain.
Michael James almost had to hire a private investigator to determine some minimum RRIF withdrawal amounts.
Retire Happy blog says know your spending.
Boomer and Echo categorizes different purchasing styles.
Preet has a really good investing lesson: Stick to your investing plan.
A few American links
- Filing Federal and State Taxes for Free?I remember a few years ago being so frustrated trying to find a place to file state taxes for free – it wasn’t that difficult to find a place to file Federal taxes for free, but getting state for free was like finding a needle in a haystack…
- How Much Interest Are You Paying? This article includes a cool spreadsheet that walks you through calculating how much you’re paying in interest on debt per month and even per day!
- Finding Health Insurance When You Are Self-Employed
- How Much Control Should The Government Have?
- What Happens If Your Broker Goes Out of Business? — Ever wonder what happens if your stock broker fails? Well, here’s the answer.
- Life Insurance for Children –Here’s why you should not buy life insurance for your children and why the insurance companies try to convince you otherwise.
- 20 Tips to Getting Affordable Auto Insurance
- When Should I Take Social Security Benefits?
- Extension to File Taxes vs. Amended Tax Return
- Amazon Mom Review – Free Amazon Prime As Well As Discounts
- How to Save Money with Your Mortgage
- How to Lower Your Mortgage Payments. There are three good ways to lower your mortgage – refinance, challenge your taxes, or reduce your insurance expenses.
- Should You Rollover Your TSP Account Into an IRA? Should you roll your Thrift Savings Plan account into an IRA when you leave the military or government service?
- How Much Money Do You Have to Make to File a Tax Return? Do you really have to file taxes if your income is low?
20 replies on “LinkStuff – CBC Appearance And Pushups Edition”
Thanks for the link Mike! Fitness, much like investing, needs to be done at your own pace. You’re doing the challenge for yourself, not to measure up against anyone else. If it take twice as long, so be it.
By the way, did you mean to say “sit-ups”? This challenge just gets worse by the week 😉
There was a brief period in my life when I could do 100 push-ups in one go without cheating by not going low enough or by raising my butt too high. I seriously doubt that most people could ever achieve this. Sorry to be a big downer, but this is not a very realistic goal for most people. Here’s hoping that it’s a reasonable goal for you.
@Echo – I need to hire you to proofread my posts! Yes, I meant pushups. Sit-ups are easy in comparison. 😉
@Michael – You’re probably right that most people couldn’t ever do 100 pushups. There’s no doubt in my mind that I can do it, but it might take a while.
Great job on Ontario Today, Mike! What an interesting debate! While I can’t imagine going back to renting, it does sound tempting from the freedom perspective…. Definitely good food for thought and you did a great job as “Mr. Neutral” — thanks for the link!
Thanks One of Seven – I can’t imagine renting either, unless we decided to move to a new city.
Owning a lot easier when you have a decent amount of equity – one of the benefits of getting old I guess. 😉
Mike, thanks for the mention. However, I now know you are one of the two people in Canada who when they see reading and financial statements in the title of a blog do not click and leave 🙂
It’s very hard doing live interviews. I much prefer writing. Congrats on appearing on CBC.
Thanks for the mention!
Hey Mike, I listened to the CBS spot, I think you did rather well.
Congrats on that.
Cheers,
Mark
err, CBC 🙂
Hey Mike,
I was one of the callers and I thought you did a great job (and not just because you affirmed our decision to sell and go back to renting).
Take care,
-Emily
@Emily – Thanks! Good luck with renting. 🙂
@Mark – Yes, some topics just don’t get the recognition they should. 😉
@CC – Thanks. Yes, live is difficult, especially if you are not used to it (which I’m not).
@My Own Advisor – Thanks.
You were great on CBC Mike!
A few years ago I was doing 50 pushups consecutively, I never thought to try for 100, but now perhaps I’ll give it a shot. Actually, let me try right now.
60, but I put my knee down for split second at 40 and the last 20 took longer than the first 40… Hmmm. Think I’ll join you in the challenge!
Michael James’ comment just reaffirms my belief that he is Tobey Macguire aka spiderman. 😛
@Preet: LOL. My days of 100 push-ups are long behind me. If you want a real eye-opener, try doing the push-ups beside a mirror and make sure your body is straight. Most people bend slightly at the waist which makes it much easier.
@Preet – Thanks!
Wow, I can’t believe you can do 60 pushups. That’s fantastic.
Next time I’m over, I’ll bring that Turkish pide. If I can hit 100 pushups by then, it might leave me net neutral on a caloric basis. Ah, who are we kidding. I’d need to do about 250 pushups to offset that fatty goodness… 🙂
I thought I was the only one who read Ken Jennings’ blog. He’s pretty funny.
Thanks for the mention.
Probably a good decision on the push ups Mike. Even getting to 100 push ups in 11 weeks is an extreme achievement. Keep up the hard work. I always felt cheated at push up comparisons because I have pretty long arms. Watching shorter guys with T-Rex arms pump out the reps on the floor, and on the bench press was always humbling.
It’s like guys who write personal finance blogs that make 250K in a year. It’s a lot easier to save money when you make a lot!
PS. Definitely off topic, but I wrote a guest post over on Studenomics concerning the new Liberal Party proposal to add an interesting twist to the RESP program. As an authority on the topic I’m curious to hear your opinion on the oddly named, “Canadian Learning Passport.”
@MUM – I also made another change to the program. Now I only do it twice a week. 🙂
For the record, I don’t make $250k or anything close to it.
Regarding RESP – it’s interesting, but the admin costs for something like that are pretty high.
I don’t understand why they can’t just give that money to students who are starting school and bypass the whole investment process.
A better idea is to take the existing CLB program and expand it to all kids regardless of income. That would be a lot easier than starting a new program.
I’ll check out your guest post.