How To Save Money By Downsizing

Downsizing -Not Always Bad

First Published Date: July 05, 2009

Recession or no recession, it suits any of us to find a way of saving a few dollars here and there. It’s not a bad thing, and none of us should be at all concerned about how it will be viewed. The truth of the matter is that anywhere a saving can be made, there is potential to re-direct funds that may be needed elsewhere or highly beneficial. Looking into your regular expenditure and thinking about what changes you can make, you can come to the conclusion that there is a lot of gain to be made from making a cut – although in some cases it may make for an emotionally challenging decision. However, if you steel yourself for the process and give it your honest appraisal, you may find that it was the best decision you ever made.

One decision that will never be totally comfortable is the sale o f the family home. After all, so many things happened there that made it the center of a life you would not swap for anything. Nonetheless, if the time has come that the kids have moved out – not just to college but to a place of their own, possibly even a marital home – then you are left with a house where at least one room is going empty.

Sure, your kids will visit pretty regularly and may well stay over when they do, and you may well run into a moral quandary when the issue of selling the house they grew up in happens to arise. However, you can take sentiment too far. If selling the house and relocating to a smaller property will make your retirement and the years preceding it any more comfortable, then your kids ought to understand. Moving from a big house to a smaller one can result in a very large lump sum to deposit in the bank.

Downsizing is not solely about making a change from one thing to another, physically smaller thing, of course. Neither is it something that needs to happen when your children have left home and any big home-life change is going to be a lot rawer. Often, the main point of downsizing is to cut on wastage. Most of us have been guilty of spending money that did not need to be spent.

It is worth looking at purchases which hold their value well – for example, a car is not a good choice for downsizing from the “profit” point of view. However much you paid for that when it was new, it is probably worth a fraction now. Even if you have spent hours lovingly maintaining it, it started losing value the moment you drove it off the forecourt. Conversely, items like laptop computers hold their value exceptionally well. If you find that you are using the laptop less frequently, then you can make a few hundred bucks and save on the electricity that a charge-demanding laptop swallows up every day. If you can make do with a desktop computer, it offers more memory and efficiency – and could help you make a saving, too.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on July 5, 2009.

How To Save Money By Downsizing

Downsizing -Not Always Bad

First Published Date: July 05, 2009

Recession or no recession, it suits any of us to find a way of saving a few dollars here and there. It’s not a bad thing, and none of us should be at all concerned about how it will be viewed. The truth of the matter is that anywhere a saving can be made, there is potential to re-direct funds that may be needed elsewhere or highly beneficial. Looking into your regular expenditure and thinking about what changes you can make, you can come to the conclusion that there is a lot of gain to be made from making a cut – although in some cases it may make for an emotionally challenging decision. However, if you steel yourself for the process and give it your honest appraisal, you may find that it was the best decision you ever made.

One decision that will never be totally comfortable is the sale o f the family home. After all, so many things happened there that made it the center of a life you would not swap for anything. Nonetheless, if the time has come that the kids have moved out – not just to college but to a place of their own, possibly even a marital home – then you are left with a house where at least one room is going empty.

Sure, your kids will visit pretty regularly and may well stay over when they do, and you may well run into a moral quandary when the issue of selling the house they grew up in happens to arise. However, you can take sentiment too far. If selling the house and relocating to a smaller property will make your retirement and the years preceding it any more comfortable, then your kids ought to understand. Moving from a big house to a smaller one can result in a very large lump sum to deposit in the bank.

Downsizing is not solely about making a change from one thing to another, physically smaller thing, of course. Neither is it something that needs to happen when your children have left home and any big home-life change is going to be a lot rawer. Often, the main point of downsizing is to cut on wastage. Most of us have been guilty of spending money that did not need to be spent.

It is worth looking at purchases which hold their value well – for example, a car is not a good choice for downsizing from the “profit” point of view. However much you paid for that when it was new, it is probably worth a fraction now. Even if you have spent hours lovingly maintaining it, it started losing value the moment you drove it off the forecourt. Conversely, items like laptop computers hold their value exceptionally well. If you find that you are using the laptop less frequently, then you can make a few hundred bucks and save on the electricity that a charge-demanding laptop swallows up every day. If you can make do with a desktop computer, it offers more memory and efficiency – and could help you make a saving, too.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on July 5, 2009.

This Is How I Save $1,500 to $5,000 Yearly

My Daily Bike Commute

First Published Date: August 8, 2015

One of the easiest ways to money on an ongoing basis is to live near where you work. Living close to work, however, saves you something else more precious than money and can’t be measured or replaced by anything else: time. Today, I will only look at the monetary aspect of living close to work.

I live in downtown Toronto, very close to my work. I have the option to walk, bike, or take a streetcar to work. What I do, instead of walking 100 percent, is use Toronto’s city bike sharing system Bike Share Toronto to cover part of my commute and walk to cover the rest. When it rains or snows heavily, I either walk or take a TTC street car.

By living close to work, I save a staggering $1,500 to $5,000 annually. These costs are very conservative and the actual savings can be even higher than my estimates. Here are my breakdowns:

$1,500 – Assuming I am using TTC and buying a monthly pass, which is nearly $130 a month.

$5,000 – Assuming I am using my own car. $5,000 includes monthly payment for car, insurance. However, to keep things simple, I am not including other costs that are involved having a car such as gas, parking, maintenance, tickets, etc.

As you can see, my $1,500 to $5,000 yearly estimates are actually lower than real costs someone could have incurred by driving or taking public transit to work in Toronto.

Living close to work to save money and time is great, but I understand that this is not possible for everyone for various reasons. There is no need to be discouraged if you are one of those. There are various other practical and smart tips to save money in my book

Money Hacks: How Small Changes Can Save Big Money

And there is no reason why you can’t save at least $100 a month applying what I have discussed in this book. You can download this book from Amazon (the link is on the very top right) and start saving money today.

How To Give Your Children The Best Start In Life Financially

Teach Your Kids Good Money Habits

First Published Date: July 19, 2009

As the old saying goes “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The same, or at least similar, applies to giving your children the best start in life financially. If your children are forever coming to you asking for money, it can be very hard not to give them a few dollars, especially if they have been well-behaved recently. However, this is something that should never become a habit. After all, you had to learn at some point that you cannot keep relying on other people. The message is that if you can save some of what you get from time to time, and find a (legitimate)  way of making to money it will stand you in much better stead for the future.

This is not a case of advising people to never give their children money. It is true that your children need to learn the value of money, but this is no more likely to be learned by giving them nothing than it is if you give them money every time they ask. All that you guarantee by withholding money every time is that they will one day start making money for themselves and rebel against everything you told them by spending like an heiress in a street full of boutiques. There is a sensible balance to be struck. If your child has a good reason for asking for the money, that scores a point. If they are not asking for much, that scores another. If they really do not ask all that often, then they deserve another point.

You can come up with your own points system, but do your best to make it fair while not being excessively flimsy. How likely is it that a child who knows they will get everything handed to them will grow up understanding that money needs to be earned. The old saying “Money doesn’t grow on trees” may be irritating, but it is also true. It has to come from somewhere, so it is worth encouraging your child – once they are old enough – to get a job which they can do on weekends earning just enough to pay for their leisure pursuits. This doesn’t mean you need to stop paying their way – it is even better if you top up what they earn with a little from your own pocket to show them that good behaviour is well rewarded.

There may seem to be some madness in the above stratagem, but rest assured there is method to it. Giving your child a decent appreciation of the benefits of working for money, a recognition that they cannot rely on someone to just hand it to them, and yet the reassurance that you will not turn them down if they really need help, is the strongest way of reinforcing the lessons of good financial behaviour, and your child will be more likely to thrive financially in times to come.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on July 19, 2009.

Time To Invest in Stocks?

Should You Invest Now?

Published Date: May 03, 2009

There will be no small number of people looking to save every penny they can get their hands on right now, in the midst of a lending crisis that has permeated even the most disciplined economies in the world. Putting money aside – squirreling would be the best way to put it – is certainly quite tempting as things stand, not knowing when the recovery will really begin in earnest. In order to be sure of having money in the months to come, it is perfectly sensible to put some by. On the other hand it could be said that if you don’t invest a bit now, there will never be a better time.

Sure, there will be some reluctance on the part of any of us to put money where it might lose value, and the fact of the matter is that investing does carry that risk – “remember, investments can go down as well as up” ring any bells for you? Without that kind of fluidity, there would be no chance of making a bit of money on the stock market, or through any kind of investing – and you would be better off just putting it in a savings account. What we can be certain of is that several investments are now at as low a value as most of us can remember – and ripe for the buying cheap.

Award-winning book Invest Now is jam-packed with timely information and timeless advice for the beginning Canadian investor. To purchase a copy, visit Chapters Indigo or buy online – Invest Now: A Canadian’s Guide to Investing

No-one with any knowledge of such matters will tell you that your investment is guaranteed to increase in value, and less still will you be told that you will get an instant return, so it is worth having a savings plan at the same time. The chances are, however, that a small investment will have an initial small return, and can even act as a dry run for investing in greater amounts. As rules of thumb go, “Only invest what you can afford to lose” is a good one. It will allow you to learn the ropes in a less pressurized context.

Of course, investing can be a daunting prospect. If you stand to make any kind of money at all, the chances are that it will carry a frisson of nerves as you watch and wait for the right moment to sell or stay in. The chances are that on your first investment you will be tempted to sell as soon as you realize any kind of profit on the deal. While there is every reason to be happy at turning a profit, it is worth taking into account that people who have been playing the market for longer will stay in longer than those who haven’t. The reason for this is that they have learned to recognize when a stock will keep rising.

It is worth purchasing a guide to investment because these are invariably written by people who have done it and been successful. Warning signs that might go ignored by the novice will be covered in these guides, as will those false alarms that make first time investors panic and get out. When you are investing for the first time, it is good to have this reassurance.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on May 3, 2009.