How To Find New Uses For Old Things

Finding Uses For Things In Your House

First Published Date: November 8, 2014

One of the most important things you can do when you are going green is to reuse what you already have, even before you recycle it. The concept is to reuse, then recycle and by doing this you lower your overall footprint on the environment greatly. It is quite easy to do, and it can save you an immense amount of money in the process. So, how can you reuse, then recycle, items in your home?

First, look at milk containers. The big plastic ones can be used in a number of different ways. First of all, you can use them as flower pots once you have cleaned them out. By doing this, you will have no need to buy flowerpots and you can even decorate these pots any way you wish. Another great use for milk containers is as water cans. Take a plastic milk container, poke several holes in the top of it and fill it with water. Just like that, you have a great water container that will work just as well as one that you buy at the store.

Now, yogurt containers can give you many different things around your home. Whether you have large yogurt containers or small ones, they can be used in a variety of methods.

·    You can use yogurt containers as seed starters because they are very easy to grow things in. This will give you a head start on your spring and summer growing. It also helps make the inside of your home nice and green as the snow melts outside.

·    If you cut out the bottom of the yogurt container, you can then use it to protect the base of your plants outside from insects.

·    If you like to make crafts, you can use yogurt containers to make a variety of things that you can use around the house, or for the children to play with. You can make it something you do with the children when you make cool creatures out of yogurt containers.

·    If you have leftovers, why not store them in yogurt containers rather than buy Tupperware?

·    Got toothbrushes laying around your bathroom? Stick then into a spare yogurt container and help organize things a bit.

Another great thing you can reuse around the house is plastic bags. These are awful things but you can use them to make bags by knitting plastic bags together. You can also use them to keep food fresh, or to serve as water liners in potted plants.

The things in your house can be used for a variety of things and you just have to decide what you want to use them for. Remember, when you reuse something, you are keeping yourself from buying new. That is very important because it helps the environment and when you help the environment, you help everyone. So, just reuse then recycle and you will be doing the world a very big favour.

What Is Your Mutual Fund Actually Costing You

Mutual Fund Fees You Pay

First Published Date: Dec 5, 2008.

These days you will hardly find an investor without having at least one mutual fund. Most of us never pay any attention to mutual fund fees, which can be very confusing and hard to grasp. Many of us do not realize how much of our returns can be evaporated by these fees. I consider one of the best features of mutual funds is that fund companies camouflage fees as a percentage of assets.

There are 3 basic categories of mutual fund fees – management fees which is known as MER, sales fees and special fees. I will discuss the only MER because regardless of what type or class fund you buy, MER is a built-in feature and it will be always there.

MER stands for Management Expense Ratio and expressed as a percentage of fund total value. MER is made of sales, administration, marketing, legal, accounting, reporting and portfolio management costs and charged directly to the fund, thus reducing the value of your investment. You will never see any statement or transaction or invoice or you will never write a check to pay MER as fund companies deduct this cost from funds per unit value every day, making it invisible and hard to track. MERs can run from ?% to over 3% or even more.

Let’s say a fund charges an MER of 2.5% which may sound harmless but when you look at in terms of real numbers, it looks scary and hard to believe. Suppose you have $100,000 in a mutual fund which charges 2.5% MER. Assuming you are 30 and will have this $100,000 invested till you reach 70. How much is your cost? The answer is a whopping cost of $100,000 ($100,000 * 2.5% per year for 40 years) I used very simplified calculations and omitted many other factors.

Remember, there are other costs and taxes to pay as well. Be a smart investor by educating yourself and avoiding fees and expenses. There are a variety of options these days and always do your homework before investing and seek help from someone whom you find knowledgeable and trustworthy.

RBC Launches 5 New ETFs

New Dividend ETFs From RBC

First Published Date: November 16, 2014

RBC Global Asset Management launched 5 new dividend ETFs targeting various sectors in the international markets. These ETFs offer monthly income, along with broad international diversification and reduced foreign currency risk.

Let’s look at these 5 ETFs in brief:

RBC Quant Emerging Markets Dividend Leaders ETF (TSX: RXD, MER: 0.64%) – Holds dividend-paying companies in the emerging markets that have growth potential based on modified cap weighting methodology. The ticker symbol for the US$ version is RXD.u.

RBC Quant European Dividend Leaders ETF (TSX: RPD, MER: 0.49%) – Holds dividend-paying companies in the European markets that have growth potential based on modified cap weighting methodology. RPD is the first European dividend trading on the Canadian stock exchange that is not hedged. The ticker symbol for the US$ version is RPD.u.

The three other ETFs are currency-hedged. These are:

RBC Quant U.S. Dividend Leaders (CAD Hedged) ETF (TSX: RHU)

RBC Quant European Dividend Leaders (CAD Hedged) ETF (TSX: RHP)

RBC Quant EAFE Dividend Leaders (CAD Hedged) ETF (TSX: RHI)

Altogether, there are 8 RBC Quant Dividend Leaders ETFs and 17 total ETFs offered by the RBC Global Asset Management.

How do the fees for these MERs compare? Let’s look at RBC Quant Emerging Markets Dividend Leaders ETF and some other emerging market dividend ETFS. The SPDR® S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF charges 0.59% MER, iShares Emerging Markets Dividend ETF charges 0.68%, and HAJ Horizons Active Emerging Markets Dividend ETF charges 0.80 percent. As you can see, RBC’s MER is fairly similar with other ETFs for the same emerging market dividend ETFs.

Always do your research before buying any investment products and seek professional advice if you are not comfortable picking your own.

Barack Obama and Copenhagen Summit

Copenhagen Summit Roundup – Part 3

Published Date: Dec 28, 2009

Many people who followed the United Nations Summit on global climate change are aware that, at the last moments before the conference closed, United States President Barack Obama flew to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the summit was taking place.  However, his actual role is not so well understood.  Did he help the talks?  Or, as many suggest, were his efforts more for show.  Or, perhaps, more realistically, somewhere in between?  Whether or not President Obama’s role had any real and meaningful effect on the Copenhagen Summit probably depends on your perspective and stance on the issue itself.

White House reports coming out of Washington, D.C., state that President Obama’s efforts demonstrate a lofty diplomatic achievement.  Surely, Obama’s speech at the Copenhagen Summit did not mince words as he criticized the lack of a reasonable agreement between the meeting nations.  Perhaps his boldest move was reports that Obama ‘crashed’ a meeting that was occurring between China, Brazil, India and South Africa – four countries that United States representatives had been trying to meet with.  When he noticed that the four countries were meeting, Obama apparently stated something to the effect that, ‘we’ve been wanting to meet with all of these countries, and now here’s our chance.’

Although many concede that the final agreement is far from perfect, journalist and Copenhagen Summit watchers from around the world were pleasantly surprised to hear that, after two weeks of discussions that had basically been stalled, in fact quite stuck, any agreement had been made.  Barack Obama, according to his and the White House public statements is taking credit (albeit according to his own words, Obama admits that his contribution was ‘modest’) for pushing through what many had figured was the impossible; ‘enticing’ China to agree to accountability measures that it had so vigorously resisted.

The final agreement, as noted by climatologists who watched the Copenhagen Summit closely, falls far short of what needs to be done to halt global climate change.  Even so, that point may be mute as several countries are threatening to veto the accord, effectively making it null and void; representatives from Venezuela, Bolivia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Nicaragua particularly are incensed that the United States may have forced their, and China’s hand.  If vetoed by those countries, some may, in the end, consider the entire Copenhagen Summit a failure.

Even Barack Obama admits that the long-term picture may be bleak as, to paraphrase his words, ‘by taking one step forward, the frustration and resentment may make us take two steps back.’  Perhaps, however, the bigger step forward was the actual dialogue and contention that all participating nations agree to a transparent process for analyzing progress toward emissions reductions.  Ultimately, only the near future will tell us if the accord will ‘stick,’ and only after decades of living with the ramifications, negative and positive, of the Copenhagen Summit will tell us what the true results of the efforts of key players like U.S. President Barack Obama ultimately played.  Maybe then, Barack Obama can claim he ‘won’ a battle toward reducing global carbon emissions.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.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 Dec 28, 2009.

Copenhagen Summit, America, And China

Copenhagen Summit Roundup – Part 2

Published Date: Dec 26, 2009

The landmark United Nations summit on climate change that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, earlier this month is still causing conversation and debate.  Much of this debate was around the conflict between two major players; the United States of America and China.  In a nutshell, the discussion centered around the two countries with the highest per-capita carbon emissions on the planet.  At the core of the debate was the insistence that all countries submit to outside verification, or external monitoring, total emissions.  Still, China is hesitating over this part of the agreement.

What led up to this part of the summit?  Many blame the fact that the United States, up until this summit, had universally rejected many of the climate change accords that had been previously negotiated (at the Kyoto agreements, for example).  Despite the changing attitude toward the United States, in general, toward a more open approach, there is still a bit of ‘bully’ mentality perspective; for example, surveys taken world wide have indicated a more positive view of U.S. Politics and world stance.  But, even so, the U.S. tends to come across as an overbearing force by telling other countries, new to the worldwide power stage (aka China) what to do.

This, of course, set up some interesting discussions.  It can be argued that China has, in some way, surpassed the United States in an economic sense.  China’s economy has been growing, while the United States economy is still in recovery from what some describe as a light depression.  Considered a ‘developing’ country by some standards, China argues that in order to sustain their economic growth and position, they must be given some flexibility when it comes to emissions.  The United States, long the biggest user (per capita) of natural resources, is in no position (paraphrases China) to dictate a reduction in emissions.

In the end, the United States made a situation during the Copenhagen summit that forced China’s hand.  It was, some say, a strategic move by the U.S.  And, others say that it is a bit of manipulation.  Either way, the result was that the U.S. would contribute more than $100 billion to poor countries, via an international fund.  But, there was a catch (here’s where the manipulation might have been involved) in that any major countries signing onto this assistance would be required to to commit to a reduction in carbon emissions by signing a binding agreement and submit to verification by external means or so-called ‘transparent verification.’

The assistance ‘catch’ specifically mentioned “all major nations,” and all who were involved in the discussions, and close observers knew that “all major nations” really meant China.  From the beginning of the summit, China steadfastly refused ‘transparent verification,’ and so this deal was a way to put to rest some of China’s stubbornness on this part of the agreement.  Nevertheless, the end result was what most saw as an important facet to the entire Copenhagen summit.

But, there’s some bad news.  Reports are that China is quite angry over having been ‘forced’ into this particular agreement.  Some Chinese officials made statements that these demands were, in fact, an ‘insult’ to China and might even be considered a violation of China’s sovereignty and national security interests. Another report states that China, more or less, snubbed bilateral discussions that had been previously arranged with President Barack Obama. 

Only time will tell if China and the United States will be able to find some common ground on the talks that started at the Copenhagen summit.  Needless to say, decades may pass before we know the ultimate result of these accords; both environmentally and politically.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.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 Dec 26, 2009.