I Bought Shares in Octobank!

I decided that if you can’t beat them buy them. Today I took the cash that was in my RRSP and bought shares with them, investing in Canada’s Big Five Banks. 

I refer to this group as “Ocotobank” as they really do behave as one, and complete only slightly. 

They just jostle back and forth and remind me of a group of rich enjoying a friendly game of sport, not really wanting to win, just wanting them all to win.

I have heard that they even own shares in each other . . . there’s a real incentive to crush your competition.

So, since I had to put cash in “my” RRSP and leave it there, I decided to see what would happen if I bought an equal dollar amount of shares in each of The Big Five Banks.

So, when Ocotobank makes record profits every year (and they do) they’ll be giving me some o that. After all, they are good at making cash, so now they are making it for me.

Any left over cash from this transaction will be stuffed into a mutual fund.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

The Time to Shed Debt is Before Turbulent Times

As I look at my timesheet (two days before the end of this payperiod) and I see that I will fall far short of my Budgetary Minimum I do so with mixed feelings.

The first is frustration as that number, my Budgetary Minimum is what my budgets and forecast are based on. I am expecting to make that number bare minimum.

Yet, because I am now debt free, not making that number is not so large a deal as it would have been four or five years ago.

Back then, it would have been setting off alarm bells as I scramble to cut and trim my budget so that I could still meet all of my debt obligations.

Now, what it will do is cause me to put less into savings . . . oh well, much less of a calamity.

Okay, technically it is a bit of a pinch because this is the paycheque that I will pay for my truck insurance for the year all at once. 

The meaning is the same because I will still meet my obligations even though I will fall a hundred or so short of my budgetary minimum.

As I look around me and I see a global trade war brewing with everyone betting the other guys will fold first

Yet with nobody being able to withstand a trade interruption for long, very turbulent times are coming indeed, and nobody will be safe from the effects of its shockwave.

Whilst I do not know what will come and truly hope that cooler heads will prevail and the world will go back to “normal” I will still just trudge forward and build my savings as best as I can for as long as I can.

I am thankful that I am debt free; that is truly a blessing in turbulent times.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Resisting The Nesting Instinct

Okay, so as you know, I have planned to stay in Wanda for another 4 years at least, until April of 2022.

This means that this trailer that has been my home for 4 years (4 years as of the 12th of next month) will be my home for at least another 4. 

So, as I look around, I am always looking to see if I can somehow make this place more comfortable. Therein lies the problem.

You see, each of those projects would cost money. 

Such as:

• Having the foam in the couch base and bottom redone.

• Solar panels on the roof.

• Larger batteries for Wanda.

Those are just a few, but you get the idea. All of those would make life nicer and easier, yet they are not necessary and would cost cash I don’t need to spend. 

To do so would get away from my core purpose in my life at this phase of it: to spend as little as possible so as to maximize my savings and therefore enable me to get onto the next phase of my life: Founding The Terran Federation.

But I digress. Sure, all of these things would be nice, and I do like nice things, but I need to keep up my minimalistic existence for now, so I can stop living in this trailer once and for all! (sooner rather than later!)

Donations towards this goal, humbly and graciously being accepted now. 

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Propane Problem Update

Okay, so on Friday I posted that both of my propane tanks were empty and I had to go fill both of them after work. 

Well, I did that, and indeed I found a place that still serves propane by the pound (as they’re supposed to). YAY!

The place that I found is Co-op, Woo hoo!

The price wasn’t all that terrible, yet it wasn’t all that great either. The important thing to remember is that I was only charged for what they put in the tank, no extra fees.

Thankfully this particular Co-op is in my Western Home, so I can just fill a tank up when I arrive in my Western Home (before getting settled).

Yet this still leaves the problem of what to do with the automatic switching over and therefore leaving me with no propane at all.

In summer this is an inconvenience yet there also the added urgency of the fact that my fridge works on propane (and electricity).

This means that I need propane at all times (small interruptions are okay).

Now that I know that the system switches over without letting me know that it did, or even what tank it is drawing from, I know that I need to try something different.

What I will do is only keep the tank that is currently drawing propane open. The one that is full but waiting, I will keep shut off.

This way, when the system switches over it will draw no propane and I will know (the stove doesn’t work, and the fridge’s trouble light is on.

Then I can just open up the valve on the full bottle of propane and off I go. I can then fill up just the one now empty bottle of propane, just as before.

Again, try something, see if it works, then revise and try something else. Always improve, never stagnate.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Goals . . . Simplified

Here are my goals as they stand now . . . 

   

I had originally planned to just keep the $5000.00 that I had in my Mid-Term Savings Account now, but that never felt right.

My Mid-Term Account is my Personal Line Of Credit, meaning that I can draw on it at anytime that I need. I can transfer money in and out of that account instantly. 

Yet, the downside is that account only pays me 0.5% interest and only on balances of 5000.00 or more. 

If you think that’s bad, my Main Account pays me 0% and I have to pay the bank to do business with them . . . don’t get me started.

My Long-Term Account has always been my TFSA; and in there I just put my money into a “High Interest Savings Account.” 

That HISA is a pseudo-mutual fund (kinda). What I mean is that I buy and sell it like a Mutual Fund and it pays me a “whopping” 1.1%. 

(Retirement in Tahiti here I come! *sigh*)

Today I have added another account to my Long-Term Account: a regular (Non-TFSA/RRSP) Investment Account.

Once I have filled up my TFSA up to my contribution limit I will then stuff my money into that Investment Account and yet another HISA.

I could go with multiple institutions by just buying a HISA from some other institution if I want, but it doesn’t make much sense.

You see, for one the CDIC or Canadian Depositors Insurance Corporation which is a government agency which insures bank deposits, does not insure HISA’s like mine (joy).

So, unless I want to make less than half of the interest, I have to take this risk (as far as I understand it now).

I am certainly not going to play the stock market or other mutual funds because I need my balances (as in what I put in there) to be secure and stable.

Modest growth is okay, as long as it will never go down (fiscal collapse notwithstanding). 

So, between my Mid-Term Account, my TFSA and my Investment Account (which I will start using sometime late next year (I hope) I will build my savings to that glorious savings target of $150,000.00.

After I have that in my accounts, I will quit my job and then head off into the sunset in order to find the right land to start that town of mine. 

Wish me luck . . . or better yet, send me a contribution ;-D!

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

So, It Happened Just As I Thought That It Would.

I had resisted getting one of these for fear that this would happen . . .

  

You see, I have two propane tanks on the front of Wanda. 

When I first got Wanda, there was a device that switched from one tank to the other, but it was manual. 

That meant that I had to go out there and flip a switch for it to switch from drawing propane from one tank to the other. 

This allowed me the chance to fill up the now drained propane tank at my leisure. All I had to do was make sure that that tank was full before the other one was empty.

With this switching back and forth I was never out of propane. It was a simple system but it worked.

Back when I got Wanda fixed they replaced that manual switchover device with an automatic one. Apparently they don’t sell the manual ones anymore. 

I had hoped that I would see some sort of warning when this thing switches from one propane bottle to the other, nope, I didn’t. 

This morning, I awoke, went through my routine, and found that I was totally out of propane . . . in both tanks. 

I had feared that this would happen, but I will just go get my tanks filled up this afternoon and roll with it.

I still have my ten pound bottle of propane that I use for my BBQ, so if (and when) this happens in winter I can have a bit of propane to use. 

I didn’t bother this morning, I just left and ate breakfast out. 

There are propane measuring devices but the inline ones won’t work for me because the propane hoses were too short to allow the extra space needed for them to work.

There are some sonar type devices that work by attaching them to the bottom of the tank, and send a signal to your phone, but I don’t think I’ll go that far . . . yet.

Ah well, I will, as always, take this in stride and just keep moving forward.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

$150K by Freedom Day! : April 7, 2022

That is my target amount for savings and my target date to have it by. I rarely mention real numbers in this blog because I feel that numbers are irrelevant.

Specifically, my: income, expenses, and debts are different from other peoples, yet the struggles we face and the methods we use to solve them are the same. 

Yet I am putting this one out there as another of the large public targets like the one that I put out there when I started this blog. 

I have been doing some research the last few days on High Interest Savings Accounts, and other savings vehicles. 

The name is a misnomer and misleading as the rates they pay are a joke, historically speaking. But if I am going to save, I might as well get the highest rate that I can. 

More money could be made if I played the stock market, but I have never done anything like that and STOCKS ARE NOT SAVINGS, THEY ARE GAMBLING!

Bonds are more secure, but you have to have a large amount to give them up front and you can’t touch that money until the end of the term (as you are loaning someone else money for a specific period of time).

So, for me the best option is at least two HISA’S. One will be in my TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account) 

In a nutshell, a TFSA is like an RRSP that we all can setup, but this one you can take cash out of without the government freaking. 

The cash you make in there is tax free, so the beer money that I make (as in the I expect to make about enough to buy a case of beer) will be tax free.

I will have another HISA at this bank, and perhaps another one at a different institution, so as to split this savings up into thirds. 

As with all things this plan will be revised as I go, but I have a plan, to save up $150,000.00 in less than four years (by April 7, 2022). 

The plan is to work my last day, pick up my last paycheque then head (probably) east in search of the land to buy in order to found that town (the reason that I am doing all of this for). 

I will not setup a Gofundme page, as I seriously doubt anyone will want to give to help me do this, 

But, if you are interested, message me and you can send me cash via E-transfer. Or you can message me if this project seems like something you are interested in helping with. 

Anyways, this is me charting another large life goal direction and clomping on ahead with a: Dream, Vision, and Determination. 

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!