The True Meaning of Christmas

A lot of us are in spending mode right now, buying gifts that are bigger and bigger. iPods, digital cameras, LCD high def TVs, cars in some cases! I used to want those. It's funny though, since my son's birth 3 months ago, my priorities have changed quite a lot.

First of all, I don't have much time to watch TV, so there goes the high def TV! But that's not the main reason ... my focus has changed from myself to the cute little guy that appeared in our lives.

What's my new wish list for Christmas?

• A healthy and happy baby
  
• Good nights of sleep for the whole family!
  
• A peaceful world for my son to live in
• etc.

You get my point: one tends to become less materialistic when going through life changing events like having a new baby. Here's a thought: why wait for those times to start reconsidering your priorities? Why not cut down on the big expenses right now and stop playing the buying game fueled by advertising and marketing? Is the real meaning of Christmas to shop 24 hours a day at Walmart while you could be spending quality time with your family?

That said, if I could get a Nintendo Wii at a good price ...

Reviews for contractors in Ottawa

Having dealt with a bad and a good contractor for my snow blowing, I can relate to the post on this review site where they talk about Tony's Snowblowing in Ottawa. I think it's a great idea to browse reviews sites before hiring contractors. Here are a few sites I found for the Ottawa region:

Better Business Bureau (the most official and useful one you can find)
Review Ottawa
Contractor Pages

Do you know any other good sites that offer this service?

baby photographer$$$

Now that I have a baby, I've discovered that there is a very powerful and pervasive baby industry that want to sell you a lot of stuff for a lot of money! From the baby formula samples we get by mail (and they got our address how again?) to the 1000$ strollers or super high tech diapers, it never ends.

My latest experience has been with baby photographers. Let's call them 'Wise Baby Photographers' to keep the real company name confidential. Here's how it goes:

• Somehow they call you because they know you had a baby (and they got our phone number how again?)
• They lure you with a no upfront fee and one free photo in any case offer (feels similar to my infinite meat experience). My wife couldn't resist :-)
• A photographer comes at no initial fee and you only pay to buy photos if you like them (that part makes sense).
  
• You ask them about the price and they say they'll tell you in person. I assumed that would be disclosed by the photographer who would show up at my house.
  
• They come and take pictures with all sorts of props (Boxing gloves, etc.). Some pictures ended up being cute, but only one of them was a keeper.
• You ask the photographer about the prices and he replies he does not know (!) but the sales rep who will come later will tell us all.
• The sales rep comes and proposes packages ranging from 200$ to 500$ which include very few photos. (eg: 12 originals 5*7 for 200$ , add 60$ and you get an 8*10 and some wallet size ones).
  
• Add 23$ shipping.
• If you don't order now with the rep, they will have to shred the photos the next day because of some 'privacy law' (unless you call the corporate center and ask them to keep the pictures on the Internet for order but then you miss out on some freebies!). Now you've seen the cute pictures so it feels like emotional blackmail.
  
• Conclusion: it's a very clever pressure-selling scheme.
  

We ended up keeping the free photo only...

the beauty of income and a good book review on Million Dollar Journey

MDJ has a good book review for the Brainwashing of the American Investor ... (indeed less "out there" than his previous book review :-).

One part that stuck with me:

"Income generated from your assets is more important than their market value."

It's nothing really new if you associate that to dividend and value investing. Seeing it as black and white made me think about it more than I've been in the past though. I find that ties really well with one of my investment: Advantage Energy , avn.un (disclaimer: do your own research!). It's a really risky investment and they even manage to lose money from time to time, but I've had it for a long time and I've had annual distributions close to 18-20% and it shouldn't take long before I get my initial investment back. The rest is pure gravy from there :-) The nice thing is that with all those returns, I'm buying other stocks (typically much safer ones).
I really like having high returns that allow me to diversify my holdings without having to add any new money. Could Advantage go bankrupt or stop paying distribution completely? Probably not, but it's a risk I am ready to take in small doses :-)

That said, my main strategy is still about using ETFs ... I like dividends but I'm not ready to base my whole investment philosophy on that approach.

blog title part 2

instead of going for the big name change for the blog, I am trying a small adjustment that makes more sense and is easier to remember:

Canadian Money Reviewer

new blog title

I will be trying out new blog titles ... let me know what you think :-)

1st: Money Gems in the Rough -> describes well my creative yet unpolished posts :-)

Flash post: Update on the Santa Fe and the joys of all wheel drive

After telling you about the winter tires for my new Santa Fe, here's an update on actually driving it in the snow: I love it! The traction you get (especially when I lock the AWD in 50-50 mode) while turning is incredible. It really feels better than my old Corolla. Even the Electronic Braking Distribution helps while turning and braking (not a recommended practice, but as you can imagine, I found a nice quiet spot to test different driving situations :-).

I do hope that in the future, I can get similar cars that have a better gas mileage (hybrid Santa Fe anyone?).