It’s RRSP time.. you can almost make up a song about that (sung to the tune of “It’s Howdy Doody Time”, but I digress.

What are your plans for RRSP’s this year? I buy RRSP’s little by little over the year, so I don’t feel quite so “exposed” about not having done enough for my RRSP’s however, I think this year I am going to get a significant boost in my RRSP limit (due to my pension being capped). I keep thinking I’d like to dump a lot of money into that RRSP space, but then I wonder where that money is coming from?

The airwaves will be plastered with Scotiabank, TD, PC Financial, Sun Life and anybody else who can buy ad time for you to buy your RRSP now, while you still have time!

Interesting RRSP Comments and Questions

Over the past few weeks I have heard more discussion on this and here are some interesting comments and questions that I have heard about RRSPs and such:

• Should you buy RRSPs or pay down your debt? My theory is “Yes”, you should pay down your debt mostly, but still make some token RRSP savings. Killing debt is the first thing to do, always.
• Should you go into debt to buy RRSPs? I don’t like the idea of leverage to buy investments (we had this discussion with the N.C.F.B.A. and many of my fellow bloggers agree on this point). If you take a loan to buy your RRSP, make sure it can be paid back in less than 6 months, so it doesn’t get forgotten about.
• Should I put money away for my house down payment in my RRSP? I don’t know about that one. When I bought my first house there was the O.H.O.S.P. and that saved you your land transfer taxes. I If anyone wants to comment on that I am open to discussion.
• Which is more important an RRSP or an RESP? The answer is YES if you have kids. RESPs give you free money for your kids education, so you should think about that, but RRSP’s take money directly off your taxes so they are good too.
• Where should I invest my RRSP? That one you should know better than to ask me. Don’t put it in Mutual Funds, but also don’t put it in “sketchy” stocks either. Check N.C.F.B.A. blogs for ideas in that area.
• Should I make an RRSP payment or pay down my mortgage? Yes again! Do both. Put money in your RRSP and then take your tax refund and put THAT on your mortgage as an overpayment. That one I stole from Gordon Pape.
• Do you have RRSPs? Yes, but I still think I don’t have enough in them right now.
• What does RRSP actually mean?  Registered Retirement Savings Plan  (someone should create a Financial T.L.A. and F.L.A. glossary somewhere)
• Can I transfer funds into my RRSP from another RRSP? Yes, as long as the accounts are in your name, no problem, just fill in the right forms at the place you are transferring it TO you should be fine. You cannot transfer from your Spouse’s RRSP to your own (although I am not sure what happens if your Spouse passes on).

As I think of more questions I’ll post them. If you have questions comment away, I will attempt to find out the answers.

Let me introduce you to Revolgar.

What is Revolgar? It’s a cheap plastic robot that looks as if it’d withstand about ten seconds of play time. But more than that, Revolgar is a warrior.

… a justicial warrior! What is a justicial warrior? I have no idea, except that Revolgar and his allies are extremely powerful

… and have (or perhaps, had) a thing against jewelry.

If all that doesn’t make you want to run out and buy your own Revolgar, I don’t know what will. But if you do get one, pay attention to the warnings. Playing with the most powerful super combined justicial warrior robot in history comes with some risks.

Watch out for those carefully small parts, which are much more dangerous than the carelessly small parts featured on inferior robots.

Also, consult your doctor before putting anything into your nares. If you’re not a doctor, just don’t shove Revolgar up your nose.

Revolgar is so powerful, it can rip the hair off your fingers! So be careful!

 

---

Are the makers of Revolgar also responsible for this product?

(Lausanne, 7 March 2008 - Court of Arbitration for Sport) The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rejected the request for provisional and conservatory measures filed by the International Professional Cycling Teams (IPCT), by seven professional cycling teams (Quickstep, Rabobank, Liquigas, Milram, Silence-Lotto, CSC and Suanier-Duval) as well as the Cyclistes Professionnels AssociÈsî (CPA).

A request for arbitration had been filed with the CAS on 5 March 2008 requesting that the CAS declare illegal or abusive the injunction preventing the teams from participating in the Paris-Nice race, under the threat of their own suspension, or that of their professional cyclists. The request was directed against the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO). Moreover, the claimants sought a provisional authorisation from the CAS to participate in the 2008 Paris-Nice race without prejudice of the full examination of the legal or abusive character of the decision taken by the UCI to prevent the teams from competing in the race.

The UCI and the ASO both submitted that the CAS was not competent to decide this dispute.

The CAS decision taken today concerns only the request for provisional measures. The claimants have the possibility of continuing this arbitration procedure and requesting that the issue of jurisdiction be examined again by a panel of CAS arbitrators. However, such a procedure would take several days in order to respect the deadlines set out in the Code of Sports-related Arbitration.

The CAS Secretary General, Matthieu Reeb, has affirmed that the CAS remains at the disposal of all the parties concerned, should they require it, to find a solution to this dispute, by means of arbitration or mediation, either immediately or at another time convenient to the parties.

ShareThis

Alright. So I’ve talked about link velocity before, but I’ll re-hash it quickly for those who missed it. Link Velocity is essentially the rate at which a site is gaining inbound links on a day to day basis. For anyone on an aggressive link building campaign, you eventually saturate your…

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Don’t think about what to write.

Write about what you think.

ShareThis

OK, so it’s more than a day. But really, it takes more than a day to pack in this much legislative action!

National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) is a two-day event in which people who care about libraries participate in advocacy and issue training sessions, interact with Capitol Hill insiders, and visit congressional member offices to ask Congress to pass legislation that supports libraries.

A $20 registration fee covers 3 whole days of congressional collaboration, including:

• The Lobbying 101 pre-conference
• A briefing day at the Holiday Inn on the Hill
• A Congressional Reception
• A day of congressional visits on the Hill

NLLD is an excellent opportunity to lobby for your local library with your national representatives! For more information, visit the ALA Washington Office online. The registration deadline is April 4, 2008.

Gavin links to his great article on scienceprogress.org about how NIH’s New Open Access Policy Can Benefit Everyone. “The new policy is not only notable for its novelty and the whopping amount of research it will make available, but for its storied history.”

CPI for October at 2.4%

Gas, mortgage interest and home repair and replacement costs were the major reasons for the price increase. If Gas has stayed steady, the real inflation would have been 1.9% for the same period (year over year), but thanks to continually soaring gas prices, Inflation is running at 2.4% year over year.

Will this cause a lowering of interest rates? With the rate continuing to stay within the area that the bank of Canada wants it to be, it will not cause a rate increase, however, with the swooning Loonie, that interest rate drop might not happen either.

Sin areas continue to have healthy price increases as well (smoking and alcohol), but Energy is easily the biggest jump in the Stats Can “basket of goods” that they use to calculate the Consumer price index.

Consumer Price Index and major components
(2002=100)
	Relative importance1	October 2007	September 2007	October 2006	September to October 2007	October 2006 to October 2007
		Unadjusted
					% change
All-items	100.002	111.6	111.9	109.0	-0.3	2.4
Food	17.04	110.7	110.9	109.2	-0.2	1.4
Shelter	26.62	118.7	117.8	114.1	0.8	4.0
Household operations and furnishings	11.10	103.4	103.7	102.2	-0.3	1.2
Clothing and footwear	5.36	97.1	97.4	97.7	-0.3	-0.6
Transportation	19.88	115.2	116.9	111.7	-1.5	3.1
Health and personal care	4.73	107.5	107.6	106.1	-0.1	1.3
Recreation, education and reading	12.20	102.7	103.4	100.9	-0.7	1.8
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco products	3.07	126.3	126.6	122.2	-0.2	3.4
All-items (1992=100)		132.9	133.2	129.7	-0.2	2.5
Special aggregates
Goods	48.78	107.1	107.8	105.6	-0.6	1.4
Services	51.22	116.1	115.9	112.2	0.2	3.5
All-items excluding food and energy	73.57	109.6	109.7	107.5	-0.1	2.0
Energy	9.38	134.5	136.6	123.8	-1.5	8.6
Core CPI3	82.71	110.3	110.5	108.4	-0.2	1.8
1. 2005 CPI basket weights at April 2007 prices, Canada - Effective May 2007. Detailed weights are available under the Documentation section of survey 2301 (www.statcan.ca/english/sdds/index.htm). 2. Figures may not add up to 100% due to rounding. 3. The measure of Core Consumer Price Index (CPI) excludes from the All-items CPI the effect of changes in indirect taxes and eight of the most volatile components identified by the Bank of Canada: fruit, fruit preparations and nuts; vegetables and vegetable preparations; mortgage interest cost; natural gas; fuel oil and other fuel; gasoline; inter-city transportation; and tobacco products and smokers’ supplies. For additional information on Core CPI, please consult the Bank of Canada website (www.bankofcanada.ca/en/inflation/index.htm).

Tomorrow

• Back to the quarterly personal finance status report, how to do it