Yes we’re in the busy season! Lots of shopping, cookies to bake, parties to plan for and to attend. For many though, pesky debt responsibilities can dampen their planning and holiday enjoyment. Others may not worry about their debts, thinking they can always get their financial house in order after the holidays.

But if you’re concerned about your debt obligations, consider adding one more task to your pre-holiday season to-do list! See if you can use your home equity to consolidate your high-interest debt into a new or existing mortgage. You’ll lower your payments, save on interest and (more…)

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“If you don’t feel comfortable with putting the $10,000 that you have saved over the last couple of years into the down payment of your home, why don’t you take advantage of the Free Down Payment Mortgage from Scotia Bank,” I said to Kirk as we discussed the pros and cons of putting all of his liquid assets into his down payment.

Galileo Galilei
In 1632, astronomer Galileo Galilei was ordered to appear before the Holy Office in Rome to defend his work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. His work compared the Copernican system, which theorized that the Earth circled the Sun, with the Ptolemaic system, the mainstream belief that the Earth was the center of the Universe. In 1633, Galileo stood trial for his dissenting beliefs and advocacy of Copernicanism.
Galileo did not stand trial because he had created the theory that the Earth circled the Sun; instead, Galileo faced condemnation because he had celestial evidence to support this theory. Galileo had proven, with the use of a telescope, that Jupiter’s four moons orbited that planet. He used this scientific observation to argue in favor of Nicholas Copernicus’s theory that the Earth circled the Sun, a theory which had been dismissed six decades earlier. Scientists and religious authorities had fiercely rejected Copernicanism, as a result of its conflict with contemporary religious beliefs and scripture, which upheld that the Earth was at the center of the Universe. (more…)

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Last night I was watching TV and an interesting new ad from Bank of America came on. The add was for a new Bank of America chequing account that automatically rounded every purchase you made via debit up to the next dollar and deposited the difference in your savings account. So if you bought something for $5.52 it would round the purchase up to $6 and deposit 48 cents into your savings account.

The sad thing about the ad was that it didn’t explain why this was a good thing to do or the power of it.

Suze Orman has been saying for a long time that on purchases where you pay cash, put the change into a savings account, exact same idea, but the Bank of America product automates it. If you were to do so you could assume that on average you would put $30 a month into a savings account. If you start with $500 in that account and add $30 in change every month, you would have $500 000 in just over 50 years if you assume a 10% rate of return. Not to bad of return for simply collecting coins, even better if you have a Bank of America account it is automatic.

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