Monday, March 30, 2009

300 bits of sense and counting

When you start a blog to chronicle your journey out of debt, odds are your emotions are running a bit rampant. In a highly sensitive and impressionable state, you create an online profile, and have to choose a title for your project. If you're like me, you try to get clever and invoke some wordplay when naming the blog, and you end up with something like Loonies And Sense, hoping like hell that it will still seem even a little bit witty in a year's time.

Of course, having chosen a "clever" title, you also feel the need to revisit the play-on-words from time to time, referencing the pun in your post titles. This leads to posts like these, with milestone posts being especially heinous offenders. Eventually, you find yourself writing your 300th post, and may decide to buck tradition by focusing on the sense rather than the Loonies.

All of which is to say that this post is the 300th that I've written here, starting when I burst onto the scene back in 2007.

Let's take a look at the highlights of posts 201-299:

Canadian Stuff

  • Loonies And Lexicons: Part 2 - I followed up my initial cross-border cheat sheet with some additional comparisons between Canadian and U.S. financial terminology.

  • The P2P Lending Minefield - This industry still has yet to get off the ground in Canada, with at least one false start last year. In this economic climate, it will be interesting to see whether this idea gains any traction in the Canadian market.

  • Comparisons In The Air - Four Pillars posted comparisons between Canadian and American retirement accounts and education savings plans, as well as comparing the TFSA to the American Roth IRA. Some good information here to complement my own cross-border comparisons.

  • Deposit Insurance at Canadian Credit Unions - With the number of American banks that failed over the past year, deposit insurance has become a real hot topic. I've written in the past about insuring deposits and securities using CDIC and CIPF, respectively, but this post covers the insurance available on deposits at credit unions in each province.

Blogging

Milestones

  • One Year Of Progress: Charting The Trends - I decided to chart my financial progress graphically, and the trends turned out to be very interesting.

  • Payday Update: Under $300K Edition - The Loonie mortgage dropped below $300,000 for the first time this month. Since then, accruing interest has twice brought the balance owing back above this threshold, but with this Thursday's payment, we will owe less then $300K, at least for as long as we stay in our condo.

Taxes

  • Making Sense Of Income Tax - This is one of the longest posts I've ever written. It takes a very detailed look at how income taxes are calculated, and explains the impact of credits and deductions on taxes payable.

  • Getting The Most From A Group RRSP - I make the lion's share of my RRSP contributions into a group plan provided by my employer. As a result, the tax benefit of these contributions is immediately reflected on my paycheque, and I don't wait until April to get my refund.

  • Claiming The Tax Credit For Charitable Donations - I took a look at how to optimize the tax benefit of donating to charity.

  • Start Getting Your 2008 Taxes Ready Today - Whether it's setting up a folder to hold all your tax-related documentation, or setting aside cash to cover your tax bill next April, you'll be much more relaxed when preparing your next return if you've started thinking about it a year in advance.

  • Feeling Some Property Tax Relief - After building up a surplus in our property tax account, the tax portion of our bi-weekly mortgage payment was reduced last August. We're up for renewal this year, at which time we'll look into paying the taxes ourselves.

Investing

Looking Back

1 comment:

Four Pillars said...

Congrats on the milestone!