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Snow: Shovel? Snowblower? Service?
2007-12-03 14:53:00
For those of you in warmer climates, this posting may have very little interest for you, but if you live in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver today, this is quite topical. Ottawa is getting pounded with about 40 cm of snow. There are 4 ways for the snow to be cleared from my driveway: Manual Labor, heaving snow with a shovel or scoop and getting the physical exercise benefits from this. For older folks like me, there is also a real issue with having a heart attack while heaving snow, so I have not chosen that option. Clearing services: typically someone with a pick up truck and a plow on the front of it will contract with you to clear your snow, and you can either “pay as you go” or pay a flat rate for the season. I am not sure how much this is, my guess is around $200 or so possibly maybe less. Buy a snow blower (the option I chose some 10 years ago) and have the fun of owning a large piece of motorized machinery and knowing the snow gets cleared without you havi...
More About: Service , Snow , Hove

Friday’s Random Thoughts
2007-11-30 16:46:00
The week comes to a close with the end of November and the beginning of December. This week we have discussed the Quarterly Personal Finance report and hopefully this has helped folks think about how they want to share financial information with their spouse or their family (don’t feel you must follow a specific methodology, just that it is a good thing to communicate in this area). Other interesting points from this week: I was actually written up in the Globe last Saturday so if you are really curious as to who I am and what I look like dig the paper out of the recycle bin, or read the link at the bottom of this article. Less folks are collecting EI year over year from September last year, by about 4.5%, now does that mean we have more employment or simply less folks getting benefits? The Canadian Capitalist had some Financial Christmas Gift Ideas for you to go have a look at, don’t buy any for me, I borrow them from the library. Michael James on Money has a very go...
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Christmas is coming, are you planning?
2007-11-29 14:39:00
Christmas time is the best time to think about a financial plan, for many reasons, but let me run through a couple: The week after Christmas is New Year’s day and a completely new fiscal year starts for you (except for RRSPs), if this isn’t the best time to have a plan in place, I am really not sure when would be better. You already are planning for Christmas, so if your mind is in a planning frame, just keep it going and put together an all together financial plan. Christmas is the birth of the ultimate financial planner, Christ. Anybody who can feed that many people with a few loaves and some fish, knows how to plan (oh, I am going to hell for that one). You have an entire year to look back on to base your next year plan on, no better data point than December to do a review of your financial year. December is actually an anagram for Embed Rec but an anagram for Financial Plan is A Panic Fall Inn, and you don’t want to Panic Inn the Fall. OK, this one is a bit ...
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Personal Finance: The Quarterly Status Report Wrap Up
2007-11-28 14:38:00
Conclusions and Recommendations Now you have transcribed all of your pertinent information into a report, and you could simply say, “I am done” and hand this to your spouse, but, I have learned that if you do not put your opinion and conclusions into this report, your spouse or whoever reads this report won’t really understand what you think about your current financial situations. You now have down on paper how much you make a month and how much you spend a month, this in itself is invaluable information to have. This in itself is the core of this report, you now know whether your income is larger than your output. If your report shows you make more than you spend, yet you continue to go into debt, you are not being honest with yourself and you need to revisit your income and/or debt reports (this report is simply paper if you are not being honest). You need to add a section in your conclusions section about what your plans are for the coming quarter. Doesn’...
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Personal Finance: The Quarterly Status Report (Last Parts)
2007-11-27 14:02:00
oThe question you must ask now is what else do you want to pass on to the reader of this status report? Remember you should keep the scope of the section to be within the realm of Personal Finance (might not be the best place to complain to your spouse about their hygiene or their ability to show up on time). What Else? A couple of other sections to think about adding to the report might be: What is in the Safety Deposit box? We have a safety deposit box that has some important documents and some securities in it, but if you don’t tell your spouse about it (and maybe where the key to it is) how can they get access to it in an emergency? If you have a home strong box, or safe or you have some important documents frozen in some ground meat in the basement, you might want to mention that here. Status of your will(s)? Do you have an up to date will? If you don’t you might want to mention that to your spouse, and then go out and fix that problem. Retired Debts in this Quart...
More About: Personal Finance , Report

Personal Finance: The Quarterly Status Report (What Debts)
2007-11-26 20:30:00
Now that we have gone through and carefully accounted for all income in the family, insurance, investment assets and other assets, now is the time to figure out the other half of the picture. Outgoing Money If you know what you have and what is coming in, you need to know how much and why money is going out. Debts : What do you owe money on? Mortgage, how much do you owe, how much are the monthly payments and when is this thing going to get paid off? Lines of Credit : do you owe? how much? when will it be paid off? Car loan: balance, monthly payments, pay off date Credit Cards : please don’t tell me you are carrying debt here? If you are what your plan is to pay it off and when, and how much you’ll have to spend to do it. Yearly Large Payments: I tend to lump these into this category Taxes on my house Car Insurance payment House Insurance payment Monthly Payments is an interesting section, and the meat of figuring out how much money you actually spend. I end up doin...
More About: Personal , Personal Finance , Finance , Report , Status

Friday Random Thoughts
2007-11-23 13:15:00
We interrupt this discussion about Personal Finance quarterly statements for a quick look at the past week: The Canadian dollar is back at par with it’s American cousin. This is better for the Canadian manufacturing world, however, is it enough? The interest rate drop being assumed by the financial markets we find out about in a few weeks so stay tuned. Today is BLACK Friday ! Which does not mean that the Mist is going to take over your small Maine town, it is allegedly the biggest shopping day in the U.S. and the “Black” actually means, this is the day that retail stores in the U.S. finally go into profitability today (i.e. Black). Go see the Mist anyhow. It snowed like heck the past day or so in Ottawa, which means more and more folks slamming into each other, towing companies phones ringing off the hooks and the sales of snow tires and snow tire installation sky rocketing as well. Do you use snow tires? If you live in Raleigh Durham, I know why not, if you live ...
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Personal Finance: The Quarterly Status Report (What Assets)
2007-11-22 20:26:00
Happy Thanksgiving! To our American Cousins Now that we have decided how we are going to do the report (i.e. what tool we will use to report the information), we need to now decide what information we need to have in this report. In these situations I typically over-do it in terms of how much information to put in the report, it is much easier to remove data later than it is to add it later. Today, let’s just figure out the macro information, or section headers for our report and then in the coming days we can expand on those sections that we outline here, I will even put in some information about the areas that I put in my report (yes I really do this one). Financial Report Sections Remember these sections are the starting point and should be easy for whoever is reading it to look in the areas they really want to, or get a good overview of where you are financially. Title Page: I like a title page which has maybe a 1 phrase statement about the quarter (or an abstract if y...
More About: Personal , Personal Finance , Finance , Status

Personal Finance: The Quarterly Status Report (How)
2007-11-21 18:09:00
Choose Your Tool Carefully I have grown accustomed to using Microsoft Powerpoint for doing status reports, so I defaulted into using it to create my quarterly financial status report. It is an easy tool for me to use, and that is the main reason I use it. Having said that, no one should get married to this tool as an information delivery mechanism, your quarterly status report could easily be done using a spreadsheet like Excel or in a Word document, or even just in a plain text file, don’t get hung up or intimidated by the information delivery mechanism that you use, just choose something that you feel comfortable with (that will allow you to pass information in a clear and concise way). The Information Is The Message I will repeat myself, the information that you are passing on is the most important thing here. You want to make sure your information is: Concise: I could simply print out my entire Quicken chequing log and hand it to my spouse and tell her to read it, howe...
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CPI for October at 2.4%
2007-11-20 15:43:00
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 Unadj...

Personal Finance: The Quarterly Status Report
2007-11-20 03:03:00
Background When I was a younger, brasher young man, I felt status reports at work were the biggest waste of my time. I railed against the idea of simply telling people what I was doing in a report, weren’t they smart enough to see all the good work I was doing? I would usually be quite sarcastic in my reports, and most likely didn’t do myself any favors in helping impress people who might have read those reports (say my boss, or my co-workers). As time passed, I figured out that many times my co-workers and boss really didn’t know what the heck I did, because they were too damn busy doing what they were doing, and that they relied on status reports from me to figure out whether the project was succeeding or not. This “revelation” was not an overnight thing for me it took a few years (as with most things, I tend to make the same mistakes a few times). What finally made me realize the importance of status reports was: Inevitably, I would be asked by oth...
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Sunday Thoughts: The Serenity Prayer
2007-11-18 21:53:00
Sometimes money issues and problems seem completely insurmountable to us. They are like giant rocks about to crush our very being, but remember they are not, and if you are religious, remember the following prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. With this serenity I shall live one day at a time, enjoy one moment at a time, accept hardships as the pathway to peace, take, as Christ did, this imperfect world as it is and not as I would have it be, trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to his will. So shall I be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with God in the next. — Reinhold Niebuhr (d. 1971) I’d like to see you try to be supremely happy in this life too. Get help if you feel you can’t control it, or it is controlling you, but don’t let it beat you, you can beat it.
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If I had a Trillion Dollars?
2007-11-17 21:34:00
Special Saturday Posting Normally I take Saturday off, but this CBC posting about what the U.S.A. could have done with what they have spent on the Iraq war (evidently a Trillion dollars) what they could have done instead. Maybe the Bare Naked Ladies could rewrite their “If I had a million dollars” song? The CBC took the easy route, so let’s go for more obtuse ideas about what could be done with a trillion dollars (U.S.): They could have paid off 0.1% of their national debt? Interesting, but what is the fun of that, this money is FOUND money. They could buy everyone on earth a $100 US Savings bond, for their future saving? Make the people earn it however, by making each person count to 100. They could buy Canada. If they promised to pay every Canadian $30,000, I think we’d sell. Better still, they could buy every Canadian a new Toyota Camry ! It was also pointed out they could buy Canada by paying off all debt held by all levels of government in Canada. Agai...
More About: Dollars

Friday Random Thoughts
2007-11-16 14:09:00
Some random ideas for the end of an interesting week: The Canadian dollar has plummeted back to parity with the Yankee dollar, which may be a good thing at the end of it all. Guess I’m glad I follow Larry McD’s advise to pick up some VTI when the dollar was at $1.10 . I got my “new to me” car, which is very nice to drive. Yes I could have gone to the states and maybe got it cheaper, but I’d rather give my mechanic the business for now. Stats Can talked about leading indicators being up by 0.1% in October which shows a slowing in the Canadian Economy, but still positive growth, so that is good too. Is Cross Border car shopping affecting new car sales in Canada? Not sure, but we shall see. Christmas shopping explosion should begin next week with American Thanksgiving being a little earlier than usual as well. Remember what Christmas is, and try not to turn it into an excuse to spend money. Have a great weekend all!
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Best of: Rule of 72
2007-11-15 15:26:00
A quiet day so here is one of my favorite postings from this year. Einstein Rule of 72 This is a rewording of a previous posting on July 21st 2005. OK, so maybe I will concede that Einstein may have stated that this was important, but I am still not convinced he “invented” it, but be that as it may. If you click on the graph on the right you will find a gif that will show you a graph to show you the rule of 72 at work. Assuming your saving a set amount of money with only 1 compounding period per year, this graph is fairly accurate. The other thing to remember is this is a DOUBLING period, and the more of those the better. Why? Remember if you find an investment that grows say by 10% a year (over year), your money doubles in 7 years (approximately), so in 21 years (approximately) your money will be 8 times what it is today! (remember 2 * 2 * 2 == 8). This is why it is so crucial to find good growth in your investments. HOWEVER, risk is another thing to take into cons...

New Car Sales Down
2007-11-14 14:40:00
New car sales are down in September? Could higher gas prices have something to do with that? Sales of new motor vehicles declined in September, almost completely offsetting the gains made in August. Seasonally adjusted data from the New Motor Vehicle Sales Survey show that 140,263 new vehicles were sold in September. This represents a decrease of 2.1% from August. Me, I bought a used car, just because I don’t need a new car, but I did need a good car. Economy Resilient Output and employment continued to expand steadily, unfazed by the late-summer turmoil in credit markets and the rapid ascent of the Canadian dollar. The resiliency of the economy reflects a number of factors. While the turmoil in financial markets disrupted commercial paper in August, total short-term business credit grew steadily in August and September as borrowers switched to other instruments. The stock market recovered in September and October from small losses over the summer. The Canadian economy i...

Canadian Dollar Down 3 Cents!
2007-11-13 14:28:00
Oh no! Well, not really, who thought the Canadian dollar was going to stay up at such heady values? Down 3 cents yesterday as is Oil, so this is a better thing I guess. End of Year is Coming Have you started a plan for 2008? You realize it is only about 50 days away. Some ideas for you: Plan to maximize your RRSP contributions? Plan to minimize your debt load? Plan to get rid of unneeded expenses? Think about these things, making a plan is easy, and once you have it, then you just have to follow it, dead simple. What is an Index Fund? That’s a good question, and over at Michael James on Money, he is explaining it to you, so go over and check it out. Coming Soon An update on my financial resume and a way to share your financial world with your spouse, in a way that doesn’t put them on the defensive. Mrs. C8j and I have a good understanding of where arguments start and money is public enemy #1, so we are working to understand how we can talk to each other about this top...
More About: Dollar , Cents , Canadian Dollar

Weddings and Costs
2007-11-12 16:07:00
Bankrupting a New Relationship with an Expensive Wedding After spending a very enjoyable evening at my brother-in-law’s reception on Saturday night I looked back on my wedding and where we had the right idea, and where we might have gone wrong (financially speaking, I’ll leave the critique on relationships to Mrs. C8j): We had our reception as a brunch which was much cheaper and because we only needed the reception room until 3:00 PM, we actually got it for free, as we had booked lots of rooms and we were paying for the meal. Because this was brunch very little liquor was served as well. The real reception was at my wife’s parents house, so we and her parents bought most of the booze “retail” from the OLC, which was cheaper. We didn’t spend too much on a honeymoon (which I view as a regret, but we just couldn’t afford it). Both sets of parents gave generously to the blessed event as well (in case they are reading and thinking I am trying ...
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When Financial Bloggers Meet (part 2)
2007-11-09 12:48:00
National Capital Financial Bloggers Association Meet s Again The bloggers that constitute the N.C.F.B.A. met again last night to discuss vital financial issues of our time, and to imbibe in some libations and devour chicken wings. Sounds a lot more formal than it was. These meetings are quite fun for me, since I get to learn a lot more about the Financial side of personal finance and get to hear other people’s stories about finances. Please read these sites, they constitute an excellent financial planning and investing base to work from. Random Musings for a Friday The Loonie continues it’s roller coaster ride with it peaking around $1.10 US on Thursday and now a down turn being seen on the markets for Friday. Are you cross border shopping yet? Stats Can says that Canadians are Investing More but where, is a better question? The Canadian Capitalist talked about using the TD E-Series Mutual Funds in your RESPs, that I really need to look into. I am off to a Pseudo Wedding...
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New Hosting Price Increase Decelerating?
2007-11-08 14:42:00
Housing Price Increase Drop That is a confusing way of saying that the increase in new house prices is slowing down. September 2006 to September ‘07 new housing prices increase by 6.2% (down from 6.5% August to August). Housing prices increased the most where? Can you guess? Starts with a “P”? Yes, the Prairies, where housing prices continue to increase at a startling rate. The praries in general was about 15% however in Alberta the story was: The Edmonton market remained strong with a 26.6% increase. New housing prices rose 5.9% in Calgary in September, the only Prairie city with a year-over-year increase below 10%. This occurred despite higher development costs, as new lots were released into the market. How do people buy new houses these day? New Housing Price Indexes September 2007 September 2006 to September 2007 August to September 2007 (1997=100) % change Canada total 155.5 6.2 0.3 House only 165.6 5.8 0.3 Land only 135.9 7.3 0.2 St....
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Best of: Listen to a Comedian Sometimes
2007-11-07 15:00:00
This post was originally done on March 2006 as Advice: Listen to a Comedian Sometimes. Advice: Listen to a Comedian sometimes I don’t remember the comedian, but I remember someone saying (maybe it was a financial advisor, I mix them up with comedians a lot ), that said, you would do better to buy stock in Banks than it would to put your money in them. The following results seems to suggest LOUDLY that this is VERY true. I heard one financial commentator saying that this profit was on the back of user fees, which again screams loudly, to not lose your money to the banks, find a NO-FEE banking somewhere!!!! One of the few investments I do “crow” about (which is a bad thing to show pride during Lent), was buying shares of TD and BMO with moneys I got from my “high tech” employer. Those shares have paid a lot of money in dividends AND have increased A LOT as well. Is it still good to invest in banks? I don’t know, check with other more informed folks...

Canadians are Investing More
2007-11-06 15:25:00
More Canadians are Investing That is a good thing, I guess. Hopefully these people are not simply throwing their money around “Willy Nilly” and simply buying Mutual Funds or the like, my hope is they are reading blogs and doing research on where to put their money to get the type of investing experience that they need. In 2006, the number of people reporting investment income was up 5.4% from 2005, while the income was up 16.3%. This gain in investment income in 2006 was more than double the 7.9% growth rate observed in 2005. (In comparisons involving dollar amounts, all figures for previous years have been adjusted for inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.) Last year was a relatively Bull Market, so this is not very surprising, but still good to read as well. Investment income 2006 2005 to 2006 2006 2005 to 2006 2006 Taxfilers reporting investment income Investment income Taxfilers reporting investment income number % change $ thousands ...

Buying a New to Me Car
2007-11-05 15:20:00
Buying Used Cars Buying a car seems to really bring out the worst in people (me included). My Honda is about to “fall off the roof”, and I am looking at “new” (to me) cars, and have found one that my mechanic is selling. It looks like a good deal, it’s about the right price, and I trust my mechanic too (so there is no mis-trust involved), but my wife and I continue to have worries about whether we are making the right decision. I think this is a natural line of thinking, because we are about to spend a not insignificant pile of cash on a consumable asset (with no real value). Some of the questions that we have asked ourselves: Do we need a second car? I think we do. Is this a good deal? I think it is as good a deal as can be expected, should I try to get a lower price? Maybe. Are we simply buying the first car we see? Maybe, but do I want to spend hours going to dealerships, and such? Is this the best deal? We really won’t know until we can loo...
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Friday Random Thoughts
2007-11-02 13:25:00
gSome thinking and concepts for a Friday , after snarfing down far too much candy on Thursday: Employment continues to rise in Canada with 63,000 new jobs created and with the unemployment rate dropping by 0.1% from September to October. A very interesting point is that: Workers aged 55 and over accounted for the majority of the employment gain in October. With these gains, the proportion of persons aged 55 and over who were employed reached its highest level, at 32.2%. Employment for older workers has risen 6.9% since the start of 2007, in contrast to 1.2% for those aged 25 to 54. Older folk are getting more jobs? They must be soaking up a lot of the part time jobs not being filled by younger folks? The Dow dropped 362 points yesterday in an interesting “blood letting” exercise, not sure what might have triggered this, but always something fun to live through, that is for sure. Is this a buying opportunity, or should you wait? Christmas is officially here, I have b...
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Kippers?
2007-11-01 13:17:00
Kippers? Not Just for Breakfast Any More One of my Dad’s favorite treats was kippers, I loathed the smell of them, but my Dad loved their taste. This weekend, however, I read a new twist on the term Kipper, evidently there is a new financial term to describe “older children who won’t move out of their parents’ houses”, KIPPER. In this case it decodes to: Kids In Parents Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings I read that and it really tickled my fancy as a new and useful Personal Finance Term. In your retirement plans, do you have any contingencies in case you have KIPPERS? US Interest Rates Cut Again This is very interesting, the U.S. reserve lowered their rate to 4.5% “Today’s action, combined with the policy action taken in September, should help forestall some of the adverse effects on the broader economy that might otherwise arise from the disruptions in financial markets and promote moderate growth over time,” the Fed said Wednes...

I wish I was a Runner
2007-10-31 13:24:00
Runners World My daughter ran in a 10 Km race on Sunday, and I was very impressed with her ability to stick with it and work hard and get a very good result. I never had the “intestinal fortitude” to run (I get bored, sore and I stop), and that kind of “drive” is important in Life (and can be applied to Personal Financial Planning easily). An ability to deal with a short term pain for a long term gain is what runners are all about. More interestingly was the technology around the race, which was very unobtrusive but gave amazing results. Each runner had a radio transponder ankle bracelet, so that their “time” was very real, since it started when they crossed the start line and stopped after the crossed the finish line (given the number of people starting in MASSIVE races like the Boston Marathon, I now understand better how they can get such clear times). What was MORE amazing was the web site that the Running Community in Ontario (or is it Cana...
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Here Comes the Cuts BABY!
2007-10-30 13:52:00
To quote my favorite basketball guy Dick Vitale. Yup Count Jim Flaherty (AOOOHHHH!!! Those Halowe’en tax cuts are scary kids), will bring out his ghouls and announce, what? Some of the ideas put forward: Cut the GST to 5%, which is great, now if Ontario would do the same, I’d be delirious, but some are not fond of changing CONSUMPTION taxes. Move the middle income tax bracket up a little higher, thus cutting taxes by about $700, which is good too. They could raise the minimum income tax threshold higher too, but no one thinks that. Canadian Dollar Too Strong How will Canada deal with the MIGHTY Canadian Loonie? It sits poised to break the $1.05 US threshold, and what will that do to this hot economy of ours? Not sure, yes it is going to hurt manufacturing jobs, but is it as bad as we are hearing? I guess we’ll only know looking back in hindsight. Cheaper Computer parts The Computer Price Index for parts is down 1.4% from July to August, which again astounds me....
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Tim Horton’s Profits Up and Thinking
2007-10-29 13:26:00
Tim Horton’s Quickpay Card? Saw it advertised on line and now I am looking at a glossy advertising blurb from one of the stores. I thought that investing in Tim Horton’s might be a dangerous thing, due to the over saturation of the market, however, Canadians and their love for a “double, double” has proven me to be as bad a stock prognosticator, as I claim to be. Quarterly earnings rose to C$67.4 million ($67.9 million), or 36 Canadian cents (36 cents) per share, from $51.8 million, or 27 cents per share in the prior year period. Just goes to show that sometimes stocks will succeed, in spite of what “experts” claim. As for the Tim Horton’s Quickpay card, holy crap, now these guys are thinking. No interac charges, they get to keep all that money, and they get to track consumer usage as well? Wow, this one is another great idea (a little late given Starbucks has had it for a while, but still, better late than never). I like this idea as a p...
More About: Profits , Thinking

Random Thoughts for a Friday
2007-10-26 21:32:00
Fifty Cents More for Digital TV? Rogers sent me yet another offer to get me to change my Cable TV package and this time it worked. The claim was it was going to cost me 50 cents more to get a digital TV box and package than what I currently paid. I was skeptical figuring that was the base cost, but at the end of it after taxes and service charges it was going to be a lot more. I called, and I was surprised to see that this was not the case, but their claim was fraudulent none the less. The final price was actually 76 cents more than what I currently paid, but they gave me “free installation” to compensate for their mistake. Is this too good to be true? We shall see, I haven’t got my first bill yet, and the box is so small it will be very easy to throw it back to the Rogers Video store near my house. Me getting a deal? Who would have thought it? Cigarette Production Down Good for many reasons, people are saving their money and not spending them on smokes, but als...
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Tax Breaks a Coming?
2007-10-25 14:41:00
What is a Fiscal Statement? So the Conservatives couldn’t goad the Liberals into forcing an election with their throne speech so now they will have a “Fiscal Statement” that may do this. What is in this for me? Glad you asked: A possible GST cut of another 1%, which is ok by me, anything that lowers that tax makes me happy. A $700 middle income tax cut? Canadian Capitalist thinks this is a drop in the middle income rate, which might be a good guess. Lowering corporate tax rate. All of these are a good thing. I think the Tories sense the outrage of the public that the government is running $14B surpluses (and this years is already looking to be bigger than last year), so this has to be damage control on their part. They will blame the Liberals for it, but given they have been in power for a year, that doesn’t really wash any more either. Stay tuned this should be an interesting month or two. How ’bout a January election? Your Pension (if you have one...
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