By Teacherman If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! The recent talk of a slight modification to the Old Age Supplement in Canada has stirred up quite the controversy. I’ve gotten into some pretty intense chats with other bloggers, and with older co-workers about the legitimacy of this debate. To be frank, I can’t believe the negative press that Harper and the boys are getting over this. In my opinion, as a young person who wanted to live in this country for the next 8 decades or so, the current government should be commended for taking this issue on, and making some true sustainable choices going forward! On the flip side, it appears that the opposition parties are taking a page out of the Conservative’s own playbook and running a myth- and fear-based smear campaign on the issue. Here are a few of the common misconceptions: 1) The pension age is being moved from 65 to 67. I actually wish this were true. It makes a lot of sense when you look at how long we are living these days, but alas, it is not politically palatable. Due to our increased Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) rates, the pension plan is actually just fine. This is just a complete lie that is being pushed by fear-mongering interest groups. Old Age Supplement IS NOT CPP! 2) Poor seniors will suddenly have no money as a result of this. I don’t even know where to start with this one… If seniors worked during their lives they should have a decent CPP cheque coming in. I routinely get told, “Well what if they have a mortgage.” Then they shouldn’t have purchased a house they couldn’t pay off before they were 65!!! Common sense people. 3) “We paid for this retirement and now they’re taking it from us.” No. You Didn’t. CPP gets paid into, the Old Age Supplement just comes out of the yearly budget. You did not pay into this, and no it is not your due simply because you happen to be included in one of the weirdest demographic shifts of all time and you live in a government structure (democracy) that allows you to take advantage of this. 4) “Well, we supported our parents, so now it’s your turn.” Um, ok. Have you seen a demographics chart lately? There were lots of you, few of them, and most of your parents died “young.” There are lots of you, few of us, and you guys are going to live forever (which is a good thing, but maybe you could work for an extra year to help pay for it?). This doesn’t add up to you retiring at the same age your parents did. Continue reading Is Old Age Supplement (OAS) a Right? By Sustainable PF
Importing a car into Canada may seem to be a daunting task but it really isn’t too difficult. This past summer I imported one of the 2011 Subaru Outbacks and the process was incredibly smooth. In addition we saved over $9300! In this post I will detail how to DIY import a car to Canada from the United States. How to DIY Import a Car to CanadaHere is the process: - Make sure the vehicle you are interested in is on the Registrar of Imported Vehicles admissibility list. Some manufacturers do not allow their dealerships to sell new vehicles to Canadians.
- It is wise to determine if the manufacturer honours the warranty for your chosen vehicle once it has crossed the border into Canada. Not all manufacturers are on that list, such as Subaru. Some manufacturers have the owner pay for warranty expenses out of pocket and then apply for reimbursement.
- Find out if the vehicle you will purchase is subject to the high emissions excise tax. NRCAN is a great place to look this up as these taxes can run $1000-$4000 on inefficient vehicles.
- Check the list of vehicles that have had safety recalls.
- If you are buying used it is worth investigating the vehicle’s history and background. There are numerous online services that allow you to check the VIN number. The peace of mind is worth $20-30.
- Find out if you will have to pay duty on the car. Cars manufactured in North America are not subject to duty tax but those built outside North America are subject to duty under NAFTA. Duty is often 6.1% of the value of the vehicle. Even with duty, you can often still save thousands of dollars importing. Industry Canada can help you look up the vehicle you are buying.
- Arrange your currency exchange.
- Arrange payment, vehicle pickup or delivery. Delivery or the use of an Importer can make quite a dent in your savings, so carefully evaluate if you want to use these services. Some dealerships accept payment on delivery if you pick the car up in person. It is also wise to request a temporary licence that can be taped to your rear window. Don’t leave without an outstanding recall letter (if the dealership will provide one).
- Fax in a copy of the vehicle title to the U.S. border crossing where you intend to cross. This must be done 72 hours in advance of exporting the car.
- Arrange to get motor vehicle insurance for the car if you intend to drive it back to Canada.
- Plan your trip to the dealership where you intend to buy the car. Enjoy the journey.
- Meet with the dealership. Double check that the VIN on the bill of sale matches the one on the vehicle. There is usually a sticker on the driver side door that has the VIN on it. Complete the financial transaction.
- Drive to your desired U.S. border crossing and identify yourself with your passport and licence. The officers will check that the title, VIN and bill of sale. They will then release the title to Canada Customs.
- Drive to Canada Customs and identify yourself with your passport and license. Inform the officers you are importing your new car and fill out the Vehicle Import Form 1 (It will be provided).
- You also pay the 5% GST (QST in Quebec, GST portion of HST in Ontario and British Columbia). Your rewards credit card should handle these payments as most Canadian Customs offices won’t take cash or cheque payment.
- Customs will release your Form 1. Keep all your paperwork available in case you are pulled over, which is possible if a police officer sees a car with no plates.
- Drive home!
- You will now pay the $195+HST RIV fee, $100 A/C tax (if the car has A/C), duty (if so required) and possibly the aforementioned emissions tax.
- Within 10 days of submitting your Form 1 Canada Customs will mail you the Form 2 – Federal Inspection.
- You have 45 days from the day you submitted to get any required modifications done to your vehicle (common items include metric speedometer updates/display, daytime running lights, child tether anchorage) and have your vehicle inspected at Canadian Tire.
- At the inspection ensure you have all of the documentation you’ve accumulated. The Forms 1 and 2, letter of recall, title, bill of sale are all required.
- The techs at Canadian Tire will conduct their inspection. This will take 30-60 minutes. The inspection is included in the RIV fee you paid at the border.
- If the vehicle passes inspection, skip ahead to 25.
- If the vehicle does not pass inspection, determine where you want the upgrades done and get the work completed withing 45 days.
- Take your paperwork to the provincial licencing office and register your car. You will pay provincial tax at this point. Use your rewards credit card here as well.
A number of steps to take, but to save 20-30% on your vehicle purchase, well worth it. We will definitely DIY import a car to Canada again. So are you shopping for a new car? Click here to know what the dealer paid, get secret rebates and big discounts. . It is wise to educate yourself about the pricing in Canada prior to looking to the south – you never know how much of a discount you will get by importing the vehicle until you really understand how Canada pricing works. Then take a look @ Autos.com to see invoice pricing in the U.S. Be informed. 
By Sustainable PF Welcome to the 349th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance! 87 submissions this week which means I have my work cut out for me not only in selecting 5-10 Editor Choice articles but also reading and providing commentary for each submission. Part of hosting this Carnival is to not make it a grocery list of cut and paste HTML code. I try my best to adhere to this guideline. The host is also supposed to make things interesting so I do like to play with the format a bit … As is my style, if you didn’t leave a comment about your article I won’t either – got to give a little to get a little! Plus, how is the host to know what the article is about solely by the article title? Additionally, if the article was written for sponsorship or on behalf of your business chances are good I did not include it unless it was superb. Site policy. So what I have decided to do this week is pick my top 3 Editor Choice articles which I will discuss shortly. For the rest of the Carnival each category will also have an Editor Choice selection! So here we go with the top 3 Editor Choice articles! Top 3 Editor Picks: #1 Teacherman from Canadian Finance Blog presents The Generation Gap, and says, “A sign of the generation gap, if I could opt out of every single pension plan right now, including OAS, CPP, and our teacher’s pension I definitely would.” Leave it to Teacherman to give me a whole lot to think about when I am trying to read all of these articles and get to bed at an early hour (12:14am now). TM makes a powerful statement. Canadians have had a pretty sweet pension system for a long time – from both employers and our government. How long will either remain in existence? Watching the National last week strong arguments were made that the “strain” on the system has had forecasts of this impending doom for decades. Who exactly would be to blame if Canada, that boring stable country, started experiencing elderly impoverishment and poverty? Guess who votes? #2 Dan Meyers from Your Life, Their Life presents How much do you spend on food?, and says, “How do you compare with everyone else on your monthly food budget? Check out these interesting stats.” Extremely interesting set of numbers about food expenditure percentages in comparison with income. A lot to chew on when you consider how health and education of our children is often linked the basic need to eat. We have made some concious decisions to spend more money on food. Quality food. Local food. Organic food. We support the reasoning behind buying good food from our neighbours. This article does highlight that we can choose to buy better food because we can afford to do so. Shouldn’t good food be enjoyed by all? #3 Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance presents How to Build a Social Lending Snowball, and says, “I have written about using the debt snowball to cut your debt and I have written about using social lending to make money like a bank. Today we are going to combine the snowball idea with social lending to show you how I have been making money and reinvesting to make money.” I keep meaning to enter the social lending foray. Eric has an interesting perspective on how to increase the value of his investment somewhat like a DRIP. The more I think about Eric’s idea I like it more and more. A 5% return these days is considered “nice”. Social lending is appealing. I have meant to research it for over 2 years. Time to actually do it. Continue reading Carnival of Personal Finance # 349 By Guest You may be eager to try Forex trading because you’ve heard of Forex traders making huge profits by trading currencies. And you’re right – some people are able to make lots of money Forex trading. In fact, there are hedge funds and institutions that rely heavily on Forex currency trading to make money, and they do very well at it. However, it has only been in the last few years that Forex trading has become popular with individual investors. Forex Trading Risks Margin and Leverage The biggest risk of Forex trading is the leverage involved. If you are leveraged 1:100, or required to have a 1% margin requirement, you can have a $10,000 investment with only $100 actually in your account. This can be great if you are riding a winner, but if interest rates change, or news events break, you could find your position underwater very quickly. There are ways to avoid or minimize this risk. First, you can use a stop loss order to ensure that your position closes out if a certain value is hit. This can be especially useful in Forex trading since the markets are open almost 24 hours. You could find yourself with a profit at bedtime, and wakeup to see yourself underwater. A stop loss would prevent this. Second, some Forex brokers allow instant margin calls. To prevent you from ever owing more than your account balance, if your loss reaches your margin amount, your position will be automatically closed to prevent further loss. While not as ideal as a stop loss, it can prevent huge losses. Interest Rates Another risk is interest rate risk. If you are short a currency, you will be debited the overnight rate on that money. If you are long a currency, you will get a credit for the interest rate. Many traders invest solely in interest rates – called the carry trade. This can be highly profitable, but sometimes it can be risky. Governments could intervene, and you could find your trade to be a loss. This post brought to you by Sam Rogers. | Mortgage Payment Calculator |
