We are the stupidest people alive….

I truly believe that there are signs in the universe that if you take the time to pay attention and listen to them, they will let you know when things are going off the rails or when you are heading down the right path. I don’t think I am the only one who has beliefs that support the idea that you can manifest the good or the bad in your life based on the messages that you are sending out.

Just to give you an idea of what that might look like, believer or not, here is how we spent one month listening, cringing, paying attention and then heading down the right path.

Jeff Foxworthy uses the phrase, “You might be a redneck if….” as a starter to his many jokes, to help you identify the signs that you are indeed a redneck.  Here are my signs that, “You may be in trouble financially if….”

You max out your borrowing account to cover your Mastercard payment. If you are playing what I refer to as the money game each month, with a revolving door of money going around in circles from high interest credit cards, to low interest borrowing accounts to zero percent interest credit cards for six months only, and then back again….you may be in financial trouble.

You paid the Mastercard bill by mistake twice in one month. How often do you and your spouse have conversations regarding the accounts, bill payments, savings and retirement? More importantly, how often do you have this conversation uninterrupted by bigger priorities like work, sleep, appointments, events and fighting kids?

There is a horrible gap between the proportion of time that we set aside to discuss our financial planning with each other compared to the relative importance of what we need to discuss.

The result of our lack of devoting the necessary time means that I have left the retirement planning entirely up to my husband. He has left the bill paying mostly up to me, but not always.

If he were to die tomorrow, I would have little to no knowledge of what we have saved and where to access the money we have in anything from RRSPS, to investment accounts to life insurance to his own company’s benefit plan.

If we were to both die simultaneously, I recently found out that our children would end up in foster care until the courts decide who best to raise them and our estate would be up the air in until the government gets paid and our funeral costs get covered.  Even then, there is no guarantee without a will that our children would receive anything that we own or be placed with a family member.  Kinda important?! No kidding, yet we dawdle like many others in getting a will in place because we never seem to have the money for it. It’s outrageous!

The signs of this lack of communication in our relationship shows up in small and big ways in our current financial well-being. We both paid the Mastercard this month….someone, not naming any names, neglected to write the payment down on the statement. (It wasn’t me….but someone….) The result left a credit balance on our Mastercard and our line of credit extended to its limit when it wasn't even necessary.

The cheques you gave your sister for your nieces birthday's bounces and you are charged $90 for overdraft on your line of credit.  I can’t believe I am sharing this, because it is SO stupid, it’s beyond embarrassing and I haven’t even had a conversation with my sister yet. So the cheques I wrote in August, she cashed in October…right at the same time that we double paid the Mastercard and maxxed out our borrowing account to cover it.  The shame I feel is worse than the extra charges we need to fit into our budget for next month to make up for it.

I mean the timing couldn’t have been worse….this is like the perfect storm of stupid on so many levels….I don’t know where to begin. Maybe I should have started with…..If you are writing birthday cheques to pay for gifts on your borrowing account, you may be in financial trouble. Or how about…If you are not checking to see that the cheques you write are cashed on your account before you write more cheques…... or best of all is,..... if your finances are shaming yourself with other family members, you are definitely in financial trouble…..

A lousy financial strategy leads you to put money into a high interest saving account while you are paying fees on your chequing account due to overdrafts.  Imagine my surprise when my husband and I sat down to sort out this mess to find out that he had money being deducted off his paycheck each month to go into a high interest savings account.  Yet he couldn’t keep his chequing account from going into overdraft each month because of the deduction of income. It’s so crazy, I can barely believe it!

We also realized that the other reason the chequing account was overdrawn was because the money being put towards the kids RESP was going into the wrong account and has been for 10 months! It’s ridiculous, but so easily solvable once we made the time to discuss it and fix it. There was also a windfall waiting for us in the other account since the money was just sitting there, not being applied to anything. Nuts!!

What came out of this giant anvil on the head from the universe was that we seriously needed to start talking more about where we are at financially and not once a month….but rather, we decided, once a week. While it sounds like a big commitment from two people who would be lucky to have had a yearly conversation in the past, we both felt that by talking weekly, it gives us time to make the adjustments we need before an entire month or better yet, ten months, is financially wrecked by stupid decision making.

There are good signs as well....this is how you can tell that you are on the right track financially after going down the wrong path.....

You may be on the right track financially when cheques from your health insurance provider start landing on your doorstep. Remember that HSA spending account I discovered through taking the time to understand my company benefits? We received five pay checks in the month of November that covered spending for my entire family and topped up the benefits my husband’s company provides. It’s like winning the Set for Life of Lottery at our house! I can’t believe how much lost income we were missing out on because I didn’t want to take the time to understand my policy….which I am paying for, by the way.

You review your bill statements and find a windfall. We just received our fuel oil statement this month and because I was paying attention, not just filing it and forgetting it, I uncovered another double bill payment back in July of almost $500. We must be the most vigilant bill payers on the planet….that or we are the worst investors ever. Say, honey…if we overpay Bluewave and Mastercard….do you think they will send us profit sharing? Yikes, it’s painful. The silver lining was a windfall in our bank account when we contacted our fuel supplier and politely asked for the money back.

You increase your disposable income by finding more affordable services or using less of what you have. By switching our Cable provider, looking at our home heating costs, reducing our electricity consumption, making tough choices about our childcare needs and getting smart about using the resources we already had, we spent substantially less then every month previous.  Hard to believe it can be that easy to slow down the bleeding when it comes to money, but it is. There are always ways to spend less and in a way that makes sense for your family.

Finally, you finish the month, and there is still money in your bank account and the bills are paid. Who knew we could stick to our budget one month into the new plan?! But we have!  We finished the month of October with our first payments of 15% made to decreasing our debt, paying all of our bills without credit and having 5% of our income saved and in the bank. We also got the buffer back on our borrowing account by not having to pay anything on our Mastercard this month and by using our financial windfall.

Our Austerity Measures pantry and freezer cooking month paid off too. We saved our entire grocery budget by eating only from our existing kitchen inventory. We had some interesting meals (Pasta Surprise with three kinds of noodles was a hit with the kids) and also some excellent ones (forgot about some T-Bone steaks in the freezer that were a hit with the parents).

The greatest thing out of the austerity measures pantry experiment was a turnover of the product in our fridge and freezer, an immediate reduction in the food being thrown out, an increase in our kitchen pantry space and our kids seemed more open to whatever was on the table since we included them in the changes we needed to make along the way. 

Our son who is six asked in the beginning of our Austerity Measures discussion, “So does that mean we are poor now?”, which gave us a great laugh since we may have little money in the bank right now, but if you look around our home, there is no poverty….all the money is around us.

We still have a long way to go, but when I look at how many signs we have had that, “things might be better financially if…”, I can’t help but feel empowered by the changes we are making. No shopping spree for things we don't really need or impulse purchases on treats we think we deserve could make me feel this good.

We are your average Canadian family and we make stupid financial decisions, sometimes without even thinking about it………..

2% just ain't gonna cut it.....

It's been a year since I signed on with a good company which has offered me benefits, a retirement plan and a 45 hour work week. Previous to that I was a small business owner running catering for executive charters which operated around the clock.

While I may be getting substantially more family time with the new job, we are struggling financially with the pay cut I took to create balance. I am struggling with the idea that I need to wait for the valuation of others to increase my pay and I am frustrated by what will be more than likely, a standard rate of increase that all employees receive, since I am not your standard employee. No ego here... I don't just punch a clock if you know what I mean.

Having been with them a year, I was secretly hoping for there to be a little fanfare such as a performance review, a raise and a thank-you for an exceptional job well-done. My standards are low since I have inside information that the raises are a standard 2% increase, which is the same increase my husband received at his performance review for another company. While we both love our employers and companies that we work for, we are fortunate to have dream jobs........2% just ain't gonna cut it.

Our collective income after taxes is about $17 an hour. For a family of five, with two parents working a combined total of 85 hours outside the home a week.....that seems a little skimpy. Our oldest child is 12 and has 6 more years before we need to start looking at colleges and universities. If we have a combined total of 2 % raises from here to there, even despite our meager RRSP savings, we will be lucky if can we send our kids to the School of Minimum Wage Retail, Campus at your local Tim Horton's.

Given the increases that we have had here in Nova Scotia, any increase in salary is quickly eaten up by something else...trust me, its negligible.

Here are just a few of the reasons why any raise Andrew & I receive this year won't make a damn bit of difference in our income level.

Power Rate Increases Gone Wild."Our power rates have gone up some 25 per cent in the last three years," said Jamie Baillie, leader of the Progressive Conservatives.

"That's a real hardship for too many Nova Scotians." No kidding its a real hardship! We now pay $200 per month for electricity in our home. Its no surprise either that we are paying a lot more than our fellow Canadians. 

This is a review of the power rates from May 2011. We are almost at the top and right behind an island....and frankly, they should pay more for living on an island.....:)

Province	375 kWh	750 kWh	1,000 kWh	2,000 kWh	5,000 kWh
Quebec	32.40	52.62	68.21	143.31	368.61
Manitoba	31.68	56.50	73.05	139.25	337.85
British Columbia	30.15	58.06	82.71	181.31	477.12
Alberta	51.21	83.31	104.71	190.31	447.11
Average	49.20	83.98	108.07	206.10	491.65
New Foundland Labrador	50.63	86.26	109.86	204.26	487.47
New Brunswick	52.88	88.32	111.94	206.44	489.94
Ontario	56.37	96.11	123.55	237.47	579.22
Saskatchewan	59.07	98.85	125.37	231.47	549.76
Nova Scotia	57.86	104.88	136.23	261.63	637.83
Prince Edward Island	69.76	114.95	145.07	265.57	541.57

Nova Scotians know that they are being gouged by NSP, an external audit even identified that we should be receiving a rebate from our power utility. The report says the private utility company spent $6 million more than necessary on natural gas over a two-year period.

"NSPI has demonstrated that customers cannot rely upon it to champion their interests with respect to prices for natural gas in the Maritimes market," said a section of the audit that was previously redacted.

A heavily redacted version of the audit by the Liberty Consulting Group released this summer said Nova Scotia Power owes its customers a refund because it overcharged them $22 million due to poor fuel purchasing practices.

Read more: http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-power-couldn-t-be-trusted-to-look-out-for-customer-interests-audit-1.961713#ixzz2CZXW8qGM

Never mind that NSP doesn't have its customers best interests in mind when it comes to purchasing, but what is this natural gas that they speak of? 

“The only reason that I can think of for the failure of Nova Scotia to achieve penetration of natural gas to at least 75 per cent of the province, after 13 years (since Sable gas came ashore), is fierce opposition behind the scenes from NSP/Emera,” he says. Those 150,000 or more domestic hot water heaters, plus electric heat in half of Nova Scotia homes, and some other functions like cooking or even clothes drying, are NSP’s bread and butter."  Says, "Peter Allen, Dalhousie University energy expert, who has been making the case that we’re missing the boat on natural gas, especially in the HRM domestic market, whereas everybody else in North America is forging ahead."

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/178038-surette-the-real-power-rate-story-we-ignore

"Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Power’s top executive Rob Bennett received a 23 per cent hike in his package last year, which climbed to $1.15 million, compared to $934,212 in 2010."

Wait a minute?! Hold the phone! We as Nova Scotians have received rate increases of 25% over the past three years and this valuable team player at NSP gets a 23 per cent hike in his income over one year for a job well done? 

Not only that but, "The base salaries of Bennett and three of his executive team and 50 per cent of incentive payments for 2011 are recovered in Nova Scotia Power rates, which is approved by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board."  http://thechronicleherald.mobi/business/105115-taylor-emera-can-t-escape-ire 

Great. So translate this to mean that the good ole boys gave themselves a raise while simultaneously giving customers power rate hikes to pay for it. 

Nova Scotians are the most taxed in Canada. "A new report from Nova Scotia’s Finance Department, which reveals its own citizens bear the highest level of taxation nationwide, provides a glimpse of how much Canadians pay in federal, provincial and local taxes combined. 

Saskatchewan, a province similiar to Nova Scotia in terms of its nearly one million citizens has recently balanced its books. "Saskatchewan was the lowest taxed province, with its total taxation percentage sitting near 20%, compared with Nova Scotia’s 30% of the nominal gross domestic product in 2009, excluding social security contributions. 

“Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan are the polar opposite models of where we should be looking,” he said, in response to the report. “It runs balanced budgets while the rest of the country engages in Keynesian spending sprees.

“Nova Scotia is the model of what not to do. Don’t accept equalization, don’t accept higher taxes.”

"The Nova Scotia government, on the other hand, has been saddled with overspending and constantly increased taxation in recent years, said Kevin Lacey, Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Atlantic director.

He says it’s about time the Nova Scotia government “admitted the problem of taxation in the province” he said, after coming across the Overview of the Nova Scotia Tax System report, which was recently posted on the Finance Department site.

The biggest glut comes in the form of provincial income taxes, which are just a little bit lower than Quebec’s. It can be explained by the province’s overspending in recent years, Mr. Lacey said.

“Already the province is dealing with an approximately $390-million deficit and just for too many years it’s overspent,” he said from his office in Halifax. “The report the government has produced should lead to calls to deal with this taxation problem. The province should begin to reduce tax rates to make it competitive with other provinces, otherwise the province, economically, can’t compete.” http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/05/25/nova-scotians-the-most-taxed-in-canada-provincial-report/

I don't think any of this comes as a surprise to most Nova Scotians. To say that I am excited about supporting a Pulp and Paper Mill in Cape Breton or even the Muskrat Falls deal is an understatement. To quote a friend, when you arrive in Nova Scotia, make sure you turn your clock back 20 years. 

"Nova Scotia's Premier says he believes his province will face higher costs for the proposed Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador. But Darrell Dexter says he still believes the development is the cheapest option to meet Nova Scotia's future power needs."

So basically, we have invested money so that we can pay more money. Who is running this monkey show? Certainly not someone interested in being the voice of the people. To quote a fellow Nova Scotian, Marc Boutilier who tweeted about the New Page deal when it was thrown back on the table at the last minute, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force as if almost a million Nova Scotians cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."

Is New Page newsprint (124.5 Million) and a Muskrat hydro dam (6.2 Billion capital cost) the best our government can come up with? I'm no genius but if I had that much moola to invest it would be in something a little less archaic. 

Keep in mind too that our deficit in Nova Scotia is $390 million...think we could have paid a few bills with that money before we invested? I do and so do many other Nova Scotians.

Hooray, we also win the prize for our cost of living increasing faster than anywhere else in Canada! "Statistics Canada Consumer Price Index numbers released today indicate that Nova Scotia’s costs have risen faster than anywhere else in Canada, at a rate of 4.6 per cent. The national average was 3.7 per cent. Nova Scotia’s HST, at 15 per cent, is the highest level of consumer tax in the country. The latest statistics on average wages in Nova Scotia indicate only a 1.6 per cent gain." This means that I should cherish my 2% since it is higher than the average 1.6%.....not that I get to keep it. 

“Higher costs for food and gasoline are a reality across Canada but Nova Scotia is unique in that we are also paying the highest HST in the country,” said Progressive Conservative Party leader Jamie Baillie. “At a time when Nova Scotians need help making ends meet, the NDP government has made their job harder.” http://www.thecapebretoner.ca/?p=10152

No kidding its been made harder...in order to increase our income to cover the NDP's increases, we will need to ask our bosses for a 5% raise minimum just to break even. At a time where companies in this province are focussed on cutting costs to remain profitable, it would seem unconscionable to even consider it. 

Growing economy or growing mess? The bottom line is that for every raise requested, at the end of the day, someone is going to have to pay for it. Take NSP for example, the big boys got their raises but the result was that my household paid for it and your household paid for it and your neighbours and so on. 

Should we ask for our, I think well deserved raises, there is always the trickle down to the consumer in terms of rising costs or our fellow employees in terms of lay-offs in some way. This is what happens in a growing economy but does a growing economy really equate a better economy? If we needed less, then would we really need those raises, deserving or not?

"What does economic growth actually mean? It means more consumption – and consumption of a specific kind: more consumption of goods and services that are exchanged for money. That means that if people stop caring for their own children and instead pay for childcare, the economy grows. The same if people stop cooking for themselves and purchase restaurant takeaways instead.

Economists say this is a good thing. After all, you wouldn't pay for childcare or takeaway food if it weren't of benefit to you, right? So, the more things people are paying for, the more benefits are being had. Besides, it is more efficient for one daycare centre to handle 30 children than for each family to do it themselves. That's why we are all so much richer, happier and less busy than we were a generation ago. Right?

Obviously, it isn't true that the more we buy, the happier we are. Endless growth means endlessly increasing production and endlessly increasing consumption. Social critics have for a long time pointed out the resulting hollowness carried by that thesis. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/03/debt-federal-reserve-fixation-on-growth

The middle class was greatly focussed on in the recent US election with the idea that if we work hard, we will be rewarded and be able to enjoy the "good life". I know I have bought into this ideal and so have many other average American as well as Canadian families. If half of our population stopped working tomorrow, what would happen? Here's some interesting food for thought:

"A statistical oddity; dual earner families are 75% more likely to file bankruptcy than the single earner family. Sounds strange, but consider that people live to their means - the two earner couple saves very little more than the single earner family. All the extra money is spent on toys and fun things to do; that’s mostly what it’s about! At the same time, when there are two earners there is twice the probability that one will lose their job from a layoff, sickness, injury, etc. " http://wilderness.hubpages.com/hub/Two-Earner-Incomes-Is-It-Worth-The-Cost

Once we subtract what it actually costs me to work, it hardly seems worth it based on the numbers.However little I may be bringing in, it is for us is making the the difference between having enough and not having enough. Once we get out of debt, who knows?

We are your average Canadian family and we are tired of rising costs to pay for bad government investments and selfish stupid executives...... 

Living doesn't cost much....but showing off does.

The rationalization of the way that we have spent our money seems completely irrational once you dig a little deeper. I've just spent a week trying to get underneath the surface of our habits to get to the root of the problem because at the end of the day, no matter how many plans and budgets we put in place to curtail our spending, if what we are doing is primarily irrational emotional based spending, no matter how many promises we make ourselves, we will blow it.

Irrational thinking is the reason why diets fail, resolutions are broken, and why we buy things we don't need. The majority of financial decision making is done irrationally and if you don't believe me, have a look around your living room right now. Better yet, review the buying you've done in the past and wonder what the hell you were thinking. I come from the generation of Beaver Canoe sweatshirts, acid wash jeans, jelly shoes (now Crocs), and remember when peach, black and white was a cool colour scheme for household interiors.

Housing is a need. Having a 5 bedroom, three bathroom home on an almost an acre of property is a want. Basic sustenance is a need. Having smoked salmon, filet mignon, lobster and fois gras in the fridge is a want. So is the stocked liquor cabinet, the pop fridge, and the wine & beer stash that we no longer have. Sniff, sniff...

Clothing for the kids is important, but anything not labelled Joe Fresh is probably a want. I have a weakness for coats...some women it's shoes. Being that my feet are a size 10 and it's hard to make gigantic feet beautiful, perhaps I've unconsciously chosen to distract the eye of others with a plumage of fine jacket wear. Having over 20 jackets for 4 seasons of the year is a want, not a need.

Having transportation to get to and from work is a need. "Why the world's most intelligent primate would buy a Hummer H1 Alpha sport utility vehicle for $139,771?" is hard to understand. As Geoffrey Miller goes on to say in his book Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behaviour, "It is not a practical means of transport. It seats only four, needs fifty-one feet in which to turn around, burns a gallon of gas every ten miles, dawdles from 0 to 60 mph in 13.5 seconds, and has poor reliability, according to Consumer Reports. Yet, some people have felt the need to buy it- as the Hummer ad says, "Need is a very subjective word."

Unconscious irrational consumerism is the best way to describe the way that the majority of us shop. If you have ever thought the following things I am about to describe than you have bought stuff without rational justification. 

It's such a great deal! Everyone loves a good bargain.....I know I can't resist one time only buys that make me feel like I have saved us a fortune doing my good deed by maximizing the value of the dollars we earn by providing my family with the things we "need". How much do these savings cost us, when those buys are on credit? No doubt these bargains cost our family more than I am willing to admit, but is there a bigger cost, one that I don't even realize? 

"Most of us know that, at some level, cheap stuff comes with a price. But what does it mean to have discounting as the defining force within the whole economy?", Gordon Laird explores these ideas and more in his book, "The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and The Death of Globalization."

He goes on to say, "Our world is littered with shipping containers, shaped by logistics networks, subsidized by affordable crude oil, and deeply dependent on consumer spending that, directly and indirectly, accounts for as much as 70 per cent of all economic activity in North America and Europe. 

Blaming bankers, deregulation, and sketchy financial dealings for the recession is only halfway correct. Some of the greatest challenges of our time stem from the transformation of western nations into shopping economies. Unsustainable consumer debt, the rise of Asian economic powers, and the growing impact of former externalities like climate change, pollution, and poverty are rising up, threatening the very sustainability of our economic recovery. And they all are tied to our relentless pursuit of cheap. 

At the core of The Price of a Bargain is a timely argument: the worst economic crisis in 50 years is not just a financial collapse but the beginning of a major shift in society, economy and environment that will mark the decline of globalization and the bountiful tide of affordable consumerism that many economies have come to depend upon. Our whole system of cheap is leveraged in ways we are only just beginning to understand – and broken in ways that may not be easily fixed." http://www.gordonlaird.com/price-of-a-bargain/

Buying this widget will make our life better. We have all been manipulated like a puppet on a string by government, big business, public relations marketers, bankers, publishing corporations, Hollywood, Freud's theories and psycho analysts that have tapped into our innermost desires to manipulate us into spending money we don't have and to make sure that we behave in ways that protect society as a whole. 

Would I trade my precious time with my kids and my husband if I didn't think that by providing for them through work wasn't "making their lives better"? Would I get up and go to work everyday if we weren't up to our eyeballs in debt and bill payments?  

In Spent, Geoffrey Miller explores an imaginary conversation with our Cro-Magnon selves as hunter-gatherers in which he plays out a scene where our current selves attempt to convince our Caveman ancestors that our way of life has been for the better. 

"So, what's the catch? What would we have to do to get these knives and shoes?" says our Cave woman. We explain," All you have to do is sit in classrooms every day for sixteen years to learn counter-intuitive skills, and then work and commute fifty hours a week for forty years in tedious jobs for amoral corporations, far away from relatives and friends, without any decent childcare, sense of community, political empowerment or contact with nature. Oh, and you'll have to take special medicines to avoid suicidal despair, and to avoid having more than two children. It's not so bad, really. The shoes with the swooshes are really cool."

Are we out of our mind?!!!!!! Or have we been powerfully marketed to and manipulated in ways we don't consciously realize? If you want to see something that will leave you completely gob-smacked (jaw-dropped), watch "The Century of Self: Happiness Machines", a program put out by the BBC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTarrgvkjo .

We are nothing but a bunch of dummies or at least that is how I felt after watching the first of a four part series this morning. 

We work so hard, we deserve it. How many years of future happiness have we pledged for pleasure now? Well, if we stick to our current budget plan and follow the debt repayment that we have set out for ourselves. We will have it all paid off by April of 2015. That's if...nothing unexpected comes up, and we don't lose our jobs, and don't get sick or get into an accident or something horrible and wacky happens with our broken dream home and our seven year old car keeps on going with no major repairs. Wow, that's 2.5 years!!!! (Insert every swear word I know but won't type here.....since the likelihood of us getting through that mine field of unrealistic expectations is hysterical!!! I'm laughing, crying AND swearing now....) 

Gail Vaz-Oxlade's book, "Debt-Free Forever" delivers a sobering message in her no-nonsense way, "If you don't have an emergency fund and some savings, if you're carrying around a pile of consumer debt, if your expenses exceed your income and you're covering the difference with credit, it's time to grow up. You are not entitled to anything for which you cannot afford to pay."

The only people in this world who are entitled are the children we bring into it. Gail says, "Children are entitled to feel secure, to have enough to eat, and a safe place to live. Parents who put their own wants before their children's needs are selfish and irresponsible." 

"How can having a fifty-inch plasma TV be more important than the pain in you children's eyes as they watch their home being repossessed? How can a shiny truck be more important than fresh fruit and veggies for your kids? How can a fancy handbag be more important? I'm not a shiny truck or handbag owner but I can't deny that all the time that I have traded at the expense of my kids has been in the pursuit of buying stuff that I thought in my deluded way, would make our lives better. 

If I had re-examined my thinking 10 years ago, I could have saved myself and my children and my husband years of anguish that resulted from my belief that by getting a college degree to pursue my passion for becoming a Chef in a industry I loved, then working aggressively to gain the skills and experience to become a business owner would in turn, be a shining example to them as a mother who could manage it all. Super woman or Super ego or Super deluded....hindsight is 20-20.

Does this mean that I think all women should quit their day job or that I should quit mine? Well, no, that's unrealistic and completely one-sided. I do think that I could have taken it a little easier and made it a much better journey had we made better financial decisions along the way and had I not put so much pressure on us to "get ahead". Like most average Canadian families, as our income went up, so did our spending. We kept counting on the raises to create a buffer...the old," when we are making x amount...we will have some breathing room." Only the breathing room never came because the spending habits never changed. 

The change needs to come by asking some tough questions the next time we go shopping. Questions like, How much trade off time with my kids are those Lulu Lemon yoga pants going to cost me? Is that White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino  Blended Beverage a need or a want? Has my life become so over-scheduled with better quality of life obligations that it makes sense to eat take out at McDonald's so that we can get our kids to sports activities on time? 

Instead of just questioning our priorities Gail offers an even better way of breaking things down into real cost in her book, "Debt-Free Forever". Here is the lowdown:

"Let's say you make $50,000 per year net. This translates to a net hourly income of $25 (50 weeks and 40 hours per week). Minus essential expenses such as mortgage, car payments, debt repayment, food, etc. For a guess, lets say it adds up to $3300 per month, which breaks down to $19.80 per hour. Taking $25 an hour minus $19.80 per hour leaves you with $5.20 per hour of disposable income."

So, supposing you want a $1500 flat screen TV? Well that translates into 289 hours of work. Divide that by 40 hours and now you have just over 7 weeks of work to pay for it, without spending a dime on anything else. 

I just figured out the combined hourly average that my husband and I make per hour. Then I took our personal & discretionary spending budget and subtracted the things which we are currently obligated to pay for. This included music lessons, the gym, a flat screen tv payment, childcare and our monthly donation to David Suzuki. It leaves us with .03% of our income to spend on extras per month. 

To put this in frightening perspective.....here is what a little spending spree would look like now for us (hopefully your disposable income is more....), if we stick to the budget:

Starbucks Coffee $7 = 14 hours of work

Bottle of wine $20 = one week worth of work

Book $35  = almost two weeks of work

Blue Jeans: $50 = 2.5 weeks

Family Trip to the Movies: $75 = 3.75 weeks

LuLu Lemon Yoga Pants: $100 =5 weeks

Dinner for 2 with Drinks: $125 = 6.25 weeks

ipod: $200 = 10 weeks

Cell Phone: $350 = 17.5 weeks

Couch $600 = 30 weeks

ipod with 800 songs: $1000 = 50 weeks

Family Vacation to Cuba $6000 = 6 years

New Subaru Forrester $32,000 = 1600 weeks or 30 years

Luxury car $45,000 = 43 years......thank god for car loans!

If I bought all these things tomorrow, I would need to work till I am 119 to pay for them with the current amount of disposable income I have. 

Why would I buy any of them given the amount of my life I need to give up in order to own something shiny? Geoffrey Miller has a theory that all of the "the goods and services we buy unconsciously advertise our biological perspectives as mates and friends."

He argues that everything from the clothes we buy, the cars we drive, the neighbourhoods we live in, the bling we wear, the pets we choose, the drinks we consume, the careers we have is all about advertising our personal traits to others.If you think that because you may be a vegetarian, fair trade coffee drinker, living off the grid, with hand stitched hemp clothing and so may be exempt from the evolutionary flaunting that Miller describes, you're wrong....we all do it, whether you buy goods or services to do it or not. 

The irony of the whole thing is that, "These costly signals are mostly redundant or misleading, so others usually ignore them. They prefer to judge us through natural face-to-face interaction. We think our gilding dazzles them, though we ignore their own gilding when choosing our friends and mates."  http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1900032,00.html

Think about it.....what was the thought process when you bought that widget when you get past all the bullshit justification? Dig deep....most of what we buy is because we are irrationally attracted to it...dig deeper.....we think it will make us cool or impress others.....deeper still.....we think it will make us happy because the widget is a reflection of who we want to be and will show others who we are, thus gaining the love and acceptance that we all so desperately need. 

Marketers know this and they use it. In 1927, it was argued that the push by bankers, the government, and corporations were turning Americans from citizens to consumers....it doesn't seem like much of an argument given the state of the current economy. Americans, as well as Canadians are going broke as a result of over spending. 

However, that won't stop big business from trying to get our hard earned money. 

"Neuromarketing is a young and growing field–some won’t even admit that it is a field yet–that is striving to reveal the inner mechanisms of our consumer behaviour. Soon, marketing experts, with the help of cutting-edge brain research, will get direct access to the inner depths of our brains where, with the right stimulation, they can unleash our buying impulses and get their cash registers ringing." 

If you think I am making this up, read the following article regarding some experiments done at Atlanta's Emory University by a Clinton Kilts. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=neuromarketing-brain

Is there no hope? Geoffrey Miller offers some exercises to try for the mindless spender like me in the back of his book, "Spent", that will  help us all give our heads a shake. This is one of many and called the Natural Living Test. 

"This quantifies how closely your life matches that of our Cave Woman ancestors. Write down honestly how many times in the past month you have had each of the experiences below:

• Rocked a newborn baby to sleep
• Made up a story and told it to a child
• Felt the sunrise warm your face
• Satisfied a genuine hunger by eating ripe fruit
• Satisfied a genuine thirst by drinking cool water
• Shown courage in protecting a child from danger
• Shown leadership and resourcefulness in an emergency
• Shared a meal with parents, siblings, or other close relatives
• Gossiped with an old friend
• Made a new friend
• Made something beautiful and gave it to someone
• Repaired something that was broken
• Improved a skill through diligent practice
• Learned something new about a plant or animal that lives near you
• Changed your mind about something important on the basis of new evidence
• Followed good advice from someone older
• Taught a useful skill, charming art, or interesting fact to someone younger
• Petted a furry animal such as a dog, cat or monkey
• Worked with earth, clay, stone, wood or fiber
• Comforted someone dying
• Walked over a hill and across a stream
• Identified a bird by its song
• Played a significant role in a local ritual, festival, drama or party
• Played a team sport
• Made a physical effort to achieve a collective goal with others
• Sustained silent eye contact with someone to show affection
• Shamed someone who was behaving badly, for the greater good
• Resolved a serious argument using humour, emotional self-control, and social empathy
• Sang, danced, or played instruments with a group of friends
• Made friends laugh out loud
• Reached a world-melting mutual orgasm with a sexual partner
• Experienced sublime beauty that made your hair stand on end
• Experienced an oceanic sense of oneness with the cosmos that made you think, This is how church should feel
• Applied the Golden Rule by helping someone in need
• Warmed yourself by an open fire under stars

Now, add up all the numbers that you wrote for each item above. If your total score is lower than 100 and you do not feel as happy as you would like, write a five-hundred-word essay explaining why you expect your life to be happy or meaningful if you are not doing anything meaningful for others or feeding your brain any of the natural experiences that it evolved to value and to find meaningful."

We are your average Canadian family and we spend our money without thinking on things that no one cares about.....

If Jesus is the reason for the season....

....then why are we being bombarded with Christmas tunes in October. Is it really necessary for retailers to begin bombarding us with the holiday trappings ages before we are ready for them?

Absolutely! Turns out that we spend more, when we have more weeks to spend. Ever found presents hiding in your closet after the holidays are over and you realize that you completely forgot that you even bought it?! I am ashamed to say that I have and this has got to work in retailers favour when we are stockpiling Christmas presents in August. (Thanks, Costco!)

The whole thing leaves me feeling a little robbed of the Christmas spirit when we haven't even celebrated Halloween with our kids and the Christmas decorations are already up at the local grocery store. Don't even get me started on how disrespectful I feel this is to our veterans when the big push of decorating, retail product, and musak comes on November 1st for most stores, ten days before Remembrance Day.

I found one company, which specializes in online coupons spoofing the early retailing phenomenon running a campaign in the States saluting “OctoNovemCember,” which features a hybrid holiday character called Pumpkin-Headed Turkey Claus that has its own Twitter feed. (I can't make this shit up....)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/business/media/calendar-says-october-retailers-say-its-christmas.html?_r=0

Panicky posts from my good friends on Facebook are starting to appear that have them worrying about Christmas baking and holiday gift buying. Suddenly, we too are starting to feel the holiday dreadsies after waking up to the first of the worst Merci commercials on TV this morning. Is this really what the season is all about?

When did the Birthday party celebrations get so out of hand that the average Canadian family goes into debt every December to share in the season of giving? I don't have much of a background when it comes to religion but I can almost guarantee that maxing out the plastic is not what the original intention Christians had when they chose this date for Jesus' birthday.

The emotional buying we do to show our family and friends how much we love them through retail runs deep at Christmas time, especially though horrible marketing campaigns that bombard us at every turn. It has become ridiculous and if you don't believe me, watch some of the commercials from last year that encourage us to spend, spend, spend.(If you want to see the best and worst of ads from last year in the States....follow this link. It doesn't include the Merci commercial we have in Canada, which I would put at the top of my hate list for holiday advertising but it proves my point. http://www.adweek.com/video/advertising-branding/campaign-trails-best-and-worst-christmas-ads-137201.)

The average Canadian family will spend over $2000 on Christmas this year. The breakdown for Holiday spending in 2011 for what we are spending is: gifts $600, trips $360, entertaining $300 and other items $150 per person. It is a frightening picture for the Average Canadian Family that is overspending already in any given month and where the spending becomes double what a single person would spend. Given our ability to pay it back, and most of it ending up on credit cards, I don't even want to calculate what our holiday spending spree is costing us in compound interest.http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/12/20/bmo-bonus.html

Holiday spending in 2011
Type	2011	2010
Gifts	$582.70	$613.50
Trips	$359.80	$356.50
Entertaining	$307.30	$203.80
Other	$147.50	$131.80
Total	$1,397	$1,305
Source: BMO

....then why does holiday buying blow our budget.....every year. I had no idea that we are supposed to be budgeting all year for Christmas. Remember that budget that I created for our family, that one that we are currently sticking too.....there's no room for Christmas in there, I completely forgot. According to the Royal Bank, we should be putting money away every week.

“Putting away $10 a week during whole year adds up to $520,” says Demers.

RBC product manager Maria Contreras  suggests putting away $25 a week and you’ll have $1300 by the time the holidays roll around. Put that cash in a high interest savings account or a TFSA and you may even get a few extra bucks to spend by the end of the year."

Another way to keep spending low is to cash in reward points. But no matter how you cut back — gift exchanges, set limits with others on presents — the best way to make sure you can spend that thousand bucks and not wrack up credit card debt is to save." http://www.moneyville.ca/blog/post/895232--will-you-spend-the-average-1-137-this-christmas

No wonder most Canadian families dred getting the bills in January. For us, we will need to re-evaluate the budget or eliminate spending all together for this year.

...then why are we stressed to the max. Would you believe that Christmas comes second only to financial problems at the top of everyone's stress and worry list? We are stressed by the financial burden of gift giving, decorating and entertaining. We have additional time constraints from extra obligations like holiday parties, kids school concerts, Christmas shopping, and family get-togethers. We have stress from unrealistic expectations and pressures we put on ourselves to make the holiday great and from dealing with relatives who don't. We travel through snowstorms and other bad winter weather leaving us spending more time in the car or at the airport than with our families. But best or worst of all, we drink more, eat more, sleep less, and exercise less.

No wonder January feels like the worst hangover ever!!! Most Christmas holidays are a disaster waiting to happen before they even begin and yet, every year our intentions are to make it the best its ever been.

...then why are the kids making lists from the Sears Catalogue Wish Book. Is it possible to have a "Buy Nothing Christmas"? Every year we watch the Grinch who stole Christmas, which has a very Anti-Consumerist Message,

“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”

“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”.

Disregard that they get all their stuff back in the end, but could it be possible for us to actually find a way to celebrate our love for our family and friends in a way that didn't cost a penny and meant a whole lot more?

Leave it to some Canadian Mennonites, the best anti-consumerists in our country, who have devoted a whole site to the idea. You can check out the link to get started on creating some Christmas gifts without spending a dime in time for the holidays.

http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/alternatives/

...then why do we buy gifts for ourselves. One in two Canadians buy presents for themselves at Christmas!!!! I confess, I've done it. I love my husband dearly, but frankly, there have been a few sad years under the tree with items that I have no idea what inspired him to think it was gift-worthy. I have even had an empty stocking too, which was okay when we had babies, but the kids start to think Mommy is a very bad girl when Santa doesn't bring her anything.

The last two years we cut the budget on spending for our own family at Christmas, including me buying my own gifts. This saves Andrew from coming up with something, me from feeling guilty if I have to fake my excitement at his gift or from having to feign surprise at what Santa brings me and we save some money.

One great way that we have changed for the better is by using our Air Miles points for family time as a fantastic way to create Christmas memories instead of getting Christmas stuff. It was one of the best decisions we made and long before we started a budget. The last two years Air Miles has paid for us to go to Crystal Palace in Moncton for a really fun weekend away.

...then why do we have so much crap we don't know what to do with after the holiday is over. This is the one thing that motivated us to stop buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff. How much money is extra stuff costing us?

In Canada, we live in a country where it makes sense to have bigger houses, bigger kitchens, bigger garages and sheds, we pay for extra storage because we have too much stuff in our houses, we have basements and storage rooms, large walk-in closets and dressers, large refrigerators in both the houses and the garages, we have big dryers and big washers and even bigger beds with lots of pillows and blankets. Our SUV's are big and the stuff we have to go with them is even bigger...bikes, and kayaks and skis and sleds, we have trailers to attach to bring more stuff when we travel because we might not have stuff where we are going.

Most Canadian families have an unbelievable amount of stuff. And most of it, is not paid for......it's on credit.

Do we really need one more thing on credit this Christmas....given our current circumstances....I don't think so.If we do plan to buy anything, we will stick to our budget this year. I found this great article about where to buy and how to save when shopping this Christmas. Here is the link:

http://www.canadianfamily.ca/articles/shop-and-save/

...then why are we still paying for Christmas gifts in March.

Atlantic Canadians on average spend more on Christmas than the rest of Canadians. I can think of a few easy reasons why this would be true...our tax is an outstanding 15%, everything here on average costs more from retail products to gas to groceries, and frankly, we are just wonderful people who love to give gifts. Not like those stingy prairie folk.....just kidding Mom!

Men spend more than women and the greatest amount of spending comes in the 45-65 age group. Hopefully that means that we will be getting some great gifts from Grandpa this year.

Those in the $60-$79 K range are spending almost as much as those in the 100K+ range of income since those with less always tend to be more generous...(or maybe not as smart, since a wise man once told me that it is not about how much money you make but rather how much money you keep.)

The average Canadian is using credit too with only 52% of Canadian spending with cash or debit. The average use of plastic for Christmas spending is 46% with that being higher in....Atlantic Canada, Ontario and BC. Those of us in the 60-70K range are also using the most plastic to pay for gifts.

More than 50% of those who use their credit card to pay for gifts, can't pay it off in a month, with some taking as long as 6 months to pay it off. Atlantic Canadians average time to pay of the debt is 1.6 months, lower than Quebec 1.9 months and BC at 2 months. Those in the 25-44 age range took even longer to pay it off with the debt sitting on the card for an average of 2.1 months.

Thinking about our holiday this year, I realize that all of it, is self-inflicted. The debt, the over scheduling, the expectations, the obligations, and the travelling.....its all gotta go if we are going to have a truly great Christmas this year. I am going to find our family a new reason for the season.

We are your average Canadian family and we spend too much money on Christmas.......