Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Blog, page 15

Books, Books & More Books

Fated by Benedict Jacka is an example of a book I bought on sale where I got lucky. Just 4.95 ahs opened the door to what looks like it’ll be a great series. Alex Verus runs a magic shop in London. Not your typical magic shop, Alex is a mage who can foresee the possible futures. When an ancient relic is uncovered, Alex is approached by factions to figure out how it works. This first book put me in mind of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series. Very entertaining. I’ve already put the next one in my cart.

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty. This is author that keeps delivering. In this lovely story, Sophie is left a house and when she moves into Aunt Connie’s house on Scribbly Gum Island she sets into motion a series of events that may explode her life. Grace is suffering from a wicked case of post-partum depression. Margie is looking for a way to reclaim her life. Aunt Rose thinks it’s about time to make her own decisions. As things evolve, Sophie’ life become increasingly complicated. Will she ever find a mate even as she listens to her biological clock ticking? And what is the truth about Scribbly Gum Island and the baby left behind by the couple that mysteriously disappeared? Moriarty weaves another thoroughly engaging story that balances the darker elements of the plot with moments of delightful levity.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman is yet another delight. Coralie’s dad is the guy behind the Museum of Extraordinary things: a Coney Island boardwalk freak show. Coralie is a part of the show. An extraordinary swimmer trained from childhood by her dad, she plays a mermaid. Growing up alongside the wolfman, the butterfly girl and a 100-year old turtle, Coralie’s life is extremely unusual. It’s also the story of Eddie’s life as a Russian immigrant who has left his jewish community to follow his dream of becoming a master photographer. The city of New York is another character in this book, as is the evolution of the garment industry and the historic Triangle Fire that claimed the lives of 146 garment workers. Coralie and Eddie eventually discover each other!

The Poet by Michael Connelly was a great read. I’m not really a Connelly fan, but this one was on sale and I’m glad I stuck it in my cart. When Jack McEvoy’s twin kills himself, the Rocky Mountain News crime-beat reporter decides to investigage the phenomenon of police suicides. Soon a pattern emerges that might indicate that his brother’s death was not a suicide after all. It seems a cop killer is on the loose leaving a coast-to-coast trail of “suicide notes” drawn from the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. This is the first Jack McEvoy story and I’m considering picking up The Scarecrow, which is the second in the series.

The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly there’s a good reason why Michael Connelly is one of the highest paid authors in America: he can weave a good yarn. This one features Mickey Haller – of The Lincoln Lawyer fame – and Connelly isn’t above making fun of the way his character’s life has been affected by the movie that was made. Funny. The murder case is pretty serious though, expecially when Mickey finds out that the victim was a former client of his. Pretty good court-room drama.

Gun Machine by Warren Ellis was a great read and I was disappointed that there weren’t a mess of books behind this one. Ah well. Detective John Tallow watches as his partner is killed in a shootout in a condemned tenement building on Pearl Street. That’s when he finds the apartment stacked high with guns laid out in an unusual pattern on the wall. Turns out, each gun leads to a previously unsolved murder. A killer has been at work for two decades or more, 20 years or more and John Tallow has to figure out what the hell is going on. Aided by a couple of smart, funny CSIs, John sets to unscrambling the mystery. It won’t be a cake-walk.

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss tells the story of Ethan Saunders a disgraced ex-spy in Washington’s army who is on the trail of a missing man and a way to defeat the proposed excise tax Alexander Hamilton is planning on spirits to help fund America’s new government. The resulting turmoil, which has come to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion, ended with George Washington marching an army into western Pennsylvania to put it down. The widely evaded tax had collected little revenue, and Congress eventually repealed it. The other character determined to defeat the new tax is Joan Maycott, whose’s husband was killed after his whiskey distilling drew the ire of his greedy landlord. There’s lots of action is this book: ambushes, roadblocks, code-breaking, and party-crashing.

The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva is a spy novel set in World War 2 Britain and is all about stopping an unknown spy from uncovering an allied plan for the D-Day battle. While I don’t read a lot of spy novels – I find some genres become predictable if you stick too tightly with them — throwing the odd one into the mix keeps them fresh for me. And I enjoyed this one. An innocent woman is murdered and her identity assumed by a German spy, who then lays low until called into action. Alfred Vicary, a professor and longtime friend of Churchill is called into service as a spy master to find the German spies who have infiltrated British life. I thoroughly enjoyed the story right up to the unpredictable plot twist that came at the end. The characters were believeable, the twisty tale engaging.

 

Being Idle

In a world where we are constantly being encouraged to work harder, faster and longer, along comes a book that suggest we put on the brakes. Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing by Andrew Smart draws from philosophy, history, literature, management theory and economics Smart makes a case for spending more time doing nothing.

Smart bases his arguments on experiments in neuroscience, which indicate that there’s a lot of stuff going on in our brains when we are doing absolutely nothing. He says Idleness is not laziness. In fact, idleness may be an important and necessary condition for processing and synthesizing information to create new ideas and connections.

Those parts of our brain that are extremely active when we are “idle”, may play an important role in helping with “creativity”. So if we fill up every minute of every day with getting stuff done, we could be blocking our own creativity.

Sometimes Smart rants: he hates the time management industry and isn’t afraid to say so. He’s also not to enamoured with productivity consultants who he believes is robbing corporations of their ability to innovate.

So what would you do in all this idle time? Doodle perhaps. Or just think. Smart points out that some of the most brilliant ideas have come when the people who had them were just idling. Rene Descarte, the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system – better known to us plebes as the x/y axis – is said to have had his great aha! while watching a spider spinning a web. And Gravity Dude – Isaac Newton – was musing under an apple true when he had his eureka moment on how gravity worked.

I’ve had some profound experiences with downtime myself. When Alex and I were in Africa a couple of years ago, that downtime was tremendously healing. And when I spend my summers in the garden, pulling weeds, deadheading flowers, just being really, I find my creativity grows.

Smart isn’t the only person who is suggesting there is an upside to downtime. That mile-long to-do list may be just what’s standing between you and your better self.

Rubin Naiman, who is a PHD sleep specialist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrated Medicine, says that people often confuse rest with recreation: While hiking, watching movies, gardening, reading are seen by many of us as “taking a break,” he contends they can’t be termed restful because they are breaks from work. Rest, he contends, requires that you be doing nothing.

Dr. Herbert Benson, of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, has conducted numerous studies on the benefits of rest. His research shows that relaxation affects each of the body’s 40,000 genes, producing anti-oxidation and anti-inflammatory changes that reduce stress in the body. It lowers heart rates, blood pressure, and oxygen consumption, and alleviates hypertension, arthritis, insomnia, depression, infertility, cancer, and anxiety.

Anne LeClaire, author of Listening Below the Noise: A Meditation on the Practice of Silence says “When you slow down and get quiet, you can actually begin to hear your own wisdom, your inner knowledge.”

So maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe just taking time to be, to sit and doodle while we think, to breathe in and out while we watch what is going on around us, is what we need more of. Meditation is a big word these days, and it’s not surprising since many people need to learn how to rest. Yoga can help. So can implementing relaxation techniques.

Oprah meditates. If that woman can make quiet time for herself, I don’t thing the “I’m too busy” excuse holds water.

With more and more studies on meditation being done, it’s becoming clear that if we integrate periods of rest and silence into our daily lives, what we’re actually doing is practicing preventive medicine.

Today, try to add five minutes of idleness to your day. If you keep feeling the urge to jump up and do something, just say to yourself, “Five minutes for me,” and breath deeply. You’ve got to be worth five minutes, right?

GPS Your Financial Plan

Imagine that your best friend has invited you to stay at her cottage. She tells you it’s “up north”. That’s it, no more info. That’s how most people treat the management of their money. The destination is vague and they have no idea what direction to start off in. I want you to think of a financial plan as a GPS device for your financial life. But before you can head off, you at least need to know where you want to end up!

While you have to know where you’re headed to lay down a trip plan, if you change your mind, or if something throws you off track, you don’t stop or end up wondering around aimlessly. You recalculate your route. You figure out what you want to do next and you head off.

To have the life you want, you need to know where you’re going. This isn’t about casting your life plan in concrete. It’s about having a sense of your destination and some good directions. You need to put an address in your GPS before you can get started. That address is your goal.

You can have loads of dreams and just as many goals, but you can’t possibly do them all at once. Splitting your energy in a dozen directions means you’ll end up getting nowhere at all. Time to prioritize. When you make your goals, identify what the most important thing on your list is. Label it “#1”. That’s the thing you’ll put the majority of your effort towards.

You can work towards more than one goal at a time. But you need to be prioritizing as you go so you don’t bite off more than you can chew. No, you can’t buy a house, have a baby and go back to school all at the same time. What’s your Goal #1? Where do the others fit into your plans? Label whatever else you’re working on as #2, #3, and so on.

Those goals have to be very specific. Being vague isn’t going to get you where you want to be so make sure you’re clear about what you want. Want to buy a home? What kind of house? Semi, condo, or fully detached? In the city? In the country? For how much? $175K, $350K $1.2 mill?

Since, as I have been heard to say about a b’zillion times, a goal without a deadline is a dream, you have to add some dates. Do you want to buy that home in two, three or five years? Again, the timeline isn’t cast in concrete, but having it means you’re serious about your focus. Some goals have a short-term timeline, like saving for your sister’s wedding. Some goals are medium-term like putting together the down-payment on a home. Some are long-term like saving for retirement.

Patience and tenacity will get you where you want to go. Baby-steps or great big leaps, you’ll move at a different pace on different goals depending on what else is going on in your life. What’s important is to keep moving forward. If you’ve got kids who are babies, don’t ignore the educational savings plan. Putting just a little away each month puts momentum on your side. It doesn’t have to be a ton to start. But you have to start. It’s the same with balancing debt repayment and savings. You can’t just focus on your arrival time when you’re heading to your destination, you have to watch road conditions and monitor your speed.

You want to get your student debt paid off. Great. You’ve got $31,000 worth of debt, and you want it gone in 24 months. Really? The principal alone will cost you $1,292 a month from your cash flow? Is that realistic? There’s no point in setting goals you can’t achieve. It’s better to be realistic about your destination and when you plan to get there.

Don’t expect things to go smoothly the whole way. Com’on, you know life isn’t like that! You’ve got to be prepared to adjust your plan.

Half way to your destination, a roadblock can send you miles off course. Don’t give up. Show some back-bone, what I call “gumption”. Recalculate your journey and get moving. If you’re determined, you’ll get there. There may be some bumps and jolts along the way, but you’ll get there.

Your GPS tells you how many miles you have to go. It reassures you that you’re making progress. When it comes to a goal, you have to find a way to visualize the progress you’re making. Whether you create a chart with the milestones to your goal highlighted, or you create a vision board on which you can plot each step you’ve taken, track your progress. That’ll help you moving towards your destination.

 

Simplification

I know several people who have recently taken steps to simplify their lives by reducing the amount of stuff they do or by getting rid of a lot of the stuff they have. I have also simplified, mostly in terms of the amount of things I pack into a single day. My friend Cait eliminated over 50% of her stuff, putting herself on a shopping fast and focusing on the things she truly enjoys. My friend Victoria has been giving away her stuff for years. If you go into Victoria’s house and say, “What a lovely dish,” or “Isn’t that an interesting book,” she’s more like than not to hand it to you. After nine years of doing TV, writing books, appearing as guest, doing radio, writing blogs and articles, it was a huge relief to s l o w  d o w n. I had thought I would feel adrift in the time I had spent working on TV projects. I do not. It feels, instead, like a huge sigh of contentment.

I like this trend. Most of us have stuff we really don’t need and some of us are beginning to realize it. I’d say it is a “getting old” thing — both Victoria and I are over 50 — but my friend Cait is in her twenties, so that’s not it.

One person’s simple looks different from another’s, which is why this journey is so very personal and so very satisfying. There’s no wrong or right, there’s only what makes you feel that sense of space, the relief from chaos, the peace.

One of the things I love most about my simplified life is how much time I get to spend at home. After nine years of being on the road three days every week, being in my own home is a luxury that I wrap around myself like a soft blanket. When I am asked to speak or to appear as a guest, I weigh those experiences against the joy of being home and, carefully, accept or decline. I allocate a specific amount of days a month to travel. If an offer doesn’t suit my new home:away ratio, I just say no.

If you could simplify your life in some small way, what would it be? If my priority is to stick close to home, what’s yours?

If your life is filled with motion, which of those activities are the ones you love to do and which ones are you just doing? I love to cook. I do it slowly and with joy, relishing the chopping, the stirring, even the clean-up. And then the eating! I’m not so fond of dusting and vacuuming. Those things get only enough attention to keep my home clean.

How can you put more focus on the things that add value to your life, and less on the things you are “just doing?” Can you delegate? Can you share? Can you automate? Can you just say no?

And then there’s the stuff. We surround ourselves with so much stuff, vest so much in what we have acquired or plan next to acquire. In the end, so much of it is little more than clutter. It is remarkably lightening to parse the stuff and lose the clutter. If you don’t believe me, grab a shopping bag and walk around you house; you’re looking for 5 things to put in that bag. These are 5 things you’re not that fond of, 5 things you don’t really value. Maybe 5 things you’ve outgrown or haven’t used in the last year. Each thing you chose to put in the bag will bring you one step closer to a sigh of relief.

If you have a material streak — but, Gail, I might need it — then the lesson is even more important. We are not our stuff. But our stuff can get in the way of who we really are. So, what are you going to say goodbye to today?

 

This & That: Great Questions Edition

K Wrote: I have a cousin who’s in need of some financial help. He is 19; living with his parents, doesn’t have a car, and is not attending any sort of college or university. Because of this, he has no debt, but at the same time he doesn’t really have any money saved up.

He recently got a job at a local Tim Hortons and is making minimum wage. While he’s making enough to get by (for now), he has a bad habit of spending what he makes, especially on useless junk. He is willing to get help, but he doesn’t know where to start.

I’ve always been very good when it comes to saving my money, but I don’t know how to help him apart from saying. “Don’t spend money for like a year.” I was wondering if there’s any advice that you could give as to what he should do.

Gail Says: What a great question. You’re a good friend to ask. Okay, so if dude came to me and asked this question, here’s what I would say:

If you’re living rent free now, then you need to start putting some money away for when you do move out. For every dollar you make, put 35¢ in a savings account for move out day, whenever that comes. You’ll have to pay rent eventually, this is the time to practise, while you stock up on the money you’ll need for 1st and last months’ rent, hook-up fees, furniture, that first grocery shop and the like. So you take the amount you bring home per pay, multiply it by 35 and then divide by 100. If you bring home $385 you would put (385 x 35 / 100 = ) $134.74 in your moving out savings account.


Eventually you’re going to have to buy food, cover your medical costs, and the like. So this is the best time to start learning a) how to budget (so you plan where your money is going and b) how to track your spending (using a spending journal), so you keep up-to-date in real time with how much money you have left to spend.


Figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. Yah, yah, a big question, I know. But you should at least be thinking about it. Do you think you’ll go to school to learn to do something so you’re not swilling coffee forever? I’m not suggesting that working at Tim Hortons isn’t a good job since loads of people do it. But earning minimum wage is a hard way to make a life. So if there are things you think you would be good at and all you need is some training/experience then a) save some money to go back to school and/or b) volunteer somewhere to pick up some experience. Test the waters to see if you still love it when you have to do it every day.

 

M Wrote: I don’t have the problem of spending too much—it’s quite the opposite—I can’t bring myself to spend money and it is having an impact on my relationships and mental health. My husband and I have been very good with our money (thank you Gail!). We are 35, own a car and home in High Park have $300k in retirement and have about $10k set aside for our girl’s school (they are 3 and 1). We have done it all ourselves too.

My issue is that I have been very conservative my whole life. Now that we have everything we’ve ever wanted (house, kids, a lot of retirement money saved up), I feel SICK at the thought of splurging on anything that isn’t an RRSP contribution or a need. It is causing major issues in our marriage as my husband is totally fine spending money on whatever he wants (I’ve been in charge of the finances obviously). I am also ashamed to say that I feel very jealous of my friends who spend money on the things that I want to spend money on but can’t bring myself to doing it (e.g., nice vacation, spa, big reno on the house, etc.).

In terms of getting help for this problem, would you recommend seeing a financial advisor who could tell me that it is okay to spend money on the things that I want? Or should I see a counsellor of some sort, to deal with my issues that clearly stem back to my parents being super tight with money and fighting all the time about it? How would I go about finding the right person either way (financial advisor or counsellor)? Thank you for any direction you can give on this. I do plan to speak with my usual investment advisor on this matter, but I do value going into those discussions with plenty of research.

Gail Says: Your inability to enjoy the fruits of your labour are just as dangerous as someone else’s overspending. Here’s what I suggest. Sit with your mate and make a budget that includes a category for your clothes and one for your pleasures. Allocate a specific amount to each of these budget lines. It might be $25 a month. It might be $200 a month. It has to be a number you both agree on. Once that number is in the budget, you must spend it. What you’re going to do is learn to spend the money.

Years ago after I left my last husband and blew through my entire emergency fund, I too had trouble spending money since all I was focused on was rebuilding my emergency fund. When I caught myself, I put a line of “pleasures” into my budget and allocated $200 a month. I had to spend the money. I bought myself flowers or yarn to knit with or saw a movie. Over time, my resistance to spending went down.

Try it. If you have to start small and then work up to a larger number (review your budget/spending every three months with your mate) so be it.

 

J Wrote: I was reading your Blog today regarding Debt Fatigue and Credit Card Debt. Wondering if could please post a blog regarding your thoughts on Debt Fatigue and paying off a mortgage. I wrote to you last fall to share the story about our Car and Emergency Fund. We are the family who are working our way to paying off our mortgage.

I live in Surrey, BC and we have a nice home in the Vancouver Lower Mainland Area. Our mortgage started at $555K (at 2.35% variable interest rate) and we come up to the end of our 5 year term this Aug.2015. Today the mortgage sits at $185K.Once the interest expense is added in, we figure the overall payment back to the bank would be approx. $602K (principal and interest over 6 years). We are working hard pay it off in the next 6 years, e.g. $600K paid back to the bank in 6 years. There are days when I feel our clip level of $100K per year paid back to the bank is pretty fast. And then there are other days when I am getting tired and try hard to stay motivated.

We are in our mid 40’s (45 and 46). We are debt adverse so taking on this lovely home has been our dream home / accomplishment and when I am tired due to debt fatigue I wonder if the “expensiveness” is worth it. One plus is that it is close to my daughter’s school and we have a lovely yard. We have not been living solely for the house though and have had some home maintenance / improvement projects and nice vacations along the way since we have had this mortgage and lived here.

I think paying off $100K/year out of our net income is pretty good. It represents 42% of our Net Household income but we also have no other loans to pay. I figure it’s in the ballpark of the 30% housing + 15% repayment of other debts guideline. So after 4.5 years, how do I get over this Debt Fatigue? Thought I would ask you to see if there are ways paying off a mortgage can be similar to paying off consumer debt.

Our Net Worth is currently $1.365M and not all of it is in the house (like most folks assume is the case because we are in the Vancouver area). Of our Net Worth, we have about $482K of that in investments (TSFA + RRSP are approx. $375K and my work DCPP is approx $107K.) We also have a separate RESP already setup for our daughter with $43K in it today so she should have about $60K when we are done contributing. She has 5 more years of secondary school before going to university.

Once the house is paid off, we will be redirecting all the mortgage payments to the RRSPs/TSFAs as we have lots of contribution left there. Being conservative in nature, I am a bit freaked out that we will need $3.2M before we can hang up the boots at work as a couple. I look at that high net worth required total and figure we are about half way so things are not so bad.

My questions are:

What do you do about Debt Fatigue when paying off the mortgage?
Do we really need $3.2M to retire?

When it comes down to it, we are not flashy people. If we were I don’t think we would be able to put so much towards our mortgage payments each year. I am hesitant to post this type of question to the blog pages as I fear I will be panned in the comments. I realize our situation is one of being in a very blessed position and that I should have no complaints or concerns at all. However, I wanted to let you know that there are regular followers of your blog like me (high net worth, unassuming millionaire next door types)… and we also experience Debt Fatigue. We have also used your tips and teaching to get is to where we are today.

Gail Says: The “debt fatigue” you may be feeling paying off your mortgage may have come about because our society has unrealistic expectations about when a mortgage should be paid off. The rush (real or imagines) to pay it off may be putting too much pressure on you. The word mortgage actually means “gage” commitment until “mort” death. If you will have your mortgage paid off before your retirement, that’s good enough. And paying off the mortgage should NEVER come before paying off more expensive debt.

As for whether you’ll need $3.2 M to retire, I don’t know. How much are you living on now? Deduct your mortgage payment (it’ll be gone, right?) and figure out what your expenses really are, and how many of them you’ll take into retirement or get rid of before you hang up your spurs.

You might want to pick up a copy of Never Too Late and work your way through it. That could help you see more clearly where you are now and where you’ll be when you retire.

 

J Wrote: My husband and I are in our early 50’s and have 3 daughters ranging from 13 to 23. Two in university. We have parents that have a little money and assets and the need to redo their will. We also need to redo our will. I know this needs to be done by a lawyer. I am looking for resources on inheritance taxes and where we should put our money and what we should suggest to our parents that are floundering with the use of financial advisors.

Gail Says: There are no inheritance taxes in Canada. When you croak, your estate pays the taxes owed for any income earned during the year and the remaining money goes to your beneficiaries. There are probate fees, which varies by province. You can avoid these fees if assets are passed directly — they don’t go through the will. So an insurance policy with a named beneficiary would have no probate fee. Neither would RRSP/RRIF assets where a beneficiary designation has been made on the plan and the assets pass to a beneficiary spouse. If the assets go to your estate, the whole shebang is considered income and will be taxed. Ditto if the money is going to adult children. 

You do need a lawyer, one with estate experience. The language of estates is complicated and you need to make sure you’ve got the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. 

As for your parents floundering with the use of financial advisors, I’m not quite sure what you mean. My best advice is to ask friends and family who they trust. Failing that, find a fee-based planner… someone who works for an hourly rate and is not affiliated with any one company. 

 

N Wrote: I am in my mid-twenties and live with my parents. I lived on my own for a few years with my now ex but the break up and financial issues brought me back home. I finally paid off my credit card and I’m just left with the car payment. I currently owe $16000 on it. I really want to pay this car off and I want to move out. My current monthly payments are $50 TSFA, $96 insurance, $297 car payment, $50 cell phone, and $20 internet. Should I work really hard to pay off my car than start saving to move out or can I do both? I was thinking of saving $500 per month and use $300 of that towards car payments (making double the car payment) and $200 for moving out. I make $15 per hour and work 37.5 hour weeks. Gail I could really use your help on this one. Please help.

Gail Says: So you’re making about $28K a year, which means you’ll pay about $3,500 in taxes, giving you take home of about just under $2,000 a month, when EI and CPP are deducted. Let’s assume your take home is $1,800 a month. 

Income $1,800

Car payment: $297
Insurance: $96
Cell: $50
Internet: $20

Total: $463, leaving you with $1,337 a month. When you move out you’re going to have to pay for:

Rent
Food
Utilities
Gas/Repairs

You should estimate what these costs will be (reasonably, don’t underestimate) and then slap all that money against that car loan to get it paid off as fast as possible at least for the next 6 months. You’ll accomplish two things: you’ll get used to living on the disposable income you’ll have when you move out AND you’re get the loan reduced substantially.

I know you want to move out as soon as possible, but you don’t want to end up boomeranging back again. Having paid a whack off your car loan, you can go back to the $297 when you move out. You should have at a bare minimum:

1st/last month’s rent
$$ for your first big grocery shop
$$ for whatever you’ll need to buy for your new home (bed, dresser, couch, dishes, etc.)
at least 3 months’ worth of essential expenses socked away in an emergency fund

 

Gail’s Curried Chicken Salad

Curry powder is actually a mixture of spices that delivers a whack of flavor. Typically cumin, cardamom, coriander, turmeric and dry mustard are the basic ingredients. Every region has it’s own version of curry, and the flavours can vary dramatically. West Indian goat curry is very different from the sweet red curry of Malaysia and bears no resemblance whatsoever to Thai green curry.

Some people like to add chili powder and cayenne pepper to their mix. Some use more or less turmeric, which is what gives curry its distinctive yellow colour (and stains like a bitch!) Some curry powders – the sweeter ones — have ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and even fennel added. Many contain fenugreek, which is a white-flowered pea-plant with aromatic seeds.

You can experiment, making your own curry, or you can walk into an Asian market and pick up two or three different kinds. Take ‘em home and experiment. When you change the kind of curry you use, you’ll change the flavor of whatever it is you’re cooking.

Gail’s Curried Chicken Salad

½ cup mayonnaise
1 tsp curry powder
¼ tsp brown sugar
½ tsp salt
2 cups chicken breast, chopped medium
1 apple, diced
2 stalks celery, chopped fine
½ cup dried cranberries (you can substitute raisins)
2 cups broccoli pieces

Combine the mayo, curry powder, brown sugar and salt. Let rest for at least an hour so the flavours meld.

(If, like me, you don’t like your broccoli raw, nuke it for about a minute or two, just to get the edge off, but don’t cook all the way through. You want it to be crunchy.)

Combine all the remaining ingredients. Toss with the mayo. The salad gets better after it sits for a couple of hours so give it a chance to mature.

Laughter

I love to laugh. Sometimes I’m criticized for my loud guffaws. But more often people tell me they love my laugh. They say it’s infectious.

Remember that Mary Poppins song, “I love to laugh,” that’s could be my anthem. And I love to hear other people laughing. But whether we are giggling or cackling, it turns out that we laugh for all sorts of reasons, some of them quite odd.

Laughter is infectious. That’s why laugh tracks exist. And it’s why when one person laughs at a joke, other people will end up laughing too. According to Robert Provine, a neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, laughter is a social structure that connects us with each another. He says that people are 30% more likely to laugh in a social setting than watching something funny on our own.

Laughter can be uncontrollable. When we’re in stressful situations, sometimes our brains turn on the laughter switch as a way of reducing our stress and calming us down. Termed “nervous laughter,” it often makes us feel awkward, but it still lets us blow off steam.

Belly laughs are the most honest. Have you ever laughed so hard your tummy hurts? I laugh like this all the time. When they were living at home, my children would run into the room to watch me gasping for breath, tears streaming down my face.

It’s a good idea to figure out what makes you giggle and snort since laughter can have an analgesic affect. After being told he had an illness that wasn’t curable, Norman Cousins put himself on a belly laugh routine and said, in his book, Anatomy of an Illness, that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter would give him at least two hours of pain-free sleep.

While I can’t imagine laughing quietly, it’s a skill worth developing. Sometimes I try to hold my laughter in, and end up sounding like a cross between a bunch of bees and a cow mooing. Not pretty. But pretty funny.

Have you heard of laughter yoga? If you don’t think you laugh enough, you might want to take up the practice… there are now thousands of places to join this unique form of exercise. Turns out laughter stimulates blood circulation and improves lung capacity. And if you belly laugh, it’s great for your abs.

So I’m not giving up my laugh, no matter how some people may respond. It’s a part of me, one of the very best parts, and I love it.

3 Ways to be Ready for Retirement

Tonight on my radio show The Late Shift

on www.NewsTalk1010.com, I’ll be doing a show

on kids’ books. Tune in babies.

Take full advantage of the company pension plan available at work. You’ve signed up, chosen your investment options, and put your retirement savings on auto pilot? No?

So if your manager told you tomorrow that there was a way to get a raise immediately, no questions asked, would you be interested? That’s what the company pension plan is all about.

People who haven’t signed up are often unwilling to give up the money they want to spend on other things to save for a goal that may seem a very long way away. Unwilling to give up the $125 a month specialty channel package because “TV helps you to relax?” Think about what it’s going to be like later when it’s time to hang up your hammer. Will you be saying, “Y’know, I’m really glad I had all those TV channels; it really makes this Ramen Noodle diet worth it?”

Probably not.

Passing up on your long-term savings is shortsighted. Embrace a new reality that leaves you enough money to save. Then head on over to HR and sign up.

 

Think about how you want to live during retirement. Some people dream of buying a sailboat and sailing through the Caribbean all winter. Others want a trailer in Florida. Some think retirement is a great time to buy a cottage, renovate their homes or travel the world. More power to you if you’ve saved up the money to make your dreams come true.

If you think retirement means nothing much should change in your life despite the fact that you’ll be living on a reduced income, think again. Most pension income comes in at approximately 60-70% of your working income. If you’ve been living well within your means, adapting to 30% less money shouldn’t be too big a problem. But if you’ve been shopping like it’s a sport, and if you’ve given no thought to what life will reasonably entail when you do turn in your spurs, you may be in for a bit of a shock.

This goes for a whole bunch of things from missing a sense of purpose to eliminating all your debt so you don’t have to worry about mortgage or credit card payments on your smaller income.

 

Look at the numbers. Being a little scared about what retirement will mean isn’t uncommon. The number one thing on most folks’ minds is the end of the paycheque. If you’re uneasy about how much of that paycheque will be replaced by income from pensions, investments, and savings time to stop guess and look at the numbers.

The only way to know for sure if you will you be able to maintain your lifestyle and do all the things you’ve dreamed of is to do the math. Find out how much you’ll be getting from your pension plan, how much you can count on from government benefits and how much you’ll have to make up from your own savings.

Create a budget for your retirement spending. Go over your existing budget — if you don’t have one, now you have another good reason to make one — and highlight those costs that will remain the same, those that will go down (think commuter costs and clothes) and those that may go up (think medical and, perhaps, travel).

Start planning early enough and you’ll have the time and flexibility to make some moves that’ll put you in a better place during retirement. You can:

Rein in your spending. Look for ways to eliminate costs here and there. Practicing living on less now – use your estimated retirement income as your guide – and you’ll not only build some confidence about the future, you’ll add to your savings.
Boost your earnings. Are there ways to increase the money currently coming in? Look around for ways to make a little extra money. This goes hand in hand with . . .
Delay your retirement. The later you retire, the more time you have to save and the more time your money has to grow before you have to start pulling on it. And if you also . . .
Plan to work during retirement, you’ll stretch your retirement savings even further. Do you have an interest or hobby you could turn into a money-maker? Would you consider working part-time? A little extra income will make your retirement savings go a longer way.

 

Like death and taxes, retirement is a reality. You can plan for it and make it what you want it to be, or you can stick your head in the sand and hope for the best. If you choose the latter, you should not be surprised if you get to your golden handshake to find your life far less satisfying than you had hoped. And since retirement will likely last 20 years or more, you’ll have lots of time to worry.

Don’t Let Your Inner Critic Boss You Around

Tomorrow, I want you to count how many times you criticize yourself. Keep a pen and notepaper handy and mark down every time you say something critical of yourself in your head (or out loud).

The next day look over your list and think about what that criticism did for you. If your critique made a difference by informing you of something, by teaching you something, by pushing you to be a better you, great. If all you did was criticize yourself, ask yourself: How this is working for me? After all, you’ve been doing it for years, right? What’s it got you?

If the answer is, “Not much that’s positive,” consider pushing back against your inner critic by offsetting every negative inclination with an approving thought.

“Damn, I keep dropping stitches, I’ll never get beyond kitting scarves.” becomes “Look how much better I’m getting at making beautiful scarves. Once I’ve mastered keeping all the stitches where they should be I can branch out to something with a pattern.”

“I’m no kind of cook. Better to just accept my limitations,” becomes “This recipe is far more complicated than I thought it would be. Next time I’ll have to follow the instructions carefully until I get a feel for it.”

“I just don’t know what to do with my daughter. I can’t seem to get through to her. I’m a lousy mother,” becomes “Kristen is at a very challenging phase an it’s testing my skills as a mom. I’m doing my best but I’d better ask a couple of friends whom I respect how they would handle this situation.”

I’ve met people who routinely call themselves dumb. Out loud. Or idiot. Out loud. I’ve caught myself doing it.  I strongly believe that the brain believes what the ear hears, so when I catch my Inner Critic trying to boss me around I say, “Hold on now girlfriend, that’s a little harsh.” Then I reframe what I’m thinking in kinder terms.

What I’ve found is that using approving thoughts to counteract my Inner Critic makes me better at making decisions and the fear my Inner Critic instills doesn’t end up paralyzing me. By focusing on what is good — as opposed to listening to what is bad — about me, I became confident that my choices were good ones. That’s not to say that I’ve silenced my Inner Critic. I just don’t let her boss me around.

Please don’t let your Inner Critic barrage you with thoughts that hurt you, that try to restrict you, or that are destructive to you. Tell your Inner Critic to STFU.

You are wonderful. You are human and make mistakes, but you learn from them. You are capable and strong and you will keep growing. You are kind and you should think the world of yourself.

This & That: Choices, Choices Edition

J Wrote: I’m a huge fan and have been watching your shows and following your blog for quite some time now. But I’ve run into a situation that could really use your input. I just found out that a Canada Savings Bond I opened 10 years ago (when I was 16 as I’m now 26) has reached maturity and is no longer collecting interest. I’ve been told I can roll this over into another savings account or cash it out. I have no idea which is the better option. Here is a bit of information as to my current situation:

I have recently (a year and a half) completed college, which included 4 years of student loans (both federal and provincial), which I have been paying at a fixed rate for just over a year (I’ve been told this is good debt and as long as I make my monthly planned payments I shouldn’t worry about paying it off quickly so it’s not my main concern right now). I have 2 credit cards at 19.99% interest rate which are both maxed out at $2000 and $3000, and a Student LOC that is closed (now that I’m no longer a student) at 5.25% interest, and is at $18000. I have also recently secured a permanent job that pays me $55000/yr and includes benefits and a pension plan. Currently I’m renting a house with my fiancé, who due to medical issues is currently not working and this has caused us to rack up our debt again (I almost had those credit cards paid off!). We are living paycheque to paycheque trying to play catch up after overspending during our move and I feel like I’m drowning, the emergency savings and all other savings have also disappeared.

My question is would it be better to cash the bond and pay down the debt then start saving from scratch or continue the way we have been going and throw this bond into a TFSA or other type of savings account? On one hand paying down the debt will help me move on with my life quicker and feel better about saving for items like our wedding and buying a house, but on the other hand this would be a great opportunity to start saving for the wedding and a house. Please help me Gail I’m so confused!

Gail Says: You don’t say how much money is sitting in the CSB’s but that money could serve one of two purposes:

You could use it as your emergency fund to bridge the gap until your boy is back on his feet so you don’t go further into debt, or
You could use it to pay off your existing CC debt so that you stop incurring interest charges.

Now that you’ve had this experience, you know the importance of an emergency fund. Please, please make that a priority when things stabilize.

 

A Wrote: I love your show – I have a budget and my husband and I stick to it pretty well. I do our bills every two weeks and review our finances to see where we are spending, etc. And my husband and I give ourselves an allowance to spend on whatever, no questions asked.

My problem is – I keep making excuses to spend money. It’s for my son, or it’s a gift, or “I haven’t treated myself in a while” or “we’ve never paid interest, we have RRSPs, we’ve got an RESP for my son, so we are doing ok”. Anyways, I’ve managed to not pay interest, but the floating balance on my visa is over $1000 and it is going to take me 3 allowance payments to pay it off and that seems impossible to me! Today I added up what my big expenditures are and plotted it on a monthly basis to see if I could see a trend. I saw a trend all right: fast food/ restaurants and online shopping.

My favourite hobby is knitting and this year, I have spent $1900 on yarn, needles, and patterns. I added up what my husband and I spent on fast food and restaurants – $4700! OMG! I think I might be in shock.

I can’t keep going like this, so I decided to take a page from your book. I gave my husband (who is, thankfully, not an impulsive shopaholic) my Paypal password and asked him to change the password and not tell me the new one. I also fessed up to what I’ve been doing – he had an idea it was getting bad, but like me we hadn’t added it up before. My husband says he is confiscating my credit cards tonight and we will be spending our allowance in cash and writing it down, of course.

It’s a scary feeling to be losing my credit cards – in the past, I’ve always been really good about using them like a debit card because there are no annual fees, but my reliance on them, and the ease of selecting “check out with Paypal”, has devastated my savings goals and my allowance cash. I don’t see another choice right now.

I wish I could figure out why I can’t seem to say no, and just turn that portion of my brain off – I have some big savings goals for retirement, vacations, etc, and wasting $6000 on crap (well, not the yarn, but the food is crap)… well, I have no more words for it.

Wish me luck Gail! You’ve given me the budget tools, and the nudge to start savings, and I hope I will hear you yelling “you’re wasting your money on CRAP” next time I’m thinking about spending. I have enough yarn to last me about 120 years, so I should be all good there.

Gail Says: I consider this to be a huge success story. How much longer might you have gone on spending, unaware of what it was costing you? You’re a brave girl to choose to see the light and I’m right proud of you for taking yourself in hand. Get the debt paid off and then get back to enjoying spending as much “allowance” as you get and no more. Having to make choices will make those purchases all the sweeter.

 

M Wrote: I just completed your book “Money Rules” and of course loved it. I have told anyone who would listen about your book and how at least 50% of what was in the book I already knew about but that the other 50% I did not know about and was grateful to hear it. This book was easy to read. I’ve already been asked for my copy (don’t want to share) :).

I had a question on Chapter 128 Plan Your Funeral. I liked what you had to say but I have heard of a situation whereby someone who planned their funeral with a funeral home but then when they died (not sure if they had paid for the services), their family chose to go to another funeral home in another city knowing that the “deceased family member” had everything already planned, as they did not have the type of service the person wanted because it was too costly. What do you do in that case? There are a lot of us who would be concerned about that one. Can anyone protest that move?

Gail Says: Part of planning your funeral is paying for it or leaving enough money to cover the costs. So why would someone chose to go with a cheaper funeral? If you put your funeral plans in your will (and leave separate instructions stating the instructions are in your will) then your executor is bound to follow your instructions, providing you’ve left enough money to take care of the funeral.

That being said, why would you spend a lot of money on a funeral? You’re dead. You won’t know what’s going on. So really, you’re paying for a funeral for the people left behind. If they don’t want a fancy funeral, why would you make ’em have one?

 

L Wrote: I have had IBM stock for 10 years, and although no longer contributing, my stock which had been worth $39K in 2013, is now worth only $31K. According to predictions, 2015 will be no better.

Based on my retiring in 15yrs, would it be wise to hang onto this stock for the long term, hoping this is a temporary lapse, or better to sell with the current loss?

Gail Says: I get letters like yours all the time. You’re asking me to look into a crystal ball and tell you what the future holds. I can’t. No one can. The stock might recover (I held the QQQs for my kids for 10 years and they battled their way back up) or they might not (I also took a beating on Nortel). I can say that you still have a long-term investment horizon (over 10 years) so you can stay in the markets. As for whether to hold IBM or sell and reinvest, that’s your call.

 

O Wrote: I’m reading your book MONEY RULES at the present moment and I find it’s great. I’m writing to you because I have a big dilemma. I’m a physician with a good salary but still have student debt. 2 years ago I was sold a whole life insurance of $500 000 over 15 years which comes down to $1068 per month! Since I still have debt (student loan and $10 000 line of credit) I’m beginning to think that that policy is probably not a good idea. In your book, you say that permanent life insurance can be good on the long term. That being said, I don’t see why I pay big money for my death when in reality I’m still paying my debt. I’m starting year 3 out of 13 and I’m kinda chicken to cancel it. My insurance broker sure doesn’t want me to cancel it and is calling me 3 times a day to convince me to keep it. I’m thinking of cancelling it and keeping my TERM of $500 000 that I also have. What do you think?

Gail Says: You’re not paying big money for your “death,” buying insurance means you’re making a commitment to support the people who depend on you financially when you’re no longer around to make a living. If you do not believe you have (or will have) people who depend on you financially, there’s no need for insurance. If you do, then the decision about what type of insurance comes down to how long you want that insurance to last. Your term insurance may look cheap right now, but if you’ll still have dependents in 20 years when it’s time to renew that term it will be a lot, and I mean A LOT, more expensive. I’m not sure why your whole life policy is so expensive… it may be your age, it may be your life-style choices… but if you’re concerned about that then I’d shop around to see if I bought a pig in a poke. But don’t just toss the whole idea of permanent insurance out the window.