I had a realization this week, as I was trying to get home from the Lower Mainland area (which is for the record, against traffic).  Usually it takes me 45 minutes to get home but instead it took me an hour and 30 minutes because of an accident.  Earlier in the week, I was late 15 minutes because of an accident as well clogging up the highways.  This is despite leaving the house with 20 minutes to spare.  It’s so unpredictable and it really puts a dent in the day.  I realized that if I cannot commute for more than 20 to 30 minutes a day.  I just can’t.  It drains my energy, makes me irritable, it takes up my time, it wastes my gas, and it makes my car feel even older by racking on the mileage.

I know that in many circumstances, there is no choice but to commute, but I think if I had to commute such a long duration to and from work, I would rather take public transportation because the commute would be a productive commute (reading, writing, thinking about life, instead of driving).

Thankfully, reading these PF blog love blog posts really calmed me down and I hope they can help you destress this weekend too.

Readers, what is the maximum tolerable number of minutes or hours that you can commute for?

PF Blog Love

• Prairie Eco-Thrifter’s staff writer talks about how she traded labor for cookies to do her renovations (good ROI if you ask me!)
• Retire by 40 analyzes how much he spends in comparison to the average American on coffee, pets, beer, electricity, gas.. etc.
• Shawanda shares 10 Things we Love to buy but hate to use (I do love my blender though and I like using it )
• My Broken Coin shares 39 things you didn’t know about her
• Roshawn Watson talks about why we seek security versus freedom (the great education vs entrepreneurship debate)
• Financial Samurai finally gives us a glimpse into his monthly spending
• My University Money tells us that grad school isn’t the answer, especially if you’re afraid of life and getting into the real world (He’s not talking about me.. I hope)
• Boomer and Echo’s Boomer talk about how much we spend on our pets 
• Financial Uproar is heading to V-E-G-A-S!
• The Passive Income Earner breaks down how to assess if the Smith Manoeuvre is for you

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Sam over at Financial Samurai recently shared an experience he had at a club in San Francisco, titled “Beautiful, Rich, and Still Single.. I wonder Why”.  He met this seemingly nice and attractive girl named Cynthia.  She turned out to be highly educated (a doctor of dental medicine student) and appeared quite wealthy, judging by her Manolo shoes and Chanel purse.

Not only was she confident, Sam felt that she seemed over confident.  She told Sam that the reason she was still single was because she was too attractive and too successful.

This made me think about why there are so many people out there who are on the ‘prowl’ for a significant other, but who also have overly inflated self esteem?

Is it because we were all brought up to feel that we have done well (teachers giving us gold stars for simply completing the homework assignment, certificates for participation etc.)?  Are we all living in bubbles?  What ever happened to modesty?

One of my guy friends was at a club recently.  He is a successful, genuinely nice guy.  He is very open and friendly and when you meet him, you quickly realize that he doesn’t have any pretenses.

He was recently at a packed club and he accidentally spilled a girl’s drink (it was just so packed in there, everyone walking around with their drinks makes for a recipe for disaster).  Now, I don’t mean to be judgmental, but the girl was average looking (certainly did not look like Cynthia at Sam’s club).

The girl was with her female friend and her female friend instantly piped up and said “HEY! You spilled her drink!!”  He realized what he had done and felt awful.  He immediately offered to buy her another drink.

The three of them went up to the bar and as they were waiting for the bartender to serve them, he decided to strike up some polite conversation with the girl whose drink he spilled.  Her friend meanwhile was very nonchalant looking and not engaging with my friend.  She was looking at her cellphone the entire time and was texting someone.  I think I saw some eye rolls in there as my friend was talking to her friend.

As my friend was talking to the girl, I noticed that she was very abrupt with him.  She barely made eye contact with him and was simply rude to him.  She was very short with her answers to his polite questions. They were making sure that they got right up to the bar so that they could watch to see if he was putting Roofies or drugs into her drink.

Judging from her ambivalent behaviour, it really seemed like she thought he was hitting on her by “ACCIDENTALLY” spilling her drink and therefore creating an excuse to buy her a drink and talk to her.  The friend also was talking about how she needs to see the drink to make sure he wasn’t trying to drug her.

Really?

First of all, girls who are interested in trying to get picked up by guys should try not to be defensive 24/7.

Guys are not ALWAYS trying to get into your pants (lol, right??).  Sometimes some guys really are just nice and trying to be good people.

That being said, I’m sure there are a lot of guys who are good for nothing and are douche bags, but I think that if you have your back up 100% time, you close yourself to meeting genuinely nice guys.

I haven’t been inside a club in a long time before this (I think the last time I went was a year ago) and it ALWAYS intrigues me to watch the behaviour of females and males in a club.  It’s like watching the Discovery Channel.  Fascinating, really!

I recently read a great article in Vancouver Magazine titled “Do Vancouver Men Suck?” about how men are seemingly very casual, very passive in this city.  It could be because women here in Vancouver tend to be stuck up and think any guy who is “nice” to them and genuine is trying to get them into bed.

Readers, do you agree with me?  Do you think that there are a lot of Cynthia’s out there?  Guys, do you find that girls seem to be on the defense when you try to strike up conversation with them?

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Hello fellow personal finance readers. I go by the pen name “Teacher Man” due to the fact that I recently graduated from university and am in my second year of teaching high school. About 9 months ago my partner and I started a website called My University Money. It is aimed at helping young people (with a specific focus on post-secondary students) and just talking about financial and student lifestyle issues in general. Young & Thrifty was one of the first bloggers to really reach out to us and give us a little recognition when we were just starting off. When I read that Y & T was hitting a busy patch in life I offered to do a little staff writing for her, and she graciously accepted. Hopefully you readers don’t notice THAT much of a drop-off from the typical high quality posts you’ve come to enjoy here!

So if the Eurozone is all one big happy family, then Germany has got to be either the stern and conservative father, or the overachieving big brother.  There is no shortage of screw ups in this family either.  At first, it wasn’t too bad when the little guys were having problems.  After all, cute little Ireland decided to take most of their medicine on their own, and who doesn’t want to help those feisty little leprechauns (sorry if this is offensive Irish peeps, I just always think of Notre Dame when I think Irish).  But now the older brothers and sisters have been spending way beyond their means, and it’s quickly becoming apparent they should have got their hands slapped a little more when they were young, because now they would rather throw temper tantrums (*ahem* Greece rioters *cough cough*) than try to change.  If we take this analogy to its logical conclusion, I guess France would be the mother that is trying to help, but has been using her credit card a little bit too much as well.  This is basically what the European debt crisis has boiled down to.  Despite all the numbers and rhetoric you hear about on TV, it is becoming more and more apparent that the overall health of the Eurozone will ultimately be determined by whether Germany wants to take care of everyone, or burn the place to the ground.  That’s because this time around, good ole Uncle America and the rest of the developed world extended family is going through some tough times as well, and needs almost as much help themselves.

Tough Love or Hand Holding?

So what do you do if you’re Germany?  What do you do with that bratty little brother Greece who says he desperately wants to remain in the family, but whose citizens riot at the mention of the measures that must be taken in order to make the country solvent again?  What sort of help can you give to your other family members such as Italy, Spain, and Portugal?  These guys are too big to all hold up at once.  Would you as a German tax-payer, who has been relatively conservative with your money, help the rest of the Eurozone out?  There are basically two main options from what I can tell.

Do the “Mature” Thing

The first line of thinking says that Germany would be better off in the overall economic picture by helping stem this debt contagion, and helping Greece and Italy balance their books.  If these countries take major hits to their bonds, there is no question it will cripple Europe’s ability to raise capital for at least a decade.  There is also a good chance that the French banks would fall, and unspeakable direct damage would be done to the German economy, but this wouldn’t even be the worst of it.  Germany has built itself an enviable position of being an exporter of high-quality manufactured goods.  It has benefitted immensely from the Euro and the open flow of goods within the continent.  When an exporter’s consumer base just dries up, it doesn’t bode well for long-term growth, and the death of the Euro as a currency would take years to recover from.

Or Cut Thy Nose To Spite Thy Face (That Nose Had It Coming)

Then there is another, more interesting (in my opinion) stance.  Basically there are many Germans out there who want to effectively say, “Screw it, it’ll hurt us, but these little brothers need to wise up, take their licks, learn their lesson and move on.  If we keep bailing them out every time they get into trouble, they will never learn!”  I can definitely sympathize with this (I’m a big brother… who would’ve guessed?).  The phrase that people in the financial world throw around when discussing big bailouts is “moral hazard.”  The idea is that if someone knows there will ultimately be no consequences (and this has been proven), then what’s to stop them from repeating the behaviour?  You have to think that there are some days when Germany asks itself why it didn’t stay single like cousin England, despite the benefits it enjoyed for a time.  I can only imagine the righteous anger that German people feel when they watch TV and see Greek unions protesting despite the fact that the government is beyond bankrupt (probably states like North Dakota, who had small banks, and small government, felt something akin to this when they were asked to bail out the big banks that are headquartered in New York).  Relations between the Euro crew can be tension-filled at the best of times (and you think you’ve had fights in your family…), so this has to be a really tough pill to swallow for the Germans.

Debt Is Thicker Than Water

I’m sure that in the end the Germans will do the politically and economically smart thing and bail the other guys out.  It doesn’t really matter if they do it through raiding their tax payer coffers to raise money for an “emergency fund” or through the issuing of Euro bonds that the Germans will ultimately be on the hook for (these would allow all of the Euro countries access to more cheap credit based on Germany’s good name… just what they need right?).  The opposite path, while morally appealing, is too economically terrifying to truly consider.  What kind of voluntary “bond haircuts” would European banks have to take?  Would that be the end of any liquidity in Europe for years?  All I know is that the USA is lucky they have a cool little brother (that understands bank regulation and has natural resource money) like us Canucks!

Y&T’s input: It’s nice that Canada is regarded as one of the top countries for a safe and effective banking system.  We’re so used to being the underdogs!

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As you probably noticed, this blog has gotten a huge facelift.  It’s brighter, less saggy, and more professional looking.  I was getting sick of looking at the old theme, and there were so many issues with it (like not being able to see threaded comments or have threaded comments), the code on the pages became visible after I upgraded the wordpress editions, and the sidebars were too narrow and things often got cut off.  It was just frustrating, sometimes I would spend HOURS (and days) trying to fix something and studying the CSS or whatnot to try and adjust things a bit.  Now I learned my lesson and I won’t touch anything lol or else it might screw up the theme/ appearance of the blog.

It was about time I invested in this blog, and I’m loving the design and the look of it so far.  It was great working with The Dividend Ninja who was basically the mastermind behind this entire design.  He even got me to give up the old yellow-green apples on my header and replaced them with juicier, less stale looking apples.   It was great to be able to meet up with him and describe what I wanted to see.

So my dear readers, thanks for putting up with the wonkiness of my website the past few weeks (the right sidebar completely disappeared one day- it was good timing because I was already starting to work on the new site with The Dividend Ninja!).

What do you think of the new look?

PF Blog Love

This week’s link love has a lot of girl power! (With the exception of the boys, TDN, PIE, and RB40, of course).  Have a great weekend!

• Gotta give a shoutout to the designer of this new facelift The Dividend Ninja lists part 2 of the 2012 Canadian Stock Picks
• The Passive Income Earner updates us with his first 2012 dividend income update.  His goal is to get $7000 income in dividend stocks for 2012.
• Also gotta give a shoutout to Give Me Back My Five Bucks who will be leaving for Germany very soon!
• Retire By 40 asks if you are falling down the frugality rabbit hole.  Is minimalism the new black?
• Thirty Six Months shares some great tips on how to use tools to help you pay your bills online and save money
• Yes I am Cheap also got a facelift and looks almost as good as me (just kidding Sandy!) She’s also celebrating her 3 year blogiversary!
• Aloysa from the Broken Coin gives us a few things you really should be cheap about
• Prairie Eco Thrifter shares the Top 20 Foods that increase your brain power.  I think I’ll need all 20, please.
• Little House explains why she’s not stepping on the gas pedal to buy a home yet
• Lindy Mint has a great guest post on how you can work from home.. and make money!

Have a great weekend guys!

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One of the benefits of being a personal finance blogger is having the ability to “test drive” things to write reviews about them.  I was given a copy of Quicken Home and Business 2012 to try out and review.

I was very very excited to try Quicken because I have heard so many great things about it and it almost seems that any Personal Finance Blogger isn’t really a personal finance blogger if they don’t use some sort of snazzy personal finance software like Quicken to track their spending, their budgets, and their investments all in one place.

Now, I think my review might be skewed because I have never tried Quicken before, I have used Mint.com before Quicken, and I am an extremely low-tech person (which is absolutely shocking to hear from someone who identifies themselves as Generation Y, I know).

I gave it an honest effort, I spent about 4 hours trying to figure out it, clicking on tabs, clicking on graphs, and trying to input data.  Then I became extremely frustrated because I wasn’t doing it correctly and was worried that I would have to be manually inputting data on a regular basis (like correcting my mortgage remaining amount, updating my bank accounts).  I manually inputted all my investments because they do not have Questrade in their database (just like Mint.com).

That would just drive me up the wall.

I tried to set up accounts but then was asked to download some sort of spreadsheet from my bank’s website (which I couldn’t find) so that Quicken could update my Quicken account.  I then resorted to manually inputting my information.  I gave up after four hours and left it again for a week.  With fresh eyes, I tried it again and no luck, really.

Here are some of the PROS and CONS of Quicken that I have gathered in my short time trying it out:

PROS:

(more…)

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