This may not seem like a natural wonder but I found it quite stunning. Do you ever get virtigo when looking up or down a long staircase? It is so strange what the eye sees and how it gets interpreted, isn’t it? These photos are just so surprising. It’s fascinating that they all look so different and so much the same at the same time.
I liked the last one very much. Which is your favourite? Take a look through some of the things whichhumans have created inside their buildings. Connect to
If your life is a movie, then you’re the star.
Are you prepared for your next scene?
When actors make a movie, they spend a lot of time rehearsing the next scene. Life is like that – think about how your financial plan is a rehearsal for what’s to come. With a good financial plan, you’ll be prepared for whatever your next scene brings. Without one, you might find your “happily ever after” ending lying on the cutting room floor.
SETTING THE STAGE
To make sure your financial plan follows your script, you need to set the stage. Determine where you are in life and what your protection needs are – not just for today, but in the future … your next scene.You need to consider a number of risks that could keep you from reaching your lifetime financial goals and objectives. Up until now, your primary risk has been loss of income – how would your family survive if you were to die prematurely? As you move into your later stages (don’t worry – it’s the best part of any movie), the risks change and you need to shift your focus from protecting your income to protecting your assets. The financial plan you put together for the first stage probably won’t meet your needs for the second. It’s important to understand how your needs change throughout your life from income to asset protection and which insurance products can help protect your changing risk.
ACT 1, SCENE 1
You can see that during your younger years (roughly ages 30 to 50), the emphasis is on income protection and as you get older, it shifts to asset protection. Critical illness insurance is the important priority, which is why it spans both life stages. This important insurance product provides a one-time cash benefit if you are diagnosed with one of the covered conditions (you also need to survive the waiting period, which is typically 30 days). While you can get plans with over 20 covered conditions, most plans cover you for the most common critical illnesses: cancer, heart attack and stroke. The cash benefit you receive will help to reduce the financial stress you might have if you’re faced with a critical illness. The money allows you to focus on recovery because you don’t have to worry as much about things like your monthly mortgage payment and additional expenses such as child care or medical expenses not covered through your health care plan.
Another product that’s important at this stage is long term disability insurance. Disability insurance covers a disability caused by sickness or an accident. It provides a monthly benefit to replace your income if you are disabled and unable to work. Often people are covered through their group insurance, but it’s important to fully understand any limitations of your group coverage. Owning personal coverage may be a good decision. Finally at this stage, term insurance offers a cost-effective way to provide your family with financial protection against untimely death.
ACT 2, SCENE 1
As you get older, your needs change and your priority shifts to protecting your assets. While you’re working, you will still need both critical illness and disability insurance. But the older you get, the less important those risks become and the more important long term care becomes.
You can think of long term care insurance as a replacement for long term disability insurance during your retirement. It provides money to help pay for additional expenses when you can no longer care for yourself. This insurance provides a monthly benefit if you are unable to do two of the six activities of daily living or if you suffer from a cognitive impairment. The amount you receive is based on where you receive your care – you get a certain amount if your care is at home and more if your care is at a facility. The very last piece added to this framework is permanent insurance. In your younger years, term insurance is the most affordable life insurance solution. Over time, as you move into protecting and preserving your estate, permanent insurance makes more sense. It offers the life insurance protection you need, and some plans allow you to deposit more than the cost of the insurance. This extra money builds up over time and is paid to your beneficiaries tax free.
THAT’S A WRAP!
It probably feels that your life movie is rolling a little faster than you’d like. Being prepared for any scene is key to making sure that the movie plays out according to your script. Because when the final credits roll, you’ll want people to sit back and say “Now that was a great movie!”
To read about and see the video of a cave discovered by chance when miners broke through a cave wall follow the link below.
I know you will be surprised by the size of these formations which are as long as 10 meters (over 33 feet). They are thick enough to walk on
Note: In an effort to help bring you news and information on some of the surprising things in our natural world, I will be featuring this little sidebar entitled Amazing World.
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Contest
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If you find something in your searches around the Internet or while reading which you think is amazing I invite you to contribute by emailing me at Sue@sueviews.ca.
The best entries will be entered in a monthly draw for a prize. Prizes will be either a gift certificate for a special dining spot in Guelph or a book.
The email below from Veronika Strofski was forwarded to me by a reader and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if it’s true. If you have ever had a problem with non-Canada Post franchised outlets overcharging on postage, please let me know by email at sue@suesviews.ca.
The Email:
I learned something over Christmas that I feel compelled to share with you. This won’t change your life dramatically or help you survive the apocalypse but it will save you some $$$. I recently mailed two identical packages via Canada Post one week apart. One would think that the postage should be exactly the same…well, let me tell you…
Pkg # 1 was mailed from an actual Canada Post postal outlet. Postage came to $11.74. Since I knew a second package would be mailed in about a weeks time, I bought sufficient postage for the second pkg.
When it came time to mail Pkg #2 I happened to be closer to a franchised postal outlet in a nearby retail shopping mail so I planned to drop pkg #2 off at the franchised CP outlet. When I handed the pkg to the clerk to be put in the outbound mail bag, I was informed that I did not have sufficient postage attached. The clerk proceeded to inform me that I needed to purchase an additional $6 worth of stamps if I planned to have them submit my pkg to Canada Post for delivery. After explaining how I knew exactly what the postage should be, the clerk offered some lame excuse that CP is unionized and they can say and do anything with impunity and if I wished to mail that pkg at that outlet, I needed to purchase more stamps .
I told the clerk they were out to lunch and took back my package and headed to the “real” CP outlet to raise hell. Much to my surprise, the CP employee took my package, weighed it and tossed it in the mail bag ready for transport to the sorting facility to be sent on its way. I was informed the amount of postage attached was sufficient and that was that.
The Truth comes out: Still perplexed by what I was told by the franchised location, I fired off an email to CP for clarification. The reply I received is reprinted below in summary:
“Real CP outlets charge postage for packages at the published Canada Post rates. Franchise locations can charge whatever they like. If you regularly mail packages at franchise locations you are probably paying too much. Franchise locations are found in shopping malls, drug stores and private businesses everywhere. Thank you for your message to Canada Post”.
A postal outlet is not a federal government agency and is not owned or managed by Canada Post. For example if the postal outlet is within a grocery store or pharmacy it would follow the store’s working hours, therefore if the store must be closed, so will the postal outlet inside. Only Canada Post Depots and Corporate Post Offices are obligated to follow the price of stamps and postal products that are legislated by Canada Post. Any commercial and private establishment may charge extra fees as a convenience to their customers. It is at their discretion to apply additional service fees to products that they sell. We suggest visiting a Corporate Post Office in order to avoid paying additional service charges that corner stores or other establishment may implement on their products.
Regards,
Stronika Strofski
Customer Service
By Charles Neider
Although some purists don’t like the device, this book is written from the grave. It’s Sam Clemens himself talking about his life after he had left this mortal coil. His life was amazing, exciting and exacting as well as being according to him, one of the funniest times to be alive. He rose from a very humble birth in Florida, Missouri, to become a riverboat captain on the Mississippi, a gold miner in California, a trusted editorialist in newspapers, a publisher, an author, a renowned speaker, and tried his hand at a few more things before he left this world.
Sam was best known by his nom de plume of Mark Twain. He wrote books, novels, short stories and articles and spoke in places all over the civilized world. He had an opinion on everything from politics — “No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while Congress is in session.” — “Suppose you are an idiot. Now suppose you are a member of Congress . . . but I repeat myself.” — to emotions — “When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear. When in doubt, tell the truth” — to life — “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint“.
As an aside, there is a great website at www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mark_Twain/ that lists hundreds of quotes from articles and speeches throughout his life.
His books were both poignant and relevant and had a flare for inviting the unsuspecting reader to stay for hours and hours. They were written with a keen eye to the everyday events he captured so well. There was always a wry voice in his writings inviting people not to take themselves too seriously.
When he was a young man he lived in Missouri, which was a slave state. Clemens knew a lot about the lives of those who found themselves taken from their lives far away and transplanted into the middle of America for their whole life without being recognized as human beings. They tended to live and die at the whim of others. He wrote from experience in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, in Puddinhead Wilson. He rewrote the legend of King Arthur in a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The Prince and the Pauper told the story of every child’s dream that they are really someone special and important who has been taken from their rich and famous life and transplanted as an ordinary person until they are rescued by their real relations.
Anyone who grew up in North America is familiar with Mark Twain. His wonderful books of life along the Mississippi, his articles and speeches about the average person living in America during his lifetime, and his secret comments about nearly everyone else he ever met during the second half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th. They all seemed to find their way into his thoughts and come out in a wry, comic way, not always in a flattering fashion.
He wrote for children. He wrote for adults. But mostly, he wrote for his own amusement, and of course as a way of making money to support his family. His wife was frail and often ill but they managed to have three daughters, on whom he doted. His favourite was his daughter, Suzy who was his companion in his later years.
Charles Neider was chosen to take the unpublished collections which Sam Clemens had recorded during his lifetime and format then to be published after his death. Clemens idea was that if he spoke from the grave no one could correct him, and no one could sue him for what was said. It gave him freedom to comment on people and places that he never would have otherwise. His wit and wisdom still rings true even 90 years after his death.
He explains a lot of his choices as to what he wrote, what he felt were worthy of being published, and also the ones that he wrote merely to earn some money. He talks about his motivations for doing the things he did, what surprised him in seeing the things he saw and turning up in the places where a lot of people felt he shouldn’t. There are comments about all the usual suspects in government, politics, rich people and poor. He was a great comedian of his day travelling from town to town and giving anyone who paid the benefit of his wisdom.
There are a number of pictures of Samuel Clemens and his alter ego Mark Twain along with his contemporaries, family and friends. Mark Twain takes a last gentle laugh at the world and all its foibles. I’m sure you’ll find yourself laughing out loud at some of the outrageous things he has to say.
When most of us are starting out as young adults, we look for banking products that provide us with structure and stability. We choose loans with fixed, predictable payments. We set aside savings in different accounts for specific purposes. We may even have more than one chequing account, each with its own set of fees. In other words, we have a banking product for each need and each need has its own banking product.
This approach to banking is complicated and expensive. When we’re young adults, however, it sometimes makes sense because:
• We’re relatively young and still learning how to budget effectively
• We’re just getting started in our careers and have a limited capacity to absorb unexpected expenses or cost increases
• Our credit history is limited so banks may be hesitant to offer us more flexible or integrated banking products
In summary, when we’re just starting out, we need banking products that provide us with structure and cost-certainty. In other words, we need banking products with training wheels. What’s surprising, however, is that many of us continue to maintain this inefficient and complex method of banking long after we’ve become skilled at managing our money, established our careers and built a financial buffer. By the time we enter our 30s or 40s, most of us no longer need multiple inefficient savings accounts or the cost-certainty provided by fixed debt payments. However, we continue to maintain these accounts and lock in our debt each time it comes due simply out of habit or complacency.
Somewhere along the way we forget to take the training wheels off.
Once we’ve progressed beyond young adulthood, we should begin to expect more from our bank. We should expect our bank to help us bring our finances together, not split them into more and more one-purpose products. We should expect our bank to make it easy for us to respond quickly to changing financial needs. And we should expect our bank to offer us products that make all of our money work as efficiently as possible. In short, we should expect our bank to treat us like adults.
Some banks in Canada have caught on to this idea and started offering “next-generation” banking products that allow you to combine your various debts with your savings and chequing accounts and income in a single account that makes your money work more efficiently and provides greater flexibility. To understand why it makes sense to review the way you bank, ask yourself these questions:
1WHAT WOULD MY BANK SAY IF I DECIDED TO REDUCE OR SKIP A DEBT PAYMENT?
Our finances aren’t always as predictable as we’d like and the payment amount that made sense six months ago may not make sense today. With many traditional banking products, changing your payment amount isn’t an option. However, some next-generation banking products allow you to adjust your debt payments, up or down, as your needs change. This can work for you in a couple of ways:
• Become debt-free sooner. If your finances change for the better, you may choose to accelerate your debt repayment so you can be debt-free sooner and reduce the amount you spend on interest costs.
• Prepare for job loss. If your finances take a turn for the worse, the last thing you want to do is worry about how you’ll cover a large, inflexible debt payment. A more flexible banking solution could provide you with time to find the job you want, rather than just one you need.
2DO I HAVE A “RAINY-DAY” SAVINGS ACCOUNT?
Most of us have been taught to keep some money in a “rainy-day” savings account – three to six months of income is commonly recommended. This seems like good advice until you consider that many of us also have debt and we’re generally paying more interest on our debt than we’re earning on our savings. Why don’t we use our savings to reduce our debt? It’s because, in most cases, if we pay down our debt, we’ll lose access to our savings. As a result, we end up paying more interest than we should. Some new banking products offer a much more efficient way to use your money. Specifically, they allow you to use your savings to reduce your debt and save interest, while still giving you access to that money if you need it again in the future.
3AM I PAYING DIFFERENT INTEREST RATES ON DIFFERENT DEBTS?
Most of us have several different debts at a variety of interest rates. This makes it difficult to keep track of how much we owe and ends up costing us much more than necessary. The next generation of banking products allows you to consolidate all of your debts at one low rate. This could save you interest and make it easier to stay on top of your financial situation.
4HOW MANY BANKING PRODUCTS DO I REALLY NEED?
Most of us end up with a different banking product for each need because that’s what our bank has offered us. Unfortunately, this makes our banking more complicated than it needs to be and ends up costing us more than it should through multiple fees and inefficient use of our money. Your bank should make it easy for you to manage your money and get out of debt more quickly. When you combine your debts with your savings and chequing account, you’ll have fewer banking products to manage and you’ll no longer need to shuffle money back and forth among accounts. Better still, by addressing multiple needs with a single, efficient product, you could reduce your banking fees and make your money work harder. Have a look at the way you’re banking. If you have multiple savings accounts, chequing accounts and debts, your banking is probably much more complicated and expensive than it needs to be. The next generation of banking products provides unprecedented flexibility that allows you to simplify your banking, make your money work more efficiently and respond quickly to your changing financial needs.
Your financial situation has probably changed a lot since you were just starting out. It may be time to take off the training wheels and start expecting more from your bank. •
Contact Sue Ricketts I.C.I.A. for more information at sue@suesviews.ca
By Dan Brown
The most popular book of the last decade was The da Vinci code by Dan Brown, which sold 80,000 copies worldwide and was made into a very popular movie. All those people can’t be wrong. Despite some arguing about the writing style, this book fired imaginations and spawned a whole new genre about mystical secret conspiracies around the world, hidden knowledge, the Knights Templar, the Vatican archives, etc.
One of the real-life results is that the Vatican has created a book which lists some hundreds of items which are contained in the “hidden” private Vatican records which is discussed in an article in the Toronto Star of January 3, 2010. The items contained are written on papyrus, paper, birch bark and linen and date from thousands of years ago to very recent. There are no moisture controlled rooms though and they are not secret. The records have been available to researchers and historians all along. The only problem is that you need a permission slip to enter. Can’t have anybody walking in off the street at any time you know. If you’re thinking of getting a copy of the book, the regular editions is almost $300 and the hand-sewn version on velum sells for only $8,400. Buy two! Think of the prestige!
In this new book, Robert Langdon, the hero from the da Vinci code continues, solving mysteries, which have to do with symbols and codes. This time he’s invited to Washington DC to make a speech for an old friend, Peter Soloman, but it soon turns into an urgent rush to save his friend’s life.
Travelling through the many mysteries of Washington DC buildings while deciphering a code and finding a mythical pyramid is once more his job. Along the way we learn that Washington DC was built by members of the Freemasons. Did you know that George Washington was a high degree Mason as were many of the other founding fathers of America? When Pierre l’Enfant, who was the architect of Washington DC, drew up his plans he made his designs based on plans for European cities and copied the buildings from famous civilizations throughout the world. There are lots of things here that most people don’t know.
There are, of course, many secret passages to travel from one building to another. There is a whole unknown realm under the streets of the city which help to make things run smoothly. Did you know that there are conveyor belts from the Library of Congress, which go underground to many of the surrounding buildings were elected representatives have offices and meet to deliberate on the affairs of state? Another building in the capital is designated solely as a Masonic temple. It contains many floors and rooms, which depict the various rights and knowledge which are passed on from one member to another.
There’s even a love interest in the person of Katherine Solomon, sister of Peter, who helps Robert solve the mystery of what’s happened to his friend. In the story Katherine’s passion is the study of Noetics. The study of how the human mind, or minds, can affect the physical world around us. It’s also the study of human intuition. Think this is made up or just a story device? Well it’s not. There is an actual Institute Of Noetic Science (IONS), in Northern California in the San Francisco Bay area. Google “noetics” and have another intersecting side read.
I found this a great read and enjoyed learning more about the architecture of Washington DC, the study of Noetics and a little bit of code breaking and encryption information. This is a fun and enjoyable book to while away a cold winter’s day.
I’m going to share with you some of the things that I want to do over this coming year. Once you’ve read them, I hope they’ll spark some new ideas for you and that by telling you I will make myself accountable for what I have chosen. I invite you to send me your goals so that we can make each other accountable. This is not just about business life but about fulfilling all of those needs which we have.
2010 marks my 13th year in the insurance and investment business. I’m very proud to say that these years have increased my knowledge from the days when I worked as an accountant through my retail ownership and onward. My experiences in these fields have taught me many lessons from many points of view and introduced me to many and varied financial solutions. My current company, Canada Loyal, is very progressive and works with many different Canadian companies to provide insurance, investment, leasing, purchasing, mortgaging and leveraging to my clients. This year, Canada Loyal Financial has its own department to sell mutual funds. Shortly we will have the ability to provide home and auto insurance. The aim is to be able to provide a one-stop shop for all your financial needs.
So here are my 2010 goals: (I’m going to do my best to …)
1. Publish my newsletter each week
Create new and interesting articles.
Do a book review each week [Read a book].
Search Web for other articles.
Print more articles from guest contributors.
Add more financial tips
Enter weekly reminders in electronic calendar
2. Improve website
Set up forms for clients to request info online.
Forward Solutions articles to clients.
Enter monthly reminders in an electronic calendar
3. Write a book
One chapter per week.
Join Write Now Guelph meet-up group.
Read up on publishing tips one per week.
Enter weekly reminders in electronic calendar.
4. Joint Ventures
Asked contacts, on LinkedIn.
Tell friends and networking buddies that I am looking.
Join a meet-up group of like minded people.
Attend Mike Fletcher’s joint venture evenings.
5. Public profile
Continue Community Leadership Program.
Get a mentor.
Leverage contacts.
Continue networking through PTMC – Get to know three new people per month.
Attends GPI breakfasts quarterly.
6. Neighborhood group
Put my ad on neighborhood newsletter.
Work with city politicians
News releases-Facebook, Twitter, press
7. Business goals
Group benefit plans – 6.
Group RRSP plans- 4.
Vehicle purchases-15.
Equipment leases-10.
Lines of credit-12.
Insurance [life, TI, CIA, H. And D.] – 25.
Investments [TFSA, RRSP, Open]-15.
Reinstate home and auto license by the end of the year.
8. Family
Take time to thank everyone in my family for their love and support.
Spend time with them when they are able.
Be a support whenever they need me.
Dance at my son’s wedding with joy in my heart.
Now you understand my goals. I hope that you will look for ways in which you can help me over the next year. If you will share your goals with me I would be happy to do the same for you. Together, understanding each other, we can all grow and prosper. I will not share your goals with anyone else unless you specifically ask me to.
Thank you for helping to make 2009 a great year and I look forward to growing and sharing with you in 2010.
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