The New Tax Free Saving Account

With the coming of the new year, the Government has decided to allow you to give up to five thousand dollars to an account, where the interest will be tax free, this account, many banks have been going crazy with advertising dollars, trying to push their bank as the best one to invest in.  While, for the past few months I have been in the ING tax free account, and although it was not officially recognized by the government, what they did was give you your interest and then doubled it at the end of the time, until the new account happened where it just rolled over the money, which I think is a very smart advertising technique. Many people never transferred their money over, and now is having a hard time trading accounts.  ING is offering a 2.7% interest while PC Financial is offering a 3.75% on their interest ( you might want to double check my numbers, but I think I am correct).  Now, being a student and not having a job making all those millions of dollars, there is no point of me having an account because I can just keep adding the total amount I am allowed to contribute to this account when I need it.  The interest, is pretty sweet deal, however, it makes more sense for me to wait to take advantage of this deal.  Have you used your account yet, and did you even know about it?  To use this you have to be 18 or older, and have some money to put in with no min and the max being $5000.  You also need to open a new account for this to take place, and its easy as pie.  Call your bank and they should be able to help you with doing this, and answer any other questions you have, and then you can sit back and not pay some of your taxes, when tax season comes.

Happy New Years

Welcome to 2009.  As 2008, came and go, I was happy to have it end, although there were its up and downs, I think 2008 was one of my worst years of my life.  I am hoping that with 2009, things will change and become much better for my family and I.  However, after taking this time I want to wish everyone a very happy and healthy new year and I wish everyone the best for this upcoming year.  I also want to remind you to continue checking my blog out, and keep the reading going.  I did not make any new year’s resolutions.  However, I know many of you did, and I want to hear about them.   Do you keep them?  For the last few years I have not made any resolutions, because it is better just not to break them.  Many people promise to go to the gym.  Or do new things in their life.  I want to live each day to the fullest, and seize the day.  This is something I say, but something I want to try and do.  What did you do for new years?  Anything special?  I want to thank everyone for reading my blog and continue to be my fan through the past year.  If there is anything you want me to write about, just let me know, send me some comments and let me hear what you want discussed.  I want to know what you have planned for the New Year, what new things you’re going to try.  I want to hear about crazy stories from 2008, and new things for 2009.  This is a year that you’re always going to remember.  Hopefully just like every year, so make this year the best it can be. Live, Laugh, Sing, and Dance and have fun.

Being a Tourist in Your Own City.

I had a friend that came from a foreign city and I was left with trying to figure out what to do with him, what to show him, and what things I can do to keep him entertained.  Being in a city that millions of people come to ever year, I figured why not show him Toronto, however, I was quickly left saying to myself, what does Toronto even have to offer?  It has the CN tower and the CNE in the summer, but what now in the winter?  Not much, at least not that I could find anything.  I decided to take him downtown, where we got off at Dundas Street with is the Eatons Mall, and went from there, we went to the skydome, the Air Canada Center, the old courts, some hotel and went up their class elevator, we got to the CN tower, but it was night by that time, so we decided to skip going up it, but I have never even one up it and wanted to go up there, but that never happened.  We also went to city hall where they were setting up for New Years Eve, and the crazy stage there, and they also had the skating rink, which many people do not know Master Card paid for it because the city did not have enough money to fund it and was going to cancel it for this year.  We went to Queens Park and just walked around downtown Toronto, I have to say it was fund being a tourist in the city that I live in.  Although it was freezing outside, it was very nice and something I would recommend for anyone to try out, once in awhile – pretend you’re not from here and see where life takes you.  Any ideas where to start?

Facebook… Have I changed my mind?

I believe in the beginning I talked about getting Facebook and how much I hate it and am anti- facebook, however needing to get it for a group trip I was taking I did get it, however, not wanting to be addicted to it, I never really facebook stock or really spend much time on their except to get pictures of myself and my friends of events I have been too.  However, now starting to use it more, I am now getting invites to parties that I would not have got without facebook, still not confirming or declining the invite, but am starting to pay attention to it, now I am starting to write on walls, and communicate with people, then I ever did before.  While, I still am anti-facebook, it does have good uses.  Are you a facebook user?  My problem with facebook though, among others ones, is that my boss tried to add me to facebook, and I am left with do I add him and let him see my stuff, or not and risk not getting the job because of it?  That is a tough decision to make.  It is also easy to add someone with simply knowing their name or knowing who their friends are instead of asking for their email.  I still have not added those millions of additional things that you can on your facebook account, and still refuse to add people that I am not really friends with.  Some of my friends add everyone, even if they do not know them, I say come on, there is stuff on there that I do not want people seeing if I am not friends with them.  While, I still am very careful what is put on my wall, and what I put, I do not want randoms seeing that info, how could you?  Overall, I still am anti-facebook but I am starting to accept it.

Shopping

So I was shopping in a large mall and just going around trying to find a pair of sunglasses I like, and being unsuccessful was just walking around the mall, and next thing I know there is this man running at me, I quickly move out of the way with my great agility to see five or more security guards running after him, with a police officers, next thing I know the guy is getting tackled to the grown and then getting up and pushing these security guards off of him, then the police officer tackles him and pulls out his club and uses it to choke him, to prevent him from getting up again, which I believe is a fine use of force.  However, the issue comes up, when the security guards finally get him under control and hand the police officer their handcuffs, they cuff the accused, and then the next thing I know the police officer gets on his walkie, and says something and then comes back and kicks the guy and says your under arrest you F****en Idi*t, that I have issue with, then some women says something to the police officer and he starts to yell at her.   I could not believe it, although I know this happens all the time, I could not believe the police officer abuse his power, and sure I thought about calling 911, however, I was not asking for his badge number or his name, and how was I supposed to do anything to help this man, who in all reality did something illegal.  What would you have done in that situation, people around me were saying good for the police officer, however this man was handcuffed if the officer needed to do something to arrest him fine, but he was in handcuffs tackled to the ground, it was simply assault what this officer did.