Just don't get De Walt stuff. I waisted over $600 dollars on them. I bought a set of 18V drill and circular saw and 12V right angle drill. All the batteries burnt out. Both charger do not stop charging when battery is full. I am not sure there were dirt blocking the charger but I don't notice it. Point is the batteries and charger are soo soo expensive, I end up buying a set of Ryobi for less than I would have paid for the replacement batteries. I see more and more contractors using Ryobi now a days just because it is cheap.( say disposable!!!) Ryobi drills chuck comes loose when use as a drill, works perfect if use in socket driver which is very important to me. I do earthquake retrofit, so it is pretty heavy duty work. Ryobi survive nicely. I dropped it from 8 ft. ladder more than ones, it's ok.( say cheap!!!) As for toys( more expensive, unnecessary ) I bought a Bocsh 14V drill.( of couse they are a little stronger for the same voltage) so I can have a lighter tool. You be surprise how important light weight is in some situation. Try reaching into a odd place, extend your arms all the way just to reach it, in a funny position. The 18V heavy tool suddenly became not that important any more!!!! Trust me, I have planty of times like this. It is not bigger the better. That's the time you really want to pay more for a low voltage, lighter tool. But if you are like me, do a little, spend a lot( it's a toy, need justification to spend money to get the best) try the more expensive ones, like Bocsh!!

I don't like earning interest. Interest results when one listens to the bank's promise that you'll get every dollar back ... but they never mention the reverse, that, apart from the agreed rent on the money, you won't get one dollar more, either. The only money that your dollar of principal will earn is earned now ... and it's taxed now ... at top rate. When I buy Canadian stocks, they pay dividends, that used to be taxed at a lower rate ... and they reduced the rate even more, a couple of years ago. As the number of dollars of principal can't shrink and can't grow, either, I need to hold some of the interest to put with principal to offset the shrinkage in value of each dollar each year due to inflation. Which much of the time leaves nothing for me. At age 70 I said that I wanted to fund my living till age 100 - 30 years, or 6 blocks of 5 years each. As each dollar of the first block that I ate would no longer be available to earn, as the value of the assets would be eroded due to inflation every year, and as I expected to have increased need of funds in my later years to pay for retirement and nursing home fees, I figured that I should avoid spending much of the first block in the first five years - in fact, I'd better stretch it to ten years. That meant that I'd want over 80% of the asset still present after ten years ... and I've been used to putting funds that I didn't expect to use for 10 years into equities: mainly individual stocks, as I don't like the management fees charged by mutual funds, as only the rare one of them outdoes the relevant market averages. Now, at 80, I had 80% of my assets in stocks, last year ... and have suffered a loss of 30% or so since. No - not a loss, or at least a realized one. It's only a loss if I sell when the value is down. I expect the value to recover, though I doubt that the recovery will be as fast or as high as after earlier recessions. The governments are deep in debt ... and going far deeper, every year. Plus, they're printing money. Plus, many of our high quality jobs aren't just suffering a temporary lay-off: they're gone. What would I do with a $50,000. maturing CD? How soon do I figure that I might need the money? If within the next five - ten years, I'd keep a good portion of it in stable-dollar asset. If I didn't expect to need it for some time, probably loan about half out in a CD or GIC for about 6 mos. - but not a bond, for there may not be a commission, but there's a spread of often 1% or more between buy and sell prices ... which is substanttial, given current rates. Figure to buy some stocks each month or two for the next year. As many advisors say, no one can tell when the bottom of the market occurs, and prices bounce up a bit, then drop, then up again, then down some, then up some more ... for some time. It's only after a year or so that one can see where the bottom was. By which time a fair portion of the increase has taken place ... which folks sitting on the fence missed out on. Advisors tell us not to try to time the market - no one has succeeded. Warren Buffet says that stocks are on sale, and he knows a lot more about how to manage money than I. Some said that when he said that last fall, he turned out to have been wrong, and a few days ago he said that he hadn't been wrong, that stocks were on sale then ... but that he was out by a few months. Stocks have turned out to have been on fire sale, more recently. In a couple of years, maybe three or four ... those who said Mr. Buffet was wrong may wish that they'd followed his advice. I'd bought some stocks recently, which have gone down. I expected a buyout that was planned just before the financial debacle to have put some fresh money into my hand ... early last year ... then mid year ... then fall ... then just before Christmas. Then the potential buyers' auditors told them that the deal was a bad one ... so they aborted. I'm still holding those stocks (Canada's biggest telecom) ... now saleable for about $24.00 ... when the deal was to have gone through for $42.75 - some difference! But the only way that I can have appreciable money available to keep buying through the bottom of the market ... ... is to take some of the certificates to the bank and borrow some money in order to keep putting the seeds into the ground ... for many of us figure that it's spring-time in the stock market: time to put seeds into the ground. Maybe some'll get frozen off (this is the north part of our continent) but one needs to plant over a period, to allow for some losses. In the stock market, however, usually a quality stock doesn't die, like a plant does after frost ... it gets delayed for a while, but recovers after while. It makes its owner feel pretty chilly in the meantime, however. I bought a bank stock 42 years ago for about $4.20 ... in about June 2007 I could have sold it for $107.00, and it had paid me about a dime dividend in the beginning, that grew to $3.48 in the fall of '07, which in Canada is taxed at a low rate. Now, due to the economic troubles and their being involved directly in the stinky mortgage game in the U.S. ... the stock is under $50.00 (was under $40.00 in late Feb.) but I'm not about to sell. Wasn't about to, at $107.00, as it had doubled 4.5 times or so ... but now it's doubled 3.3 times or so. That wouldn't have happened if I'd put that money into the bank. What's better, long term, than putting our money into the bank? BUYING THE BANK! I'm considering buying more Canadian bank shares (but not that bank) as some international agencies are saying that the Canadian banking system is about the safest in the world, right now ... and paying 5 - 10% dividend. Some oil patch stuff, after price correction, is paying over 20% (not dividend), these days (and they may be dropping their payout, oil prices being what they have been, lately). When you pay a high price for gas ... it doesn't hurt as much if you own some oil stocks. Good wishes for increasing wisdom in managing your income and assets. At 80 - I'm still learning. ole joyful P.S. Living frugally, by choice, I can save some of my pension income ... so do not need to draw on my assets for living ... and if I die next week ... there'll be tax to pay on unrealized capital gain ... but my kids don't need the money in the near future, either ... and know how to avoid cashing in the asset over the short term. o j

If you figure that you're going to need that CDIC back-up, better put your money into a small bank, for several banks have failed and I think that quite a few feel that if a fair-sized bank goes broke, the CDIC till will be bare. Being a gov't. agency, there'd likely be back-up, but that would cause substantial delay, quite likely ... and incur more debt for the U.S. gov't., which has taken on far too much, now. As most of that debt is held abroad, they'll have to start paying higher rates in order to entice lenders to buy their debt instruments ... and have been printing money, with the likelihood that they'll be printing a whole lot more, soon. These mortgage-initiating rascals in recent years sure make a bank robber carrying his loot in a pillowcase look like pretty small potatoes. I remember as a kid, when I learned to ride a bicycle down our country road, wishing that the gravel on the road would become gold ... but it didn't take me long to realize that if it were gold for me, it would be for everyone else, as well ... and that soon it would take more than a pocketful of gold to buy a loaf of bread. How long has it been since the U.S. Dollar was backed by gold? Or silver? Our Dollar - same game. And - when your economy gets a cold ... ours gets pneumonia. What's the expected time-frame when you'll need to use those assets? Almost 10 years ago, when I was 70, I called a financial planner on a phone-in radio show to say that I felt that I should plan to fund my life to age 100, which was six blocks of five years each. Fortunately, I was able to live on somewhat less than my three pensions, and expected to be able to do so for some time - now, 10 years later, same story. But it seemed to me that were I to need some of the assets to live on, I should not eat up all of the first block in the first five years, for it would no longer be there to earn some income for my future needs. In fact, I thought that I should try to avoid using any more than that first block of the six in the first 10 years ... especially considerig that inflation would cause me to need more dollars to live the same lifestyle, a few years down the road. You know - that "inflation" that has shrunk the value of each one of our dollars-in-hand in every year since the late 1930s. And money in the bank is like money-in-hand: each dollar of the principal doesn't grow (but it sure does shrink). Which means that I would not plan to use up 83% of my asset during that first 10 year period, and that a number of financial advisors feel that purchasing stocks for more than a 10-year time horizon makes sense. He said that my plan made a lot of sense, in his view. Short-term, if we fear losing capital, we need to invest in guaranteed dollars ... but long-term, those guaranteed dollar investments, after paying tax, and adding some to principal in order to maintain purchasing power, leave little for the investor. If anything. Now, at 80, I carry about 80% of my assets in equity-based investments. That would make many people have a hairy ... but I feel comfortable with it. Yes, I have some losses, but I have some gains, as well ... and the tax structure here encourages holding equities. A single taxpayer with no income but dividends on Canadian stocks can earn over $46,000. before being required to pay ONE CENT of income tax (and having a low-income spouse with transferrable credits, or gifts to charity or a political campaign, or eligible medical/dental bills over 4.5% [in that case - 3% ordinarily] of net income will push that $46,000.+ tax-free income level even higher). Some time ago, I wrote a thread either here or on "Money Saving Tips", I think, asking which ordinary person gained from inflation, and who loses. When you put your money in the bank, say $10,000., 15 years ago, they guaranteed to pay you back every dollar, in addition to the rent on the money. There's another guarantee, that they never mention - they won't pay you one dollar more, either. And the value of each of those dollars has shrunk, in every one of those 15 years ... as it has every year since the 1930s. That $10,000. would have bought a nice car, 15 years ago ... not now. I figured a while ago, when I could borrow at 6.25%, that most of the time I could come close to breaking even on such a loan, using it to purchase quality stocks. So ... now, when I can borrow for 4.75%, breaking even should be an even greater probability, no? If I'd borrowed your $10,000. from the bank, 15 years ago and paid only the interest in the years since (which I would never recommend, on a consumer loan) .................................................................................................................................................... ................................... when I go into the bank to pay off the loan, now, how much will I need to pay? Yes - $10,000. Which they will give to you, to pay off your CD, if you ask. I gained from inflation, because I paid off the loan in depreciated dollars - you lost, since each of those dollars would buy less than when you loaned it out to the bank, 15 years ago. The only value that your money would ever produce, relative to each of those years, was made right then ... and it was taxed - then ... and, in Canada, it's taxed at top marginal rate. When I used those borrowed dollars to buy quality (retirement type) stocks, and since I came close to breaking even each year on the loan that I made, on average, over the last fifteen years, my investment in stocks grew quite a lot, so now, when I sell them, after paying off the loan, I have quite a lot of money left in my pocket. Which asset was built with your money, not mine. Granted - if the stocks went down in value - I had to find the money somewhere else to pay back to the bank. But, as you know ... they didn't. And, over a time horizon of 10 years or so, they haven't. And a bonus for me - as the value of those quality stocks went up ... so did the annual rate of dividends that they paid. When I bought shares in a Canadian bank 41 years ago for $4.20 or so (also referred to below), they produced annual dividends of about a dime or 12 cents per year: now they pay $3.48. As the number of dollars in a CD doesn't change over the years ... the amount of interest that they produce doesn't change much, either. But - my investment in shares of a Canadian bank have gone from $106. in May, 2007 to just over $62.00 now ... why? They put substantial amounts into those sub-prime U.S. mortgages ... and that "asset-backed commercial paper" ("acid-backed commercial paper"??) that some of the U.S. financial scoundrels were peddling. That now the U.S. government, which can't afford to, is going to partially bail them out of. As some say - socialism for the rich ... private enterprise for the low-level guys who get stuck with the bill ......................... when the rich guys pull a big-time goof (but the rich guys get to keep their previously ill-gotten loot). Remember the savings and loan fiasco of, what, 20 years or so ago? Have you given thought to how much it has cost for the Mccain-Obama campaign over the past couple of years? Where do you figure that money came from? Apart from the costs associated with running for Congress or the Senate, etc. Good wishes for increasing skill in managing your income ... and your assets. ole joyful

I love #6. I'll get out my handcuffs and polish them right up. Thanks Minnie. There are some good hints in there, as well as some funny ones. Leslie