No problem, maybee. If you don't want to read it - no one said that you had to. The reference to the high living related to students in Univ. that go to sleep at the beginning of the class that they paid expensive tuition to attend ... because they celebrated a bit too loud and long on the previous evening ... was that I would feel it necessary to help them get their money's worth! It was made substantially tongue-in-cheek, with regard to your situation. Anyway - what responsibility do I have to waken you ... you didn't pay any fees, here! Sorry if I offended you ... I do instigate some levity around here, at times. However - would you like to deal with the issue? Rather than shooting the messenger. I was checking my old copies of the financial magazine that I respect, this evening. I found a saying that I like. "Financial freedom is ... priceless! Pass it on!". Learning how money works is useful, and pays. And I've been offering my viewpoint regarding using money more effectiely for some time. To help people achieve financial freedom. Free ... here. Anyone who wishes to check it out is welcome, and if many choose not to, that's fine ... I wouldn't twist arms, even if I could. I don't appreciate others trying to live my life for me, though I take heed of their comments regarding it. I have felt for years as a counsellor that my task with others is to help them examine and deal with various aspects of their life that they invite me to do, in ways that will enable them to cope with living more effectively, on their own. It's not up to me to make others' decisions for them - they need to become increasingly capable to manage their own lives more effectively. I want individuals and families to learn how to run their own money. A local man who makes presentations about money management laments that there isn't more of it taught in schools, and I agree. Is it possible to buy a dollar's worth of value for 60 cents, as that mutual funds' manager said? Who knows. But I still think that it makes sense to do some buying, as time goes along. As many say ... trying to time the market is a fool's game. "What's the greatest risk in the investment market", asked one writer in the mag, "being in the market when it's going down?". "No - not being in it when it's going up!" was his advice. Good wishes for managing your income and assets with increasing skill. ole joyful P.S. I want to be able to fund what part of my future medical services which are not covered by the Canadian medical and hospital care system, for which I am mightily thankful, though I've made minimal use of it, thus far. Plus cover residential and nursing home care, as may be required. Plus pay for funeral and final income tax. I want to leave some assets for my offspring, for I feel that there may well be some troubled years ahead for our economy - and I'd like to leave as much extra cushion to enable them to cope with it as I can. And I want to support some charities at the end of my life, as I have during it. I lived for years where people had to scrounge what they could to build themselves a shack and wondered where the next meal was coming from. That has an effect. No way could I justify owning one home for year-round use, plus a second for a short stay in summer: millions have been able to (so far) ... I can't. Also - it takes a great deal of energy, which reduces the remaining supply, plus adds to both global warming and pollutants flying around the air and water, to build an automobile. It cost me more a few months ago to fix my 20 year old car than I paid for it less than a year previously, but I think that there's a good possibility that it will run for quite a few miles yet, so felt that it was the responsible thing to do to repair it. We should get on the backs of the builders of our appliances, requiring them to build appliances that will last for 40 years rather than 10, as it takes a lot of resources plus much heating and polluting energy to build a fridge. Soon after they began building fridges, 70 years ago, they were building ones that would last for 40 years. They won't do it now, for they want us to buy new, again ... soon. We can no longer afford such foolishness. They say that it'll take the resources of four planets like ours to serve the needs of our world with its present population, if most of them get to live higher on the hog, anywhere similar to what we've been used to. Further ... I grew up a few years after the Dirty Thirties, the Great Depression ... and during the six years of scarcity during World War II. o j

Well oldjoyful we are certainly buying and investing in America...we have nothing but faith in America....it's banks and it's dollars......The investment market and savings plans have been nothing but good to us...... rant on.. but we are buying and investing at this very moment...we have taken this down moment to re-organize our investments and shuffle things around....the market and economy has always righted itself and it will again... Invest in America is out motto...and it has served us and our retirement means well.

My understanding is that the gas wouldn't go from, for instance, $1.319 to $1.35 unless you bought just one unit. If you bought 10 gallons, for $13.19, it'd round to $13.20. It's not quite the windfall some are suggesting. And yes, in certain circumstances the tax increase percentage-wise would be high, but in real life, I doubt it's going to be that much different. Some of the arguments on both sides of this reminds me of the arguments years ago over going to the metric system. My one teacher in school was talking about it and saying look what would happen for instance in football games. How many times is a play short or over by an inch or two so now if you change it from yards to meters it would make a difference in the game... Yeah, this was a teacher... need I say more? LOL I use pennies. I never understood the idea of keeping buckets of coins. You're not "saving" anything by keeping barrels of coins around the house. You're spending the bills to get the coins to put in the bucket, and I like to keep the bills rather than the coins. For that matter, except for keeping some 1s for tipping I prefer to keep the larger bills and spend the smaller ones rather than pile up the small stuff. I know some feel like they have more if they have 20 $1 bills than they do if they have 2-10s or a $20 bill. I'm not that way. I don't find it that problematic to use coins rather than bills. If I get a pocketful of change I'll pay with the change when I can. I used to keep a cup in the house for change but ran into the problem that it sat there and I figured enough of that. You usually have to make a special trip somewhere to cash in the coins and at $3+ per gallon, you lose a lot of pennies making the trip to say nothing of the waste of time and effort to grunt it down there. I do keep a little cup in my vehicle with some change in it for parking meters, emergency money, etc. If I get an excess of pennies in there, I've been known to pay a $3.07 total with seven pennies (and occasionally even use up some quarters) rather than let them pile up. Easy to do at a drive up window. You normally have to wait and gives you plenty of time to get the right change and even use all change for the purchase, like my $1.07 cup of coffee on which I'll occasionally splurge. (I don't go to the MegaBucks coffee house!) If I find a lot of change in the cup, I'll take in some and use as part of the tip too when I eat out. Not even an effort to reach in, grab some coins and put in the pocket as I'm walking into the restaurant. Seems to me the "bucket brigade" folks are only fooling themselves most of the time, much like those who believe they have a windfall of a savings account by overpaying their withholding on income taxes each year so they get a bigger check at tax paying time. The "windfall" they don't even save, but figure "How can I spend this now?" I shake my head in disbelief at that one too! I will say though, for the few who simply cannot budget at all, then maybe the bucket "savings" could help them. Sort of like the "envelope system" that some use though most abuse. But, that's my opinion derived from observation so if it makes you happy, go ahead. I'm sure I'll get another lecture! LOL Much of my frugality was learned back when there was some noticeable interest being paid at banks so it was worth it to keep as much money in the bank as you could keep there. Now that's gone but I believe the lessons learned are still good. The US citizens rejected dollar coins then some "genius" came up with the SueBee which was laughingly rejected. (Still laugh when I think about the southerner saying "No way! Don't want no broad on mah muney!) I personally refuse to accept them if I get them in change. Guess if they do ban "paper" here, I'll have to go only to places that take credit cards. People don't "change" easily. People still want the perceived "lower" price as proven by the success of the "Cost Club" stores, dollar stores and the 10% off clearance racks where they were marked *up* 25% the week before. It's a fact in retail business that the 99¢ item still sells better than $1.00, except occasionally when there's a $1 area that can have things higher per unit than others. I guess for the real penny-pinchers the the "penny pitching" would encourage buying more since buying 5 - 99¢ non-taxable items would cost less per unit than buying 1-4 of them with the tax round-up. I do question if this is going to cause an accounting nightmare. Tax is (usually) based on a percentage of the sales, so the extra is extra profit for the store? Then to be taxed again? Or do the Feds (or in Canada, the Parls?) accept the amount the cash register says is their share? On small amounts it's of no consequence but a big store will have a difference I would think. All this hoopla over pennies... Hmm. Says something about society doesn't it?

Maybe a fund of about $1.333 million at about 3% would be a more feasible scenario. Not providing for sale of some assets, rather probable in a 1.5 - 2 million or larger asset portfolio situation (some paying almost no dividends or none), which would result in capital gains/(losses) to relate to current income. In earlier years, if one received $10,000. of dividends from Canadian Corporations, one added (Grossed-up) 25% to that figure to find the taxable amount of dividend income, to report $12,500. on the tax return. Then 13.333% of that amount, or Dividend Tax Credit of $1,666.63 was deducted from the tax that one owed. Non-refundable tax credits were available to most taxpayers, and those along with the dividend tax credits, allowed "taxpayers" with no other income to have about $27,000. solely dividend income to have nil tax to pay. Now this situation is called "Ineligible dividends" and the ratios are as indicated above. A new category of "Eligible dividends", which seems to include dividends paid by most stock-exchange-listed Canadian corporations, are grossed up by 45%, i.e. $10,000. cash is reported as $14,500. on the tax return - and have a Dividend Tax Credit of 18.9655% of the taxable amount, or $2,750. deducted from the tax owing. This, added to the Non-refundable tax credits, allows a "taxpayer" to have nearly $40,000. before becoming tax-liable. Which may be pushed higher in various other circumstances that I think that I outlined above. Most long-term Canadian residents, including non-employed people (e.g. housewives), qualify for Old Age Security at age 65 of about $5,800. annually. As this is a non-contributory Federal benefit, if the taxpayer's annual income is over about $55,000., part of that Old Age Security is clawed back by the gov't. The clawback amount increases, till the total amount of one's O.A.S. is clawed back when one's income is in the mid- to high $80,000.00s. Cash dividend of $40,000. plus 45% becomes $58,000. on tax return, plus $5,800. O.A.S., close to $64,000. taxable, will result in substantial clawback of one's O.A.S. benefit. Plus reduction in senior's Age credit, which reduces with increased "income" - whether "real" or "imagined" income! "Gross", huh? Canada Pension Plan (mandatory contributions by both employer and employee, therefore a contractual benefit) allows members who are "substantially retired" (rather loosely defined) to stop contributing and begin to claim benefits at any time between age 60 and 70, with 6% annual reduction if claimed under 65 and 6% annual addition if over 65. Taxable. Private pension plan benefits are available to some people. Benefits of up to $1,000. from private pension plan or RRIF payments qualify one for a non-refundable tax credit, dollar for dollar, up to $1,000. If one is age 69, partial owner (the government being the other partial owner) of a tax-deferred retirement account (RRSP), it must be closed out by the end of that year - or the rules provide that it will be closed out as of Dec. 31 of that year and the total amount added to income in that year. Scarcely anyone chooses this route!! Most personal money managers prefer to use the RRSP money: 1) to buy an annuity (not so hot an idea in these low-interest times), or 2) to roll over into a Registered Retirement Income Fund. With a RRIF, no more deposits allowed, and required to remove at least a given percentage annually, beginning at about 7.5% and rising to 20% annual withdrawal at age 90 and later. Residue in a RRIF on owner's death: if no spouse, infant or disabled dependent kid is added to deceased's income in year of death, or can be fully transferred to one in spouse's name with no tax consequences - yet. Residue is added to current income in year of surviving spouse's death. Where these or other income situations are obtained, the tax reduction is still substantial - but one doesn't avoid tax entirely: one is then a taxpayer (no quotation marks)! There are some other games that an astute portfolio manager can employ, if she/he is willing to a take some moderate short-term risks. There are several fairly smart women in the monthly investment shareclub that I've attended for about 7 years. Good wishes for wise and constructive use of retirement assets. ole joyful