Dave Life Adventures

Ok, so the one thing that I am discovering about blogging is that it brings a new level of accountability into my life. It is working great for me in the debt realm so I am taking this opportunity to apply it to the life realm. New years is a time where everyone talks about resolutions. Resolutions though are often quickly forgotten, in fact in my 30ish years on earth only once have kept a New Years reso. (2006 I quit smoking and haven't had a puff since) I assume I am not alone in my numerous resolution failures and so this year I propose we do something different. Let's not just be resolute but let us set goals, real goals, S.M.A.R.T . goals. The SMART acronym is borrowed from my business back ground and stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. And so here are my goals for 2012: Physical - 160 lbs - ok so I realize I am not what most would consider fat but as I near closer and closer to the 180 mark I realize that I need to pay closer attentio...

Howdy all! I was sent an email this morning about RRSP's so that sparked me to share some info with you all that I wrote a while ago but that I haven't posted to this blog and figured it may be useful to some of you out there.  The Basics of RRSPs What is an RRSP? An RRSP is the common name a Registered Retirement Savings Plan, a program designed by the Canadian government to promote personal savings for retirement.  How does an RRSP work?  The basis of an RRSP is that any money that you contribute to the RRSP is not included in your taxes until it is taken out. So basically if my income is $35,000 a year but I contribute $5,000 to RRSPs when I file my taxes the government only recognizes $30,000 of what I made as taxable income. The remaining $5,000 will be taxed when I withdraw it from the plan years down the road.  Further than that RRSPs also grow tax free which means any money you earn (interest, dividends) on the m...

Part of waking up to the realization that my past spending habits were leading me down a quick road to destitution has done a lot for my attitude towards money. Further, it has caused me to take a long hard look at how I got in this position. I have never lacked a work ethic in fact I don't remember many points in my life when I didn't have a job, since I was old enough to push a lawnmower I have nearly always been gainfully employed. This work ethic combined with a business degree, professional designation, entrepreneurial attitude and fabulous people skills has made income generation easy for the most part for me, my problem is and always has been keeping any of it. And this sparked a question... What if...  What if I could go back in time and instead of wasting money on momentary pleasures that got me no where I would have learned early to be a saver.  And so I did some calculations for the kiddies, courtesy of the savings calculator I found at  www.daveramsey.com ...

If it ain't broke don't fix it! ...but what if you aren't aware that it's broke.  They say knowledge is power, and I would agree 100% in my bible God warns in Hosea 4: 6 " My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..." I think this is one of the biggest problems we face in our financial lives. Too many people are intimidated by finances so they just try and ignore them. The overwhelming amount of get rich quick strategy's and underwhelming amount of solid stewardship training that exist creates a intellectual vacuum and so people simply run a budget of, if there is money in the account spend it and if not use the credit card. I realize that's an over simplification but it unfortunately not far off. And that right there is my biggest motivation in life right now, empower people with financial knowledge so that they dont get their financial education from the school of hard-knocks. I personally have made enough mistakes and learned enough lesson...

Hello, my name is David Whitrow and I’m a son, brother, Realtor, CMA, proud Canadian, Christian, rider fan, social conservative, hockey player and SLAVE! …say what… Slave? You heard me SLAVE, S-L-A-V-E, SLAAAAAVE How so you ask, well the Solomon put it best in the book of Proverbs: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Proverbs 22:7 You see, slavery, as we commonly understand it, was abolished through out the entire British Empire in 1834 under the Bristish Parliament's Slavery Abolition Act effectively ending legal slavery in Canada at least until the 1920’s when a little thing called the credit card was invented. Mmmmm credit cards… I have had a love hate relationship with them since I first walked down that university corridor and some dude offered me a free T-shirt for filling out a silly little form, a few weeks later a little piece of plastic showed up at my door. To be honest, I tossed it aside and never reall...