May Update

It feels like so many things happened last week, most aren’t so good. France elected a new president over the weekend who advocates more government spending rather than less, and Greece’s minority government appears to be quite unstable and might have to go through another election soon. North American stocks are down for the month, the € (for those who live in Europe) keep losing value relative to the USD. Everyone’s rushing to the safety of German bonds, and commodity prices are becoming so weak. I feel like right now marks an inflection point when things are going to change in our economy. Not in any dramatic or particularly significant way but I will be sure to take advantage of any prosperous opportunity that arises in the upcoming months. I didn’t make any new investments in April so this month I have some extra money to deploy :0)

Here are some other random updates about recent events.

-My April no spend days challenge is over. I found it’s easier to do if I just leave my money at home unless I actually plan to buy something. I managed to beat my goal of 25 no spend days and lost about 8 lbs in the process. Will post more about that experience later this month.

-Watched The Avengers movie. It’s so good everyone and their dog should go see it right now if they haven’t already. There’s a reason this movie broke box-office records, holding the #1 spot for highest weekend gross of all time. Definitely my movie of the year.  Many experts predict it will be the first film to break through the $1 billion global box-office mark in just 20 days. All the more reason to own a stock like Cineplex which really benefits from numbers like these, without the risk of investing in individual movie studios.

– I started watching this reality tv show about rich Vancouver women. Yes, it’s the one you’re thinking of. I’ve learned so far that even the 1% wealthiest people still face the same social and emotional problems like everyone else in this city. Actually I don’t really care about the drama, because I’m way more interested to see all the high end restaurants and learn about fun local places they go to, and try to spot any landmarks I might recognize.

-I wrote a guest post awhile ago for my friend Hannah. Forgot to mention it until now. It’s at thecheapskatemom.com. Just some basic budgeting advice. Her site is pretty cool.

-Last weekend was the super moon. Did anyone see it? I was sleeping and missed it (>.<) too bad.

-Some people think BC houses are expensive. One in Ontario is selling for $8 million. It’s beside Lake Ontario and takes only 15 minutes to drive to downtown Toronto so the location is excellent, but I wouldn’t pay that much for it even if I had the money. The owner’s justification for that price is they bought it in 2007 for $2.8 million, and then spent $4 million doing renovations. (O.o) makes total sense right?

-And lastly, our local minimum wage recently jumped to $10.25/hr. Still not a whole lot but that’s a 28% increase from a year ago so as someone who use to make minimum wage, I think this is ought to make a lot of lower income folks very happy. Hopefully this doesn’t mean consumers will have to pay more at fast food places, convenience stores, and other businesses that tend to hire minimum wage workers.