Green Spot: Paying to Recycle

Posted by Tim Stobbs on May 8, 2009

A while back my wife noticed some blue bins that showed up in our area about once every two weeks stuffed full of recycling materials.  So out of curiosity she looked up the company website and discovered a company that does curb side recycling in town.  (For reference all recycling in Regina is normally done by yourself by taking them to large bins located around the city, there is no mandatory curb side program.)  So she call them up and got an estimate.  Total cost about $10/month.

You see my wife one major issue with our city run recycle bins that are in various locations in the city.  None of them take plastic other than milk jugs and this pissed her off.  You see back in our last city they took just about everything (glass, plastic, paper, tin) other than compost and diapers.  So for back then we basically were only generating about half a big garage bag a week.  Without recycling plastic and another kid we were about two full bags a week of trash.

So now we are basically paying to recycle, which strangely I’m ok with.  I rather disliked having to drive all over to hit up all the various bids and drop off the material.  We got lazy once in a while and it build up.  Then it was a big pain to deal with.  Now it just all goes out the end of the driveway once every two weeks in two big blue bins.  Simple and straight forward.

I’ve also attended a class on composting so I’m giving that another try this summer.  So all in all we expect our garage level to drop back down to about one big bag a week.  It might be less, but I’m not sure.

So how does recycling work for you? Curb side or do you do it yourself?  If you pay for curb side, how much? (I’m curious how programs very from city to city).

The Canada Pension Plan Mystery

Posted by Tim Stobbs on May 7, 2009

Let’s face the facts estimating your CPP pension when you retire early is very hard to do.  For a lot of people doing it yourself is a bit of mystery.  So today is the step by step guide to doing your own estimate. Actually in all my calculations or looking for it I’ve only found one site that works: from the government of Canada.

The calculator lets you do a few interesting things.  First it let’s you see what you get if you start collecting the money between 60 and 70.  Also it allows you to change your average earnings at some point during your life which you can use to simulate an early retirement.

So here is the procedure to get your estimate:

1. Get a statement of contributions with a current estimate of your CPP benefits. You can either get a copy from online or request a paper copy to be mailed to you.  Or if you have the paperwork average your income from the year you turned 18 to now.  If you don’t have it you can still use the calculator, but the estimate is rough.
2. Got to this calculator at first you will deal with entering your date and month of birth and then do your OAS estimate.   We you get to the section about your CPP benefits do the following.
3. It will ask you if you have an estimate.  If so, select Yes.  Then enter in your estimate of your pension and the month and date of the estimate.
4. If you don’t have an estimate do the following.  Select No.  Then it will let you select your average earnings from when you turned 18 till now in $5000 intervals up to  $46,300 (the max).  I highly caution you to choose a lower number.  Most people forget how little they earned back between 18 and 25 and it will really drag down your average.  For example in my case if I didn’t have an estimate I would likely guess my current average is $35,000.
5. Then at the bottom of either page it will ask if you want to see what happens if you take your CPP between 60 and 64.  I selected Yes.
6. Then pick your start age.  I took 60.
7. Then it will give you an estimate of your pension at 60. Hit Next.
8. Then it will ask do you want to estimate what happens if your future earnings change.  Here is where you can simulate an early retirement.  Select Yes.
9. Now you can pick two income estimates and an age when the first will stop and the second will start.  So if you expect to fully retire early choose the second estimate at zero.  If you plan to do some work till your 65 enter a very low number.  In my case I choose $35,000 till age 45 and $5000 from that point onwards.
10. Then it will provide a modified pension amount.  Again you can choose to take it early.  I selected Yes.
11. I picked 60.  Then I got my pension estimate of $338 per month starting at age 60.

So there is your step by step guide the the wonder world of CPP estimates.  Oh, a point of caution.  The calculator may get buggy if you keep shifting back and fowards changing numbers.  So do one estimate stop and then restart the calculator if you want to try something else.  Enjoy.

Getting Happier When The World Sucks

Posted by Tim Stobbs on May 6, 2009

I recently starting feeling a bit better about things lately.  Before all the bad news of the economy was weighing me down a bit.  You can only read about so many job layoffs and gloomy forecasts before it starts to affect you.  In my case I was feeling a bit down, finding it hard to concentrate on tasks and I was procrastinating badly on things I should be doing.

So how did I snap out of it?  Well here’s my list of what worked for me to be happier:

1. Stop Reading the News.  I didn’t go cold turkey on the news, but I seriously cut back on my consumption of the major headlines.  Constantly reading bad news isn’t good for some people, so if you are feeling down stop reading the bad news and check out some other lighter material for a while.  In my case I started reading some humor novels.
2. Pick an Easy Task.  My procrastination partly was a function of having so much to do I wasn’t even sure where to start.  So I picked something easy like cleaning up some files and shredding some old documents.  Then once I felt like I had did something it has been easier to get back to working on my to do list.
3. Focus on the Good.  I’ve started to remind myself about the good things I’ve got going for me.  I’ve got wonderful wife and two great kids.  I’ve got a job I actually like most of the time and lots of time off.  I’ve got some savings for a rainy day and I’ve got years to recover my portfolio losses.  Things are going to be fine in the long run.
4. Treat Yourself.  During the winter I really don’t drink much beer, but now with some nice weather I pick up some beer last night.  Mmm, that was so good.  Now I just have to get the patio furniture out and enjoy the outdoors a bit more.

So what makes you happier when you are feeling down?  Please share your ideas with a comment.