It's not quite 2012, but the financial world is usually a sleepy one over Christmas and New Years.

Here's the likely list for 2012. I'll be sure to update it if anything manages to change. I hope it does, but I must say that the options today are far better than they were a few years ago. It's a good time to be alive!   

I just had an external hard drive, formatted NTFS, seem to fail in an unusual way.

The drive seemed to spin up fine and mount fine in Linux and Windows, but appeared blank.

It's not quite 2012 yet, but I see the car dealers all have 2012 models out, so I think I'm allowed to play the same game too.

Equifax is one of the two credit report bureaus in Canada. The other is TransUnion. There used to be a third, but they shut down their Canadian operations.

Credit report bureaus are required by law to discuss your report with you if their report was used and you were denied or rejected credit when requesting a loan.    

I have absolutely no idea what kind of help they can offer over the phone, so if you're aware, please post a comment here.

Buy Online and Save Money!

Most items on Amazon are tax-free, so you're almost always saving money even if the price is "the same"! Often the price is less, especially if you can buy used, rather than the ripoff used bookstore

I just bought a car, and I figured I'd write this article to help explain some of the things that I had a hard time finding an answer to, or being too confident in the information I had received.

Debit Mastercards have been around forever!

Since 1982, some credit unions in Saskatchewan have issued their own debit Mastercards.

Most people think that there are only two internet options in most areas, usually something along the lines of "Rogers or Bell", but that's rarely true.

Two other, often far better options, available in all and some of KW respectively are:

Teksavvy

I should add that the price on Amazon seems to vary.

The economylube that I went to doesn't take appointments for e-tests,
they solely do it on a drop-in basis and quickly, which is a much better
way of doing things for me!
They are, however, big on upselling, so just be sure to know what you're
going there for and get just what you need and came in for.

Seat GTE Simple Answer

This means that Air Canada is going to assign you a seat at the gate, but it could mean a lot more than that.

This card will be replacing the GM Card that TD bank has discontinued.

I consider the BMO Prepaid Travel Mosaik Mastercard to be the best reloadable prepaid card on the market.

Here's (mostly) why:

It's the start of 2011, and this will be a review of my top picks for the best prepaid cards for various purposes.

It's that time of the year again, tax time.

January 2012 Update: Here's a link to the rates for 2011 (ie: the rates you will probably use for your tax return due April 30th 2012)

As of December 19th, things appear a lot better now, with reports of successful Paypal, Amazon.ca, iTunes and Ebay purchases, but still lots of people ending up on this page searching for problems with this card and Paypal.

This is, what I consider to be, the most comprehensive and up-to-date article on secured credit cards for Canadians. The key thing is to do your research when dealing with any financial products, so I hope to help you with that here. After the 5 Ws, I go over each of the secured credit cards on the Canadian market. Please comment with any questions/concerns or anything that I've missed.

Mastercards and Visa Cards for Canadian Teens

CIBC Launches First Debit Visa Card in Canada

In Canada, prepaid cards are issued by banks under the Mastercard or Visa systems. This means that they're acceptable at any location that accepts credit cards, generally*.

Reloadable vs. Non-Reloadable (Throw-away)

There aren't that many Canadian banks that provide UK Pound / GB Pound Bank Accounts.

You may also want to take a look at my EURO Bank Accounts for Canadians page as well.

More Readable Canadian Passports&Criminal Records Article!

I believe that Via rail has seriously upgraded its on-train wifi service.