The long game
The kids are getting more cuddly with us - we had five in the bed around 7 AM yesterday - and perhaps a little more fighty with each other. They're also getting more interested in school-type things, including Ada, for whom Elizabeth printed off some alphabet activity sheets so she wouldn't feel left out.
Speaking of not being left out, we're anticipating a big delivery of maple products from a sugarbush in L'Ange-Gardien. Review perhaps to follow! We'll miss our annual trip West of Ottawa but we'll make do.
There's an Andrew Coyne piece on how this doesn't change everything which brings by own thinking into focus. This won't automatically change everything, but we should be paying attention and ready to point to some of the innovations and habits we develop and demand that they become the long-term normal: income support, new notions of who's essential, more support for telework. Don't waste a crisis, as Naomi Klein might say.
In personal finance land, I've been watching things get volatile out there and trying to be sensible about the various savings buckets we have. I topped up the kids' RESP at the beginning of the year, so for the most part they're bought in and will go down one slope and up the other. Oscar won't need money from there for another 8 years at least, so there's time! Any grants or distributions will be invested as below.
For the RRSP and TFSA, I dribble money in regularly and am keeping on keeping on. Some of the TFSA (the tax/disaster/home maintenance part) is in cash because selling securities is horrible right now. The rest is in a sort of couch potato/dollar cost averaging setup: three ETFs of different volatilities which I try to keep even by buying. When I check the account, I either do nothing, or if there is a decent amount of non-emergency cash in there (generally 100 units' worth or more), I use it to buy the ETF that I have the smallest position in at the time. I figure for the time being it combines a rough balancing, keeping fees down, and minimizing guesswork. With any luck we'll come out of this with money put to work out there for now and available for books and beer for the kids in a few years.
I also have a steady flow of money into a "charity bucket" and various regular donations.
blogcutter has been doing a series on charitable causes she's been looking up; I have the bucket for causes that pop into my view - if something comes up, I have that fund there that's already committed to good works so I have some help deciding how much to give. There's no shortage of opportunities right now.
The short of it is… we're lucky to be stable money-wise and I'm trying to be calm and smart about it.
This is a copy of an entry on Dreamwidth. There are
comments on the original entry.
Speaking of not being left out, we're anticipating a big delivery of maple products from a sugarbush in L'Ange-Gardien. Review perhaps to follow! We'll miss our annual trip West of Ottawa but we'll make do.
There's an Andrew Coyne piece on how this doesn't change everything which brings by own thinking into focus. This won't automatically change everything, but we should be paying attention and ready to point to some of the innovations and habits we develop and demand that they become the long-term normal: income support, new notions of who's essential, more support for telework. Don't waste a crisis, as Naomi Klein might say.
In personal finance land, I've been watching things get volatile out there and trying to be sensible about the various savings buckets we have. I topped up the kids' RESP at the beginning of the year, so for the most part they're bought in and will go down one slope and up the other. Oscar won't need money from there for another 8 years at least, so there's time! Any grants or distributions will be invested as below.
For the RRSP and TFSA, I dribble money in regularly and am keeping on keeping on. Some of the TFSA (the tax/disaster/home maintenance part) is in cash because selling securities is horrible right now. The rest is in a sort of couch potato/dollar cost averaging setup: three ETFs of different volatilities which I try to keep even by buying. When I check the account, I either do nothing, or if there is a decent amount of non-emergency cash in there (generally 100 units' worth or more), I use it to buy the ETF that I have the smallest position in at the time. I figure for the time being it combines a rough balancing, keeping fees down, and minimizing guesswork. With any luck we'll come out of this with money put to work out there for now and available for books and beer for the kids in a few years.
I also have a steady flow of money into a "charity bucket" and various regular donations.
blogcutter has been doing a series on charitable causes she's been looking up; I have the bucket for causes that pop into my view - if something comes up, I have that fund there that's already committed to good works so I have some help deciding how much to give. There's no shortage of opportunities right now.
The short of it is… we're lucky to be stable money-wise and I'm trying to be calm and smart about it.
This is a copy of an entry on Dreamwidth. There are
comments on the original entry.