Alright, I’ve decided that for this test the bank I will be using is PC Financial as they seem to offer the best interest rate in the long run. So, today I headed down to the supermarket as that is where its pavilions are. While I was waiting for a person to aid me, I can already see how they are able to offer slightly higher interest rates by reducing operation expenses. For example, there were a lot of people who constantly came in wondering if they could say pay the bills there and they were informed that they had to send in a check or transfer funds from one account to another online or through the machine.

During my wait I was simply reading the bank’s brochure to make sure I understood about the accounts in general based on what I read on the site.

I like how the pamphlet that has all of the legal mumbo jumbo had a sentence saying “Unfortunately, even innovative new ways of banking need a little.”

When my turn came up, I asked some questions such as whether or not foreign currency would be a problem and they mentioned that it would not as you have an option of selecting what type of funds you are depositing and that it would calculate everything automatically. One thing that I kind of overlooked before was that to sign up for this savings account that I would also have to open up a chequing account with them as well. Basically, if you wanted to say withdraw money from that savings account you have to transfer it into the chequing account and then pull it out of there. It wasn’t exactly a big deal. Besides that, everything sounded good and so I went ahead and signed up.

However, there was bit of an obstacle as they needed to take some extra security measures for my account to activate fully. I forgot that I had placed a freeze on my credit account files a few years back for security reasons and as a result someone has to phone me and ask various questions to verify that I am the actual person requesting for the transaction to take place. But, that should be okay though. So, now I can get into the more interesting parts and start bringing in some revenue.

I was reading this interesting document today about a court ruling in the US where a supreme court ruled that a manufacturer can force a retailer to not sell their products below a certain price value. From what I gathered, basically there was a manufacturer who refused to sell/supply retail stores with its products without some kind if minimum retail price agreement. Basically, companies found that to be illegal/wrong I guess you can say. Apparently, the manufacturer won the case and it was deemed as acceptable. You can read the document here: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-480.pdf

I personally think decisions like these will initially make things more expensive for the consumer and creating less bargains to be found. As an example, many times retailers sell items at a loss in order to generate traffic and this would mean a company wouldn’t be able to do that. Imagine a company going out of business too and then trying to sell everything off at a loss just to get rid of it.

I only encountered this situation once before where someone was telling me that he had no choice but to sell a certain product at that high price or else he would risk losing his ability to carry that product line. He was selling sunglasses incase anyone is wondering. I guess if you had to take something positive out of it, I suppose this means retail stores will have to focus on other things such as providing better service compared to others as they won’ be able to attract customers with price or sales gimmicks as that restriction pretty much puts almost everyone in the same playing field.

Now I have heard of this practice applied to things such as people trying to lose weight or for people who want to become more successful in business, but it was interesting to hear someone try and apply this specifically in regards to how much money you can make and how well you can manage it. In general, the belief is that if you are say doing bad in business then a big reason is suppose to be a direct result of the people you surround yourself with. Or like if someone is gaining a lot of weight, then again a factor for that is suppose to be a result of the people you hang around with.

So essentially in regards to money for this, the view was that if you are say in constant money trouble that a big reason for it is that you are hanging around too many people that are always struggling over a debt and not really doing anything about it. That is kind of an extreme way of looking at it I think. Some people even joked about how they guess that means people are going to have to start “firing” their friends if they are not performing.

I personally don’t believe that the people you hang around with are the direct cause of one’s financial woes or success as if it’s like putting a piece of paper next to a scorching flame. Similar to one of my past post, I do think though that associating with the right people can have an impact on your finances in terms of your overall lifestyle direction and what you do in various situations. So like with this view on money, the people you surround yourself with can definitely influence you to do things you that will cause you to have financial difficulties, but they aren’t the direct cause of it I’d say. Unless you have say friends or family members that constantly break everything that you own by accident….well that’s a different story.

It’s kind of interesting to learn from a person that the way he managed his finances was that he organized his funds in such a way where money is distributed evenly and that any funds that was intended for a particular need must be used up. For example, imagine putting aside $100 dollars for yourself for a week to spend on entertainment. If you had say $50 left before the end of the week, you would then kind of force yourself to do something with it such as going to the movies and paying for someone else’s ticket as well.

The reason I was told on why he did that was a familiar reason as he mentioned that you have to enjoy life and so if you have to force yourself to do it then that’s what you have to do. Guess it’s kind of like how when you really want to get something done you tend to do nothing but work and then everyone around you tells you how you have to force yourself to take a break.

You really have to be disciplined and well organized to try this route I’d say. Kind of risky too as you have less room for recovery incase something unexpected happens. But, if that is what it takes for some to ensure balance in their life then I guess it shouldn’t be too bad.

I was having a brief conversation with a person on how when it comes to making money he tends to want to see an immediate return as rarely from his experience does anything ever happen if he doesn’t see a positive return within six months. So instead of sticking to a lot of things, he simply plays it as a numbers game where he tries various things and only stays with things that generate a fairly quick result and then work with those.

To his or her own I guess as he seemed to be doing well. That’s something interesting to think about as many times I usually hear the “you have to stick at it” saying as things don’t come right away and that the reward will be greater by doing so. I personally go with that route as I usually adopt the same philosophy for other aspects in my life too. As to how long I would personally expect to see a return on investment when it comes to money, for myself that is kind of a hard thing to answer as I usually do something with more than one goal in mind as oppose to focusing solely on making money with it. Although, I guess in some way I would be no different as I would kind of expect something right away.

For example, it could be that I decided to get involved with this project that sounded like a great opportunity to learn and experience new things which also required me to invest some money into it. While I wouldn’t mind if it generated no money until like a year later, I would still expect to get what I expected in terms of the experience. Kind of a different circumstance from a purely money investment point of view I suppose.