Scotiabank | Financial Literacy Month Wrap-Up

Last updated on March 26th, 2021 at 02:46 pm

This Financial Literacy Month, we need to evolve our money mindset.

Firming Up Your Financial Future—A Financial Literacy Month Wrap-Up by Casey Palmer and Scotiabank!—Money Mindset—Shackled to Money

November’s Financial Literacy Month, and it gives us a real opportunity to take a look at our books and what we’re trying to do with our resources at hand. School. Kids. A new home or retirement—goals quickly become pipe dreams if we don’t know how to plan for our success.

Take a moment and ask yourself just how much you know about your finances. Are you choosing the right investments? Making the right moves today for a better tomorrow? The sad truth is far too few Canadians are well-versed in financial matters, and in an age where Canadians are continuously borrowing significantly more than they’re earning, that makes for one huge problem! It makes us desperate. It has us believe in self-proclaimed financial gurus who lead us astray. We have to do better if we ever want to get out of the hole we’re in.

The 2016 100

Last updated on April 5th, 2021 at 10:39 pm

I can’t even lie, guys—coming up with a list of 100 goals for the fourth year in a row was hardridiculously so. I’m a very different me than I was when The 2013 100 came out, back when free time was still an abundant commodity I didn’t even know I was taking for granted, trying to fill it with countless things that’d keep life interesting.

A problem I most definitely don’t have in 2016!

As I work at surviving the upcoming year—especially with our second child’s imminent arrival—I needed to make the list a lot more realistic; I’m all too skilled at chasing ambitions that exceed my lifestyle’s capacity, and I’ll need to keep wary of that in 2016 if I want to see myself make it out the other side!

So without further ado, The 2016 100. It took a couple of days to polish off after recovering from the gauntlet that was 2015, but I feel like it’s a list that will really make waves in this life o’ mine should I see it finished!

But hey—that’s what I say every year 😂

Thanks for reading!


1) Write an amazing series for Black History Month
2) Win a vacation for my dry cleaner
3) Watch Creed; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Martian; Ant-Man
4) Take Eric to a sporting event so he can stop complaining about getting left from sporting events
5) Phase my old 3.5″ hard drive out
6) Get rid of my old electronics
7) Stop biting my nails
8) Get rid of the wedding thank you cards I never sent
9) Clean out the basement crawl space
10) Build shelves into the crawl space
11) Give my FWD Powershot 2 to my old manager the hockey coach
12) Do the CN Tower Edgewalk
13) Sort out my old TD employee RSP
14) Consolidate everything down to a single notepad

Though a chiropractor I started seeing late into 2015 told me I’d developed some mild sciatica in my back, I didn’t need him to tell me I carry too much STUFF. In a digital age where we can pack mountains of information into a single device, there’s really NO NEED for me to carry all the draft posts and note that I do—save the fact that working from hard copy’s the way my brain’s WIRED.

In 2016, I need a little more focus to keep all my ideas stored in one place so I’m not constantly carrying EVERYTHING in my house made of paper, knowing that I probably scribbled SOMETHING on ALL of ’em.

15) Sort out the Internet situation at home so I can stop relying on tethering to LTE data
16) Learn enough Spanish to understand my sister-in-law’s Mexican wedding in May
17) Find time for date nights, which will involve finding someone who wants to babysit two kids… how about we just find more awesome things to do at home, just in case?
18) Try Uncle Tetsu’s cheesecake
19) Get to 0 drafts on CaseyPalmer.com by converting everything into live posts
20) Install the growth chart for my kids that we got at my office baby shower
21) Update all the old content on CaseyPalmer.com
22) Upgrade the site infrastructure to better support contest traffic
23) Redesign the heck out of the blog (Twenty Sixteen, what up)
24) Find the time to pack more lunches for work
25) Clean up and optimize my Pinterest account (I still have that copy of Pinterest Savvy lying around somewhere)
26) Shave more regularly
27) Hand out my remaining business “cep” cards so I can put in a new order (wait—do we still do business cards?)
28) Clear out the bookshelves to prepare for Baby #2
29) Replace the lost key to our 2011 Ford Edge
30) Figure out what I ACTUALLY need to run my site and invest in THAT.
31) Replace our bathroom sink
32) Meet with the people who I never seemed to schedule in through 2015 (Aaron, Emma, Ria, Adrienne, Dianna)
33) Get a Brookhaven Computer Cabinet

The 1% of the Casa de Palmer workspace I use to do all the things isn’t the best—in fact, it’s falling apart. As I get older and start formalizing my #BloggerLife, Sarah and I agree that my workspace should evolve to show that. It’ll take some saving to make it happen, but it’d be a nice addition to the home.

Caveat Emptor

Last updated on December 11th, 2020 at 03:46 pm

“Caveat emptor.”

I seem to have a thing for Latin, which is ironic since I didn’t take to it so well when I studied it many moons ago.

This time around, the phrase is one that means “buyer beware”. The success of the things we do in life and how awesome the lifestyles we lead will be are partly incumbent upon the decisions we make.

And the purchases we transact are no exception to this rule. I was harshly reminded of this today.

Rich Dad, Poor YOU

Last updated on November 9th, 2020 at 09:19 am

Last Updated: November 9, 2020

Update: Since this piece came out, Robert Kiyosaki found himself subject to a class-action lawsuit due to the irresponsible information shared in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminars, and his company Rich Global LLC filed for bankruptcy. Though I haven’t dived into too much financial blogging since, I have espoused the need for solid financial literacy and sat on a panel discussing financial strategy since.


Hey all; I blogged about this topic last year in The 2010 20K, but I’m still ticked about it and I still see ads for it everywhere I look, so I’m here to address it once more with a bit more gusto. So here goes:

Rich Dad, Poor You—Hustlin’ is Easy!

I’m still seeing ads for the Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminars on the subway. On the side of my Facebook screen. In the newspaper.
Why are they still around? How are people still falling for a scam that could take away their livelihood?!

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