u.s. posts

If you live and drive a car in Ontario, you've no doubt noticed your insurance premiums on the rise year after year. If you live in Toronto in particular, you've probably heard about or experienced that phenomenon in an almost accelerated way. (Our premiums dropped by more than half when we moved out of the city.)

You might assume that population density, the sheer number of cars on the road, is the main reason your premiums are higher. This is true, in part, but the big reason Torontonians pay more? They live in the staged collision capital of Canada.

The high and increasing number of staged collisions taking place in the city not only increases risk for people on the road there, but the fraud cost is passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums, to some degree, whether you live in the city or not.

There's something strangely satisfying and less stressful about flying with only carry-on luggage.

The first snicker of satisfaction comes when you arrive at the airport with your boarding pass already printed off the internet and breeze past the line of people waiting to check in their bags. The second is knowing that you've avoided paying check-in baggage fees (this is not so much an issue on Canadian airlines, but you really need to watch out for them in the U.S. or on budget airlines around the world -- they hurt. Ouch!) Third is knowing that the airline won't lose your luggage (it's a slim chance, but it does happen.) And fourth is being able to walk straight off the plane, past those waiting for the baggage conveyor belt to start up, and straight out of the airport.

Before you say that there's no way you could fit everything you need into your carry-on, read on.

There's this rock in my backyard. It sits about halfway down the fence line between our house and the back of our property. It seems to me that it's sitting in a place that would be perfect for planting flowers. Here's the problem: The rock is painted white.

The painted rock could be just about anything. It's just a rock – other than its colour, there is really nothing all that special about it. There are others like it in our front yard too. It is possible that someone, once upon a time, began some kind of rock garden landscaping project. (There's all kinds of weirdness in our yard which suggests that could be a possibility.)

At the same time though, there's this niggling fear I can't get over, that I might end up unearthing the previous owner's beloved and long-deceased pet chinchilla or something.

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With Christmas fast approaching, and many still looking at ways to control their spending in these uncertain economic times, eBay has come up with a new social media-oriented service that lets people pool their funds to buy a gift.

eBay Group Gifts, which is now live on eBay, uses social media such as Facebook and Twitter (@eBayGroupGifts) to bring people together when buying a gift for someone. The new service, which is also now shown on the Facebook website, can assist an organizer in selecting a gift. It does this by using all that information supplied in those 'likes' and 'fan pages' combined with cookies, age and gender information -- basically anything a person includes in their profile.

Buying a home is a daunting task, let alone buying one in another country. Yet a good number of Canadians relish the chance to own their little plot of somewhere else, particularly if that plot lies baking beneath the nice warm sun.

The biggest market without question for Canadians seeking overseas property is the United States, and more specifically, Florida and Arizona. The depressed housing market south of the border has opened up more opportunities for Canadians eyeing a piece of the pie and that looks like something set to continue according to a TD Bank survey that shows that more than one-third of Canadian boomers are considering buying real estate there.
The U.S. media has noticed a rise in the number of Canadians buying property, further expanding what is already their biggest foreign ownership group. (Read Five Reasons Why Canadians Are Snapping Up U.S. Real Estate.)

Buying property in the U.S. is not as complicated as many think. The first thing to consider is how to finance the purchase.

Canadians have long had an interest in U.S. real estate, especially in sunny vacation spots in Florida and Arizona. It is rare though for such a great window of opportunity to open as it has now.

Whether you are looking for a vacation home or an investment, here are five reasons why now is a good time to buy Stateside:

• More Americans Are Renting. The housing crash in the U.S. combined with the financial crisis and recession have caused a great number of people to give up the "American dream" of owning a home. According to newspaper USA Today, 72% of Americans surveyed in August said home ownership was part of their dream, down from 77% at the beginning of the year. Greater demand for rental property has helped push rental returns higher in some U.S. cities, particularly for homes with three or more bedrooms. You can search historical rental rates at Rentbits.com.
• The Canadian Dollar Is Strong. The loonie has been hovering at just below parity with the greenback with the potential to break higher. The strength of the loonie is above its historical average over the past 10 years of about US78 cents. The strength against the greenback makes purchasing U.S.-dollar denominated goods cheaper compared to most other times in the past, and most likely the future too.