Planning a day trip, a scavenger hunt or road rally? Why not add "Selfie with Sara" to your list.  Who's Sara? Well, I'm talking about Sara the statue, the camel statue of Glenboro, Manitoba. She's their giant mascot, their roadside landmark and their signature art piece. You'll find her less than 45 minutes south east of Brandon on Highway 2. Roadside attractions are a town's key to getting on the map, it seems. They are everywhere!  Giant statutes or mascots began to pop up on American highways in the late 1930s. Typically built or placed by hotels and restaurants they existed to get a driver's attention with the expectation that they would stop and spend their money.  Over the years, statues got bigger and more eclectic. Anything to be the biggest or most talked about. By the 1960s they were such a common sight on the American landscape, they were as much a symbol of family road trips as the station wagon. Canada wasn't to be left out and signature art pieces were commissioned by forward thinking towns and municipalities.  In Gimli, Manitoba the Viking statue was a product of Centennial celebrations in 1967. Designed by Gissur Eliasson, and constructed at a cost of $15,000 it was meant to recognize and honour the Icelandic heritage and settlers of the region. It was constructed by George Barone (Barone Sculptures Inc) who also notably built the white horse at Headingly and Tommy the Turtle (1974) in Boissevain. I can't imagine all the thousands or even hundreds of thousands of photos taken with these statues every year. I know I have both Viking and Tommy the Turtle photos in my childhood album.  If you'd like to learn more or plan your own Manitoba statue road trip, start your planning at Roadsideattractions.ca

We've been to the neighbours again. Upon arriving home yesterday after school, before baseball, the oldest promptly approached the nice neighbor man's wife and asked where her husband was. He needed to talk to him.  Man stuff.  She indicated he was away at work but would let him know as soon as he was home that he was needed next door.  He fixes our bikes.  Every 2nd day.  I wasn't aware that there was a pending repair. Need to know basis.  However since Grandpa Gary was at our place later, he fixed it before the neighbor got home. He's done a fair bit of bike fixing here too.  I don't do mechanical anything. At all. Ever. Not for lack of trying.  I suck at it. For reals.  Then we went and stirred up the bees in the nice neighbor man's backyard, climbed his trees, took pictures of all the pretty flowers, and got free rhubarb which the ravenously hungry little children immediately started eating.  And I've been instructed by the bigger one to bake pie with the remainder of it.  Within seconds of returning back to our own yard, the "neighbor recruiting kid" ramped his bike so well on his self-constructed ramp that he blew the back tire and also 1 hip.  Back to the drawing board.  Nothing like having great neighbours. We'll see them tomorrow about that tire...... Yours truly, Caley

Fewer than one in three working Canadians has a guaranteed pension plan¹. Canadians are living longer than ever before and very few have access to traditional sources of retirement income, such as workplace pension plans. In fact, between 1982 and 2011 participation in defined contribution plans grew by 294.4 per cent while participating in defined benefit plans grew by only 2.7 per cent2. While defined contribution plans will potentially offer employees more choice, and more control for their retirement income by allowing them to invest their funds as they choose, they do not provide employees with a guaranteed income in retirement. This can make it difficult for people to accurately plan for how much they will earn in retirement, creating a significant challenge when it comes to retirement planning. Fortunately, your financial professional can help. According to the Towers Watson 2012 Survey of Pension Risk, 72 per cent of Canadian employees either agreed or strongly agreed that they are more concerned about pensions than they were 24 months ago. As part of your retirement income plan, you may wish to work with your financial professional to look at your guaranteed income from all sources and identify any gaps between the money you’ll have coming in and the income you’ll need. Areas to discuss: • Your level of guaranteed income • How much you plan to spend • Recommended income solutions that will provide income for life, plus the potential for growth Planning for a retirement does not need to be a daunting task, especially if you take time to ensure you are considering as many scenarios as possible. 1 Source: Statistics Canada, Pension Plans in Canada and Labour Force Survey, 2011 2Source: Towers Watson, Survey of Pension Risk, 2012  

Using your mortgage prepayment options can drastically reduce the total amount you spend on your mortgage and shorten the time it takes to pay it down. If you follow these three steps, you can be mortgage free sooner than ever! 1. Know your prepayment privileges Most mortgages have allowances for you to prepay down your mortgage faster. The standard prepayment amount allowed per payment can vary depending on your mortgage provider. We can work together on your goals to ensure you have the flexibility you require to pay your mortgage faster. Your mortgage provider may be able to increase and decrease your prepayment privilege at any time throughout the life of your mortgage.   This means that if any life event occurs and you need to reduce your payment to the minimum, you can with ease. Most mortgage providers allow this free of charge, but with some providers you can only change your payments a set number of times throughout the year.   2. Increase your payments Anytime you increase your payments, the excess that you pay per payment goes directly onto the principal portion of your mortgage. This is a great way to drastically reduce the interest you will have to pay over the term of your mortgage.   Typical prepayments allow you to add between 10% to 20% of your payment amount to each payment, depending on your lender. Some lenders also allow the use of “double up payments” which let you double each payment!   Here’s an example of prepayments being used on a typical mortgage: All calculations are based off of a $400,000 mortgage with a 5 year term and 25 year amortization at a rate of 2.59% with monthly payments.   No Prepayments: Monthly payments: $1,809.84 Principal paid over 5 year term: $60,836.51 Interest paid over 5 year term: $47,753.89 Mortgage amount remaining: $339,163.49 Years remaining on mortgage after 5 years: 20 Years Adding a 15% Prepayment: Monthly payments: $2,081.32 Principal paid over 5 year term: $78,201.00 Interest paid over 5 year term: $46,678.20 Mortgage amount remaining: $321,799.00 Years remaining on mortgage after 5 years: 15 years & 9 months As you can see, the mortgage was reduced by $17,364.49 and saved $1,075.69 in interest! The mortgage term was reduced by 9 years and 3 months in only 5 years!   3. Make a lump sum prepayment Making a large payment can be a great option for paying down your mortgage, but may not be ideal for everyone. Lump sum payments help you reduce the amount of interest you will be required to pay on your mortgage. They can also be used to reduce your mortgage amount before selling your home and will reduce the penalty you will be required to pay. Lump sum payments are usually between 10% – 25% of the mortgage total. Typically, you can make a lump sum payment onto your mortgage once a year. Every mortgage provider has their own specific guidelines for how you can make a lump sum payment in a calendar year. Your provider may require you put down a minimum amount for a lump sum prepayment, or you may only be eligible for one on the anniversary date of your mortgage. If you decide that prepayments are for you, you can achieve mortgage freedom sooner than ever! Contact me today and lets set your goals into motion.

What's a bag of peanuts cost these days?  Planning a trip to a Major League Baseball game?  Excluding the travel costs to the ballpark, you can expect to budget a minimum of $75 per game, per couple. However, that being said, you can also spent up to $300 or more for that same game. The variables are the location of your seats and what you choose to eat or drink.   In the last 2 years, I've been to MLB games in Toronto, Denver and Phoenix. I've sat in the nosebleed seats and the club seats too. There are a few regional differences to count for but as an overview, I offer you these average prices. Hot dog: $11 Bag of peanuts: $7.50 Pepsi (fountain drinks) $5.50 Pretzel $7 Popcorn $7 Cotton Candy $7 Bottle Water $6 Draft beer $10 Can Beer $12.50 Bleachers or third deck seats $20 and up Club seats $100 Baseline outfield tickets $75 Infield baseline $125 On field, box, dugout seats $200  Souvenir t-shirt $30 Baseball hat $40  Baseball $15 Jersey $150 There are also a great deal of regional specialty foods beyond the ballpark norm. Phoenix offered at least 6 different versions of a hot dog, including a bacon wrapped dog.  In Denver you could get funnel cakes and deep fried Twinkies too. In Phoenix I didn't bother trying the "Nacho Helmet" but I did find a great grilled cheese sandwich. I think it was the best bargain at the park too. For $12 I got a panini style grilled cheese stuffed with bacon. It was cut in 4 (it was huge) and stacked and presented with a bamboo skewer holding the stack in place. Two of us ate it and still couldn't finish it.  In Toronto, I only pretended to be happy with a $12 hot dog, but was actually very impressed with the carved meat sandwiches served in the club section for about $20.  Tips on cutting costs at the ballpark? Watch for reduced cost tickets on Stubhub.com on game day. They slash prices to clear out tickets. Ticketmaster does not. (That's how I got Club Seats for $40.) Bring your own bottle of water. (Sealed retail bottles allowed. No other drinks or containers allowed.)  I always limit souvenirs to the kids' personal spending money. They can buy what they want with their own money. But I'm not hosing anything but the game. I find that kids ask for less, and spend less when it's their own earned money. A good life lesson, I think.