If you are a business owner, the challenge of finding employees with the required skillset is one thing – once you find them, keeping them is even more of a challenge. What is important to an employee is feeling that they are valued enough to have their employer invest in protecting them should an illness or disability happen to them.  As a business leader, you can ensure your valued employees have the needed protection for themselves and their families with a group benefits plan. Did you know that these plans: Are available to companies with as few as 3 employees? Cost about 3–6% of annual payroll? Are fully tax-deductible? Offer diverse coverage for your employees and their dependants? Are able to pay an employee who is unable to work due to injury or illness? A financial professional can help you grow your business by attracting and retaining the best.

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.

This region’s newest theatre group is embarking on their next production and it’s a show that is out of their comfort zone. Wheat City Theatre’s Lisa Vasconcelos is excitedly states the show will do more than just raise a few eyebrows, “We are presenting Heathers The Musical next month. (June 15th & 17th) It's a dark comedy and very different from what we 'usually' do. Heathers the Musical is based on the cult-classic movie from the 80's with really great, rocking music.” Anyone who saw this 80s classic starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder can attest to the fact that the edgy storyline rocks as much as the soundtrack did. Heathers the movie is a black comedy set in a high school which is dominated by an exclusive group of powerful girls - all named Heather. Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) reluctantly becomes a member of the fearful Heather clique. But the Heathers humiliate her at a party, and she is forced to plot her revenge. She finds support from her seductive but loose cannon new boyfriend (Slater), whose notion of vengeance turns out to be far more excessive than her own. Vasconcelos says there are pleased to present local flair when it comes to the actors as well as the music, “The music for this show is AMAZING!! It rocks - in all ways. The Middle Coast has agreed to come on board as 'the band' for the show.” The amazing trio of musicians will be joined by Shirley Martin and music director Katherine Sherris. Wheat City Theatre doesn’t plan to tame down the screenplay for their Westman audiences according to Vasconcelos, “This show blew my mind when I saw it off Broadway. It's a funny, scary and hyperbolic look at high school driven by a fricken awesome score. The show is geared to adults. It's an edgy story about three 'mean girls' all named Heather who run their school, picking on losers and geeks, partying and making out with Jocks. They allow Veronica Sawyer to join their clique so she can forge notes to get them out of class. At the same time she joins 'the Heathers', Veronica falls in love with the new kid JD – (picture a sociopathic Edward from Twilight.) His cool factor turns lethal.” Vasconcelos say the dark comedy was already shining through in the early stages of getting the production ready for the stage, “I don't think I've ever laughed so much during rehearsals... This show is funny - if you are not offended by f-bombs, teenage parties, promiscuity, hormones, naive adults who think they get it, or songs about blue balls and bullies.” With that aforementioned subject matter it’s safe to say this is about as edgy as it gets for local theatre which is why Vasconcelos and her Wheat City Theatre partner Katherine Sherris have decided to remove do it under a different theatre group, “For sure it's the album on my phone with the most E-rated songs. It’s also the score that has resonated with the young adults I work with. I'm producing it under Wheat City Theatre so my little Mecca kids don't come. But I encourage their parents to see it.” This is the third show that either theatre group Vasconcelos is affiliated with will stage at the Keystone Amphitheatre. Vasconcelos says there are many advantages for live theatre audiences when it comes to this new venue, “the advantages include: - the audience gets to be much closer to the action; they can see the actor's faces, the sweat dripping of their browand because the stage is surrounded on 3 sides by the audience, it brings some new and exciting challenges for staging. The Amphitheatre also allows us to stage shows that we couldn't bring to the WMCA (like Heathers) b/c the rental costs of using the venue is much less than the WMCA. That takes some of the pressure off having to sell 500 tickets a show to break even. Plus there is LOTS of free parking!” Vasconcelos is also excited about some new stage effects they’ll be using, “We have rented a new sound and light system from Studio Productions for Heathers that we are excited to try. Duane Macsymach will be mixing the sound of the band and the vocalists. His skills and talents will bring a real 'rock concert' feel to the show.” Vasconcelos is the Artistic Director as well of the Producer of this particular Wheat City Theatre Group Presentation, a role that she says brings extra stressful demands, As the producer, if the show loses money, I cover the losses. If it makes money, our plan is to make a donation to a teen help line (the cast will pick it) and the new Mecca Children's Charity MAP (that group supports kids who want to take arts' classes in Westman). Fingers crossed we get to make a donation. And I don't have to sell a kidney... *** Tickets are $25.00 and available online at tickets.keystonecentre.com *** Heathers the Musical runs Wednesday, June 15th and Friday, June 17th in the Keystone Amphitheatre (West side of the Keystone Centre complex) show times are 8pm both nights.

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.  

Bought myself some cat eye sunglasses from Dollarama. They look ridiculous.....ly awesome.  Drivers side car door is stuck closed now. It was stuck "open" but I fixed it.  Real good.  Likely because I had all that energy from all those mini chocolate bars I also bought at Dollarama.  Picked the kids up from school and had to crawl out the passenger side.  All lady-like  (read as: not lady like at all) and when we all got back in the car, I sat in the passenger side and put my cat eye sunglasses back on, and my old sunglasses on top of those.....and turned around to explain to the wide eyed little ones that I was going to have to drive from the passenger side, which is why I had 2 pairs of glasses on.  Because I'd need more eyes to drive like that. And since I'd never done it before I couldn't say for sure how it would turn out, so they better hang on. They didn't believe me until I started the car. Then they looked worried.  And the bigger one told me I was the weirdest Mom ever.  And he likes it.  And oddly enough, the one that only 25 minutes ago said I was weird, is now dressed up like this.  The end.