If 30% of Cars will be Electric over the next Decade

Jus' thinkin' aloud again.....such a temptation for a blogger.

Volkswagon has announced that they are developing 30 NEW MODELS of 100% electric vehicles, to be rolled out over the next decade.
 What does this mean for us? What does this mean for investors?

First of all, what would this mean for our electrical grid. If, let's play pretend, that
30% of Canadian cars are electric by 2026, that would put a HUGE sucking on our hydro grid.
Would our grid be able to hold up? Would my province stop selling electricity to the USA in order to keep our electric cars humming? Or would the humble consumer be stuck with outrageously jacked up electricity prices? Would the 30% charge their cars mostly at their homes via their home garage outlets?
Would there be localized "electric refueling stations" around every corner?

I know that Suncor is already developing their next strategy in how they serve the public in the new era of
multi-fueled vehicles. Does every typical gas retailer really WANT to start selling electricity to locals or tourists? Secondly, from the looks of it, it can take a pretty long chunk of time to re-charge a car battery for an electric vehicle. Do we really want to leave our cars for several hours at a re-fueling station? Is that feasible?
Is that affordable? Will re-fuelling electric stations charge tourists for parking fees as well as the electricity they use to "refill" their tanks?

Well, when it comes to investing, should we all start funneling our investments out of oil and gas stocks and into the electrical grid? But then again, did you know that as of 2014 data,
  8.7% of Ontario's electricity was produced by Oil and Natural Gas?

So maybe we have to step back and try to get at the big picture. Going ALL ELECTRIC is not going to eliminate our dependence on oil and gas. It just will change the process.

I definitely don't have all the answers....but we sure do need to think this through.")

Peacefully and Thinkfully yours,
Carla



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AirBnB and A Suitcase of Sardines

Tim Ferriss has catapulted himself into a "self help" or "success guru"
by taking his personality type and standardizing it into a career path.
He has outrageous curiosity and has allowed it to lead him to experiment with all kinds of
success and performance strategies.

He then writes about his real life experiments and discoveries in his book series with the titles:

Four Hour Work Week
Four Hour Body
Four Hour Chef

Although some of Tim's exploits are outside of my personal comfort zone, I do appreciate his chutzpah and that he has carved out a multi-million dollar niche for himself simply by what......by being himself.

What can each of us do to maximize our innate leanings? Curiosity does not kill the cat. Curiosity can make for a fine fat cat.
 Are you naturally detail oriented? Love to share your discoveries with those less adventurous?
Then you may naturally be drawn into writing online, making youtube videos and publishing a plethora of items describing how we can learn from your own exploits.

That is all it really takes to mold an online presence into something valuable :)

Peaceful prosperity,
Carla


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Income Sharing Agreements Instead of Student Loans?

I was reading an article from Kiplingers Personal Finance Magazine

"AN ALTERNATIVE TO STUDENT LOANS, Income-share agreements swap debt for a portion of future salary" by Kaitlin Pitsker (July 2016 issue)

  about how some  American students are wiggling their way out of student debt by signing
"Income Sharing Agreements".
These contracts force students to fork over a certain percentage of their future incomes to pay off any student debt. These contracts can last as long as 15 years into your career.

Without rehashing the article, I am wondering if any of the Canadian universities are considering adopting similar methods? Do you think this is  a reasonable concept? Is it in the students' best interests? Or is it just another cash grab, foisted on those young and financially vulnerable?
Does it like "Lunch bag let down" for newly educated young adults pouncing on their first great job?

Or could it be a realistic solution to preventing debt overload?

Looking forward to hear your comments as always,

Peace,
Carla

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3 Easy Steps to Chop $ FAST OFF your Household Bills

This is gonna be a REALLY short post...so pay attention.
If you implement only these 3 EASY Steps, you will IMMEDIATELY start saving money OFF your household bills:
NUMBER 1: 
 Start doing ALL your laundry in COLD water. Not cool water, not warm water...but COLD WATER.
This will immediate start saving you money on whatever your home uses to heat your hot water.
If using COLD water to do your laundry makes you uncomfortable, I would encourage you to run a personal experiment and do one full day of laundry using ONLY COLD water and see if you can notice and lowering in the quality of your laundry. I dare ya! Most most most people can not notice ANY difference at all in the quality of their laundry after switching to washing in cold water!

NUMBER 2:

 Unplug STUFF that you don't use on a daily basis. What kinda stuff you may ask?
Well, stuff like your electric blender or your DVD player. Why? Because when electrical items are plugged in, even if the power button is "off", still drain a small electric current from your outlets ....and that constant tiny drain of electrical current is called "PHANTOM" power.
PHANTOM POWER costs you MONEY! So, anything that you don't utilize personally on a daily basis can be happily unplugged RIGHT NOW and only plugged back in WHEN YOU NEED IT.
Stroll through your home and see what items are plugged into EACH electrical outlet in your home. Is there a lamp that no one uses? UNPLUG IT! 

NUMBER 3:

Start super duper shopping and stocking up on the LOCAL LOSS LEADERS. What is that you say?
LOCAL LOSS LEADERS are items that grocery chains and department stores sell "BELOW COST" in order to draw customers into their stores. They don't make money from selling those items, but they use them as a very effective method of getting more humans into their stores. The stores know that once someone is physically present in their stores, the odds of them buying ONLY the loss leader items is very low....so the know that  the customers will wind up buying at least several other items while they are in the store. The stores know that they will earn a profit from these other items, even if they lose money from the "LOSS LEADER" items.
So what, in your local stores are the LOSS LEADERS? For us, it is totally BANANAS. Literally, bananas are a very effective high volume sales item that almost EVERY large grocery store and/or department store in my city carries. The prices are literally ROCK BOTTOM and there is even a price war going on to reach the lowest of the lowest LOSS LEADER PRICES.

So, in closing, stock up on these items...whatever they may be in your city.....
( some plentiful and very low priced well stocked items) and use them to keep your pantry full. Your family will thank you for it and your wallet will too :)

Peacefully productive,
Carla.


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