Ricky Martin’s Blog

I just received the notice last night in my e-mail announcing that ING Canada is going to be offering a brand new FREE Chequing account. This is similar to what they already offer in the US. This could be huge as they offer all the services which we now pay for as free and included with this account as well and on top of that it is also suppose to earn interest.

you can check out the details on their website here at ING. This could be very interesting as it will definitely open up options and cause some competition for the larger banks in Canada.

So As some of you may be aware I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work in several cool places around the world over the last few years as a result of that experience I have learned a few things that make it a little easier to be able to this, and will break these down here for you. As with anything there are many ways to do things, these are the ones I know of and have worked for me.

Key 1 – Citizenship

one of the biggest advantages or disadvantages is Citizenship depending on which one you have and what you might be entitled to. One of the advantages I have is being a Canadian Citizen, As a result we enjoy good relation and good will with most countries around the world, and this opens up a lot of opportunities.  Canadian citizens enjoy relatively easy access to work visa’s for the US and and the UK depending on your education and experience. There are some drawbacks as many are temporary visa’s but there may be a route to permanent residency if your looking for it, you just need to explore the options.

Another advantage is if you have dual Citizenship, which my wife shares, And this can eliminate the need for visa altogether, as in my wife’s case European citizenship gives you access to work anywhere within the EU.

Key 2 – Age

Many Countries that are looking to grow have what is called a work study option, which is usually age restricted to people between 18-30. This gives you an option to go visit, study and work in the country. you can usually do a search on the internet with the country you have in mind and should be able to find the information with regards to this option. Or another option is to call up the closest consulate for the country you are interested in and they should be able to point you in the right direction.

Key-3 – Skill Set/Experience/Education

Depending on the background or Diploma you have can make life a lot easier to getting a work visa in another country, especially with highly skilled people in demand all over the world. This opens up a lot of options. At the same time you may be able to transfer within a company to another division if you have been with the company for a certain time under different visa categories.  It is a lot easier for an Engineer with a university degree to get a visa than say for a chef that has no experience in the industry.

Key-4- Mobility

This is the key if you want to be able to have the opportunities to work in another city or country, I am thankful that my wife has been open to the opportunities that have presented themselves to us over the years. I don’t think I can stress this enough, if you want to be open to options that are presented you may need to be able to move quickly, even when they are planned out well in advance(trust me I am speaking from experience here…LOL). If you have to many things that tie you down to one place you may hesitate, which could eventually cause you to miss out on a life altering experience.

Key- 5- Desire

This is probably one of the biggest factors to be able to work around the world. YOU NEED TO WANT TO!

If you don’t there is no point in pursuing any of the other things you need to do in order to be able to seize these opportunities. I for one want to experience life and all it has to offer, and to experience different places and cultures, you can only read so much and see so many movies, but it is nothing like seeing it with your own eyes and touching it with your own fingers.

So with that said keep your mind and your options open, you never know when a great opportunity will present itself!

Well I was recently reading a blog post about a bad border crossing into Canada from everything-everywhere.com After reading that story got me to thinking about all the border crossings I have done over the last few years. I will start with the worst and work my way to the best.

5-Going to the USA for a new Job (or so I thought)

Well on this one I had accepted an offer for a new job in the Boston Area, had given my notice at my current job in Montreal, had signed all the paperwork, prepared everything for my trip down. lined up a hotel to stay at till I could start looking for more permanent accommodations. Any way start the drive down to the border on a Wednesday evening,  get there, and get the usual questions, where are you going, why, etc…

Then I get asked to go inside to review my paperwork, after almost 2 hours sitting there, without any update the officer comes back and tells me that I can’t go into the US and need to return home. then I was asked to sign a paper, which I refused as it had no explanation on it, and when I asked him he said that is fine I don’t need to sign it. So I returned home after stopping at the Canadian border and trying to explain to them why I was refused entry. They couldn’t understand why either.

So needless to say that job did not happen.

4-Returning Rental Truck to the USA (After moving back to Canada)

After moving back to Canada I had to return the Penske Truck to the closest rental office in Plattsburg, (take a note if you ever have to do this it might be easier to use U-Haul) well for some reason it was extremely complicated for the agents at the US Border to understand that I was bringing an empty truck to the USA. After about an hour they finally let us go.

3-Coming back to Canada to visit with our Dog

This was probably the easiest border crossing in a car we have ever had, we had prepared everything they might ask for, the vaccination certificate for our dog, his registration, our passports, but there was no need. We got to the agent, she asked us our citizenship, we said Canadian,  and she scanned our passports and told us have a nice day.

2-US Customs in Chicago

This was on the return portion of a trip to Italy for work, we had a stopover in Chicago to visit some family, also as we were in the process of getting our permanent residency in the USA we had some travel paperwork that needed to be stamped by US Customs. This was probably the funniest situation, The lawyer had warned us to make sure they stamp all our paperwork. I had the agent the paperwork with our passports, and he looks at me and asks “what am I suppose to do with this?”. I couldn’t help but laugh, I then answered him and repeated what the lawyer said. he said he had never done this before, so he asked another agent who said ” Oh yeah, this is easy” and finished up the paperwork.

1-Passport control in Milan, Italy

This was probably the quickest and funniest ever, we get to passport control to get out of the airport, the agent is deep in conversation with another agent, without even skipping a beat, he looks at my wife passport, then mine, stamps mine and hands them back and never stopped talking the whole time, and didn’t even say one word to us.

So With the recent announcement that Netflix is coming to Canada this fall with their streaming service just builds more of a case to cut the wires to the cable and satellite  service.

With that announcement you can easily see why this makes it even easier to get rid of the cable company as they will be streaming TV and Movies on Demand.

Just waiting to get the details of what they will offer and what the price will be.

The latest way to watch Amazon Video On Demand on your TV.  Starting this month, Amazon customers can now instantly access over 75,000 movies & TV shows on shows on compatible connected TVs and devices. Turn your living room into a digital entertainment center.

Yet another reason to get rid of Cable.

The summer vacation season is in full swing in the northern hemisphere, and here in Montreal it is no different. We are now starting the beginning of the “Construction Holidays” here in Quebec, which is usually a quiet time for most companies in the area usually shut down or scale back operations. all this talk about vacations and taking time off got me thinking about how vacation is given out all over the world.

I have had the great opportunity to work, in several places around the world, with that in mind here is a quick breakdown of the standard vacation allowance (not counting standard holidays Federal/Provincial/State) in each Country I have worked in:

Canada: standard is 10 days, usually goes up to 15 days after about 5 years of service, depends on industry and company.

United States of America: Standard is 10 days, usually as with Canada after a certain number of years of service and/or experience this goes up to 15 days.

United Kingdom: Standard is 20 days. and it can go up with experience and years of service.

So with all that time, does everyone get to use it, can you use it?

from my own experience, with my current employer they encourage people to use their time off, and actually can penalize you if you have too much time accumulated without taking it, which is a great incentive to use it.

Previously it was a struggle with some of the roles I had, as in one role I could not take a real “vacation” as there was no one with the skill set to cover for my role available, so I had to be available in case something happened that they needed my support. I guess it comes with the territory in specialized IT skills.

While in the UK it was actually nice to have so much Vacation time. The problem I had was figuring out how to use it all. which I never really did.

So what are you doing for Vacation?

Okay so I took the advice I had been reading about automating your finances from I will teach you to be rich and modified them slightly to work with my situation and The Canadian banking/saving systems.

Well as things are different on this side of the border, as with all things there are slightly different ways of doing things.  I have direct deposit already set up, which is pretty much standard here in Canada as far as I know from personal experience.  Now here is where things change up a little, unlike the US here in Canada you don’t really have any free Checking account options with the banks or credit unions they all charge a fee depending on the amount of transaction you do per month (note there are some banks but as with most things in Canada not available in Quebec).

So What I have done is taken the account we have and opened a second checking account with another bank.  The beauty and reasoning behind this is that the other bank has lower fees, and I can have my RRSP deduction done pre-tax without any fee, as where with the “bank A” there would be a fee to do this and the service is much better with bank B.

So at this point this is where we are:

• Checking Account with Bank A
• Checking Account with Bank B

Now The way things are Set up I opened up an RRSP Account with Bank B. once I have that set up I give that info to my employer and tell them how much I want deducted from my “PRE-TAX” Pay into my RRSP Account (for those in the US this is the same as a 401K).

So for my scenario I am looking at taking 10% of my Gross or “Pre-Tax” Salary and have that deducted and put into my RRSP account.  Note: here in Canada it is a little different than in the US as there is a maximum amount you can deposit into your RRSP which is calculated each year when you do your income tax return, but the amount is cumulative, so if you have not used your previous room it carries forward each year.

The Beauty of this is your literally getting free money, because there is no tax taken off the funds so they work for you immediately and at full value. Also I find that the impact to your overall “After-Tax” Salary is not that much, in my case I only see about a 9% difference in the total amount I get after all the deductions are done, but I am saving 16% of my “after tax” salary so in essence I am getting almost 7% extra by saving  in my RRSP Account.

So Now for the rest of my system, at Bank A I have a portion of my Salary deposited into this account and this is my fixed expenses that can’t be paid through a Credit Card(to get points) such as rent and some utilities that only take direct payment. so the key here is I know how much my rent is each month and how much the utilities are, this does not fluctuate. I have an amount transferred to cover those bills into this account. and I don’t touch it. I have my cheques written and mail them on the due date for the rent and I have my payment scheduled to be taken from this account on the due dates and this takes care of the expenses and no worries, no headaches. I just check to make sure things have passed as scheduled and the balance is sufficient (usually once a week as my landlord usually takes a while to cash the cheques for some strange reason).

now to Bank B, this is where the rest of my salary gets deposited and this is where the magic happens. So from here I have an automatic transfer to my ING Tax Free Savings Account, now this is something similar to a cash ISA as they have in the UK but in Canada it is relatively new, long story short the Government introduced the (TFSA) In 2008 to Compliment the RRSP and RESP, you can get all the details at www.tfsa.gc.ca now the great thing about TFSA is income earned as well as any withdrawls are tax free.

1. So I have my transfer into my ING account happens automatically the day after my direct deposit goes in, this happens Bi-weekly.
2. Next we have the Credit card Payment scheduled I usually schedule 2 payment as I get paid bi-weekly.
3. then anything left over in this account is spending money.

Now all the other bills I get, which are not that many get handled with the credit card, Cell Phone, Internet, etc..

And in Addition to this I have an automatic purchase plan for my RRSP Account to buy different funds on a monthly basis. so this gives me the benefits of spreading out my investments and making smaller purchases of the funds I am interested in as usually the minimum purchase is anywhere between $500-1000, but with the Automatic purchase plan the minimum monthly purchase amount is $100.

photo by rapidgamer03.
Well as I mentioned in my earlier post Boxee Beta and apple TV I have not had cable or Satellite service since moving back to Canada which will be almost a year now. The only stumbling block I have found as well as many others is when it comes to live sports there is a bit of snag depending on the sport you follow. how do I get around this for the world cup? Well there is a great article over at lifehacker that list where you can find all the streaming online for the world cup.

Well luckily CBC in Canada is streaming all the games live online, and the quality is great, the only issue I have is doesn’t quite work with my apple TV unfortunately. But as always there is a solution.

I use my Laptop which has an HDMI out port and I hook it up to my flat screen with an HDMI cable, and problem solved.

This solution works great, and I used the same setup during the Olympics which were broadcast by CTV in a similar fashion.

And if you have a problem with the sound of the vuvuzela’s you can follow this link to an engineer who created a filter for it, I have not had a chance to try it out.

As Many North American’s it can be hard to travel and not bring along your cell phone, or Mobile phone, regardless of what you call it most people have become attached to their cell phones and it is a center for all their communication needs.

And as a result if you bring it with you anywhere outside of your home country it may end of being very expensive to use it. We have all heard the stories of the poor tourist who brought along his/her phone only to find out when they got home they had a huge bill with roaming charges and long distance fees, that sometimes can easily get into the hundreds and/or thousands of  dollars if you are not careful.

• Now the first thing you need to do is get a GSM phone that has at least 3 bands but preferably 4 bands that would be labeled as a “world phone”, this is key as most of the rest of the world works with the GSM standard and only now is North America starting to move over more to it. In Canada GSM providers would be mainly Rogers, Fido, and Telus, Bell is starting to switch over and there are some other local carriers, and in the US it is mainly AT&T and T-Mobile that offer you GSM.
• The next thing is to get it unlocked, depending on your phone and carrier you can either do this for free or very cheap, but depending on the Brand and Model some can’t be unlocked. It also depends on what you will be doing with your phone, if your just making calls, you don’t need anything fancy, but if you are a die hard techie with a smart phone things can get more difficult. \
• Now This is the most important thing, unless you absolutely need a number active before you arrive in your destination, Buy your SIM Card when you get there, usually you can find a shop in the airport as soon as you walk out or they might even have a vending machine, if not most providers have shops in most towns and in Europe many of the grocery stores even have their own brand of pay as you go SIM cards. And Whatever you do don’t buy the one’s offered in the travel Magazines or on the plane’s duty free in flight catalog, usually they are overpriced and bad service quality.

From my experience usually you can get the SIM card for free when you purchase airtime at the same time from the provider in the country your visiting, otherwise you can get it very cheap. the alternative is you can usually find a package on e-bay where you can get a SIM card in advance sometimes with airtime but usually without, you still need to call to set up an account once you are in the destination country. So save yourself the time, money and hassle as if you buy it once you arrive you still have to provide some information but usually minimal and they usually charge you on e-bay for a card you could get for free.

I have done this myself in Italy, UK, as well as Canada and the USA, and works like a charm every time.

amazon wireless

Well As I mentioned in my other post “How 15 minutes saved me $151.90” I did a similar scenario with the credit Card Company as well and managed to save on my annual fees as Ramit Sethi Mentions in his book I Will Teach You To Be Rich .

Well to give you a bit of history, I recently opened up a credit card, and I decided to go for one with points rewards partly because they had a promotion which when matched with my recent bank account opening which I talk about in the post  “Automating your finances the Canadian way”, was a great deal you get 15000 rewards points for opening the bank account as well as another 15000 for opening the credit card. So the points can be used for travel or merchandise, for travel 15000 points is equal to a short haul flight. So not too bad, plus there are additional perks with the card as additional travel insurance, trip interruption insurance and  Medical travel insurance that are included, in addition to your standard warranty extensions etc…

So after signing up, I get the card and I check out the statement and I see a charge right off the bat for $120 for initial card annual fee, and then another $50 for Secondary card annual fee, then further down I see a credit of $35 for being a bank customer.

So I call up customer service and this is how it goes:
CSR: “Hello how can I help you today Mr. Martin?”

ME: “Well, I see i have been charged an annual fee for both my card and my wife’s, I would like to have that fee removed?”

CSR: ” Let me see what I can do about that for you, please hold”

After About 5 minutes, Agent comes back on the line.

CSR: ” Sir, sorry for the delay, There should not be a problem to get that removed for you, I am just waiting on a Supervisor to approve the request. Can I call you back shortly with an update?”

Now, normally I don’t like to wait for a callback from any service provider when I am making a request but as I keep notes on all my call with companies, I take note of the CSR name and the time.

CSR:” I should have an update within the hour for you”

ME: “okay.”

I was at work, so I had a few meetings and some project work which took me just over the hour. so I had a chance and had not received a call from anyone yet so I called back.

NEW CSR:” Hi Mr. Martin, how can I help you?”

ME: ” well I had called earlier, and spoken to your colleague, who mentioned he would get back to me in an hour with an udpate on my request to get some fees removed”

Now, I have found in my experience it is always better to explain exactly what your looking for, like that there is nothing left to interpretation by the CSR.

NEW CSR:” well let me take a look at your account Mr. Martin.”

NEW CSR:” I see those charges were removed about 10 minutes ago, Perhaps the agent has not had a chance to call you back yet as he may be on the phone with another client.”

ME: “Oh, Perfect. No worries, just wanted to make sure it was taken care of.”

NEW CSR:” is there anything else I can help you with today?”

ME:” No, that’s it.”

Just as a side note I did get a voicemail about 5 minutes after hanging up from the original CSR saying to call back and ask for the notes on my account and I would see the charges were removed.

So Just to Recap I had the following charges credited back to me on my credit Card:

• Annual Fee $120
• Annual Fee for second Card $50
• $35 Credit for Existing Bank Customer

Grand Total of $205 in Savings. $170 Fees Refunded + Additional $35 Credit for being a bank Customer. Not too bad for one day.