Welcome to my Weekly recap November 23^rd Edition where I discuss some of the key events of the past week and provide an update on what I’m doing with my finances.

Stock Market

The stock market has not been very kind to investors these last few weeks. The trend seems to point to the market going lower still. Trump’s trade wars, especially the one with China, seems to be rattling markets as well as Brexit, rising interest rates, slowing global growth, and political instability just about everywhere!

Like everyone else, my investments have taken a bath lately, but these market shakeups also offer us the opportunity to buy quality companies when they’re beaten up. To me, cheap stocks mean higher yields. Higher yields mean that I can buy more dividend income with every dollar that I invest than was the case a few months ago. Already, some of my favorite stocks are yielding over 5%. So I keep on buying stocks in my Questrade Account that I think are cheap and should do well when the market / economy recovers.

Real Estate Investing

It’s been over a year since I sold our 2 out of town rental properties and I’ve been reading a few articles on real estate investing and, more specifically, rent to own strategies.

I learned some important lessons during my foray into rental property investing. The most important lesson that I learned was that I like to have direct control over my investments so I want to own a rental property that is close to home and one that I can run myself. Most property managers are crooks and scammers so I don’t think I’ll ever hire one again.

Anyway, I’m still waiting for the right property at the right price before I jump into the rental game again. Housing prices are still pretty high so there’s not a ton of screaming deals…yet.

Black Friday

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is only a month away. We’ve been busy toy shopping and have found some great deals on Amazon and at Walmart. The kids are still crazy about all things Paw Patrol but they also added some PJ Mask toys to Santa’s list and, for my daughter, a Barbie Playhouse from Kidkraft. I can’t wait to see their faces Christmas morning!

Basement Reno Update

Well we decided on our carpet and placed the order last week. Fingers crossed on getting it installed before December 1^st. I’m still in the process of figuring out if the insurance will pay for the baseboard and trim paint. The carpet and baseboard are the only things left to bring this project to completion.

I had to get the electrician back in this week to wire another wall outlet behind our TV. Now we can have the TV, Android box and soundbar plugged in behind the TV and there won’t be any wires dangling etc. If you’re going to wall mount a big screen TV then you have to do it right and run all the wires behind the TV in the wall. Lots of people don’t bother doing this because it’s time, money and effort but it’s well worth it in the end. It just makes for a nice clean look and if you have young children, they won’t be pulling power cords and other wires.

This week the TV arrived and was installed on the wall. Things are looking good! I can’t wait for the finished look. We went with a Samsung 65-inch 4k TV and an NVIDIA Shield Android box.

As I said before, we didn’t plan on doing a basement reno this year and were caught off guard when we had a leak in the Spring. My wife and I considered our options (ie. sell or renovate) and we decided that we liked the house and the area so we chose to go the extra mile and properly renovate the basement so that we won’t have to worry about water problems again.

We did the full exterior waterproofing and new weeping tiles on our foundation, new drainage for our window wells and installed a sump pump (in addition to the existing storm drain). Now water can drain on both sides of our house.

Inside I fixed and sealed the settlement cracks on the floor and applied a coat of concrete sealer on the entire floor. I painted the ceiling and walls and laid Dry Barrier subfloor throughout the entire basement.

I have to say that the repairs and upgrades seem to have done the job. The basement is a lot more comfortable and cozy. There doesn’t seem to be any moisture or humidity issues either.

Here are some before and after pictures: