Sears and Kmart remove some Trump products online + MORE Feb 13th

Did you know that parents are the number-one influencer on their kids’ financial behaviour? If you’re reading this and are a bit worried because you’re not the greatest with your money—or you’re not exactly sure how to approach the subject of teaching kids about money—don’t panic! There are many ways to make your kid money smart, even if you’re not. That’s exactly what journalist and commentator Beth Kobliner’s latest book, Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You’re Not), is all about.
In 2010, Kobliner was selected by Barack Obama to be a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability. There, she created the website MoneyAsYouGrow.org and in doing this, it allowed her to research on what kids can and should know about money. Since then, she’s also worked as a content advisor for Sesame Workshop’s financial education initiative For Me, For You, For Later. Here, she offers parents tips on exactly how parents can teach young kids about money…

Save, invest, prosper with My Own Advisor.
Welcome to my latest dividend income update.
For those of you new to these posts on my site, every month I discuss our approach to investing focusing on Canadian dividend paying stocks.  We believe buying and holding a number of Canadian dividend-paying stocks in our tax-free (thanks TFSA) and non-registered accounts will, over time, provide some steady monthly income for future wants and needs in retirement.
A new year and more dividend increases…the plan continues to work…
Although Enbridge was a bit late with their dividend increase from 2016, early last month they did not disappoint – with a 10% increase.  Algonquin Power also increased their dividend by 10% last month.  Raises like these without doing anything except sticking with the plan continues to be a positive reinforcing factor with my Canadian buy, hold and collect dividends approach.
Maybe so much so, I always get reader questions about my investing approach – which I’m happy to answer as part of these updates…

We may be living in a ‘scary time,’ but financial advisers urge investors to avoid knee-jerk reactions

When Walter Harris rose in the House of Commons on March 14, 1957, the Liberal finance minister could not have known that the budget speech he was about to read would be one of the last gasps of the Louis St. Laurent government.
The Liberals would be swept aside within months by John Diefenbaker and the Conservatives, but a program introduced in that budget, the registered retirement savings plan or RRSP, would live on.
In his speech, Harris pointed out that employees who were fortunate enough to work for companies that contributed to pension plans didn’t have to pay tax on those contributions until they were withdrawn after retirement.
“It is now proposed to introduce a general policy of allowing tax postponement on limited amounts of earned income set aside for retirement by any taxpayer, whether an employee or not,” he declared.
He later added he was worried about the effect RRSPs would have on tax revenues, predicting widespread use could cost the government as much as $40 million per year…

Sears and Kmart have evicted “a very small number” of Trump-branded items from their online stores, but won’t specify how many and emphasize that hundreds of products are still available through their third-party online marketplaces.
It’s another sign of how companies are trying to tread a careful line, after President Donald Trump rebuked Nordstrom publicly on his Twitter account for deciding to stop selling his daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line. He said Nordstrom had treated his daughter “so unfairly.” Ethics experts saw the comment as a threat to companies that carry the brand and may be weighing the question of whether to keep doing so.
Nordstrom had said in its announcement that the move was based on the brand’s falling sales over the past year, particularly in the last six months. A social media campaign called “Grab Your Wallet” has urged a boycott of stores that stock Ivanka Trump or Donald Trump products, which also include Amazon and Dillard’s…