4.5 year – 2.50% + MORE Nov 24th

OKOTOKS, Alta. – The Mullen Group Ltd. (TSX:MTL) says it will pay $172 million in cash to acquire the assets of Gardewine Group Limited Partnership, one of the largest privately owned trucking companies in Canada.
Under the deal, Mullen will acquire the businesses, including land and buildings of Manitoba-based Gardewine. The businesses include Gardewine North, Northern Cartage, Northern Deck, Northern Bulk and Northern Logistics.
The deal, announced Monday after markets closed, is expected to be completed in early 2015.
Gardewine provides regional less-than-truckload, truckload and specialized truckload services primarily in Manitoba and Ontario. It operates a fleet of some 660 trucks and 1,300 trailers through a network of 34 owned and leased terminals and has some 1,500 employees and 140 contract owner operators.
“This is one of those acquisitions that simply does not come along very often,” Mullen chairman and CEO Murray Mullen said Monday in announcing the deal…

This GIC rate is offered by DUCA Financial Services and was updated on 2014-06-13. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.

(Getty Images/Image Source)
Over the last few years critics have complained that fewer and fewer Canadians rely on personal savings for their down payment, preferring to get help from friends and other sources. But a new survey shows that this just isn’t the case.
Released in mid-November by the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals, the annual survey shows that the average down payment made by first-time homebuyers hasn’t changed much in the last three decades—bouncing between 20% and 22% since 1980. However, the source of that down payment has shifted over the years.
Before 1980, first-time homebuyers relied primarily on:
personal savings for the bulk of their down payment (54%)
gifts from family members (5%)
family loans (9%)
loans from financial institutions (26%)
loans from employers (1%)
other sources (4%)
withdrawals from an RRSP (2%)
Between 2010 and 2014, the source of down payment shifted:
personal savings for the bulk of their down payment (40%)
gifts from family members (11%)
family loans (6%)
loans from financial institutions (27%)
loans from employers (1%)
other sources (2%)
withdrawals from an RRSP (12%)
However, if you were to include withdrawals from RRSPs as part of savings, then there’s only been a 2% drop in the amount of personal savings used by first-time homebuyers to make a down payment—from 54% in pre-1980, to 52% in the 2010 to 2014 period…

This GIC rate is offered by Oaken Financial and was updated on 2014-10-06. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.

Amedeo de Palma
At first glance, Randy Brighton and Gabriel Valenti have an enviable life. The two common-law partners live in a townhouse they bought in a trendy downtown Toronto neighbourhood in 2012—the year they said good-bye to the single life and officially became an item. Like all good couples, they share common interests, including a passion for classical music and charitable causes. They also love to travel, with destinations such as Iceland, Japan, the Pacific Islands and the Canadian North on their bucket list. Financially, it would appear things are going well, too. Between the two of them, they pull in a healthy $169,000 a year and collectively their assets exceed $1.6 million. But the truth is money is tight, and beneath the veneer of success, Randy and Gabriel are struggling. (We’ve changed their names to protect their privacy.)
Randy, 32, is an aspiring musician just finishing up a second album—and he has some debt as a result of that venture. To make ends meet, he has a day job as a sales analyst for a film studio, but he thinks he may become a real estate agent if his music career doesn’t take off…