Our Wonderful Disney World Holiday Venture (Part 2 of 2)

This is the second chapter of our latest Disney trip report which comes to you with just a few pictures but much more words. You can read the first installment here.

You’re probably eager to hear about all our best Disney advices.

Be patient as we first start by talking about our fantastic once-in-a-lifetime New Year’s Eve experience at Magic Kingdom.

After that, we’ll also get into discovering apparently infinite possibilities always pleasantly surprising us at Disney.

The New Year at Disney World

Spending New Year’s Eve at Magic Kingdom was an amazing experience. It sure gave us the chance to check off one major item from our bucket list.

In fact, I was personally so excited that a had a hard time sleeping and woke up for good at about 4:30 am that morning. I ended up being a little tired after the previous day airplane traveling and shopping at Disney Springs. All that adrenaline still kept me going but I remained a bit out of phase. My two girls laughed quite a lot about it because they are supposed to be the Disney nuts of the family. With retrospect, I would still qualify myself as the Disney planning nutcracker.

Because it is such a busy day, we had to plan New Year’s Eve at our preferred Disney park accordingly.

Our Wonderful Disney World Holiday Venture (Part 1 of 2)

As I said on several occasions before, going to Disney World is always exciting and a lot of fun. For us, it was even more special this time around as it was our first visit during the Holidays. My open schedule also allowed for some extensive planning and the freak planner in me really enjoyed the whole process.

Sorry it took a while to write these posts, but it gave me an excuse to continue savoring this magical once-in-a-lifetime trip even more.

We’ll do our best to give you a glimpse and pointers regarding our incredible experiences like our second visit ever to Cinderella’s Royal Table, the remarkable restaurant inside the famous Disney World castle or the fact we were finally blessed to land a dinner reservation at Be Our Guest.

Temperatures were cold, even sometimes freezing which is very rare and atypical for Florida, but it didn’t ruin our pleasure being Canadian and kind of prepared. You can read more about it in the second part of this brief Disney series that will include some of our best strategies and tips to accommodate any vacation at Disney, along with other always interesting Disney related topics.

As usual, we’ll use this opportunity to talk about Disney’s amazing values. In fact, let’s start with one of their most profitable ones.

Investing The 12-Minute Way (Revisited)

The 12-Minute Series was originally posted in 2012.

We’ve decided to republish it integrally because we believe it can still help as everyone aspires to make things better.

Let’s hope it stirs up the discussion and stimulates you to change the world 12-Minute at a time!

This article was originally posted on September 12, 2012

Keep It Simple

You should only use financial products you understand. So, stick to the basics. Complex and complicated products often only serve those who sell them.

Same goes for stocks, only invest in solid companies you know and understand.

In this great Internet/Information era, it’s relatively simple to get data on any public company. To stay effective, we recommend you only take 12-Minute when you first analyze a potential candidate for your portfolio or watch list.

Gradually Building Up a 12-Minute Workout Program

Till my late thirties, I remained quite fit. I had no real merit as exercising came easy to me. In fact, I always used to do it having fun, playing games or doing sports like golf, badminton, hockey, etc. 

A couple injuries and a knee surgery later, things were getting a tad more complicated. Predominantly due to a lack of time, of interest and opportunities, more and more, working out became a hassle. Far from being a workout maniac, I have to say gyms are not really my thing.

The problem is, even if you don’t like it, exercise is kind of mandatory for us, mere human mortals. Over time, I gained weight and my general health gradually deteriorated. My morale eventually started to be affected as I was increasingly prone to illness. I had to do something to get out of that lethal spiral. 

Then, the 12-Minute Method came to the rescue. I got the ball rolling with workout sessions of only 12-Minute every 3-4 days and progressively built up to 48 minutes every other day.

Think Twice Before Committing to The Home Buyers’ Plan

Today, we’re going to talk about one of our biggest financial mistakes over the years. It relates to the appealing Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP). Our young selves happily lunged into it acquiring our present house more than 15 years ago. At the time, it seemed like a very wise decision and the strategy provided us with a substantial chunk of change that greatly helped us in the short term. With retrospect, it now looks more and more like a very poor financial choice that considerably cost us in the long haul.

Everybody would love to, one day, have a nice home. For many, owning a big house is synonymous with financial success.

For most young folks, becoming a homeowner seems like a steep financial achievement and many may think it will remain only a distant dream. Then, they hear about the Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) and their dream suddenly becomes more accessible. They see no-hassle free money that potentially can boost their house down payment (maybe a mistake). For some, the HBP may even provide the only cash to finance their once unattainable dream (definitively a mistake).

Fiscal Debt That Can Have Significant Long-Term Repercussions

The HBP allows you to avoid paying taxes on some RRSP withdrawals if you use those funds to buy your first house. After a two-year grace period, you have 15 years to repay your RRSP. The problem is that for most participants, the resulting tax bill will end up costing them much more in the future. The long-term implications and financial impact of that heftier tax bill cannot be ignored.

It makes no sense to withdraw from your RRSP avoiding only a 25-30% tax bill and later, to repay your RRSP with an ensuing 45-50% tax cost.

12-Minute Diet and Meal Planner (Revisited)

The 12-Minute Series was originally posted in 2012.

We’ve decided to republish it integrally because we believe it can still help as everyone aspires to make things better.

Let’s hope it stirs up the discussion and stimulates you to change the world 12-Minute at a time!

This article was originally posted on August 12, 2012

When it comes down to food, the 12-Minute Way can be quite useful to help you manage your diet and plan your meals. 

There’s more to it than the common dozen eggs.

Because approximately 40% of food goes to waste in America, an incredible opportunity for improvement exists in the vast food domain, an opportunity to save precious resources and money.

But also an opportunity to reduce stress and free up some of your schedule because, day after day, food preparation can sometimes be pretty hectic and time consuming.