By Sheryl Smolkin

Kids grow up and many eventually have the means to shower their Moms with expensive dinners, jewelry and other luxury items.

But if you ask most mothers which Mothers Day gift they treasure the most, they will probably tell you it is the first handmade card thier child brought home from nursery school, or the breakfast in bed delivered at sunrise that she made all by herself.

Here are some ideas for Mother’s Day gifts, in no particular order, that will create happy memories without breaking the bank.

1. Flowers: Local markets have beautiful displays of cut flowers and plants at this time of year that are much less costly than if they are purchased from a florist. You can also buy bedding plants or a hanging basket for outdoors that will last much longer than an indoor arrangement.
2. Plant her garden: Many seniors stay in their home as long as possible, but upkeep like planting a garden becomes challenging. Go to a garden centre with your Mom and buy her the plants she likes. Then plant her garden and commit to helping her maintain it through the summer.
3. Sleep: Parents of young children are perennially sleep deprived. The best thing a husband or parent or sibling of a young Mom can do is give her a voucher for a kid free weekend so she can catch up on her zzzzzzs.
4. Social media: I live in Toronto and my delicious granddaughter lives in Ottawa. I love that I can see new pictures and videos of her several times a week on Facebook. If your children’s grandmother is not on Facebook, show her how social media will help her stay in closer touch with family. Then set her up and give her a tutorial.
5. Skype: Long distance phone calls used to be an expensive luxury. Now any two people with a computer can connect on Skype, with the added benefit that they can see each other. If your Mom has friends or family in another city or country and does not already use Skype, get her started and put a balance in her account.
6. High tea: People are so busy with their daily lives, that often they don’t have time to keep up with friends. Pick a date and invite a group of your mother’s old friends over for tea (or coffee), party sandwiches and cake. Fancy hats are mandatory.
7. An outing: Whether your mother’s favourite activity is shopping, going to an art gallery or catching a concert, plan a day together doing her favourite things.
8. A collage: Moms love pictures of their children and extended family. Make and frame a collage of pictures of your children at different ages.
9. A special dinner: Host a family dinner or barbecue and have everyone share a special memory of life with Mom.
10. Music: Put together a mixed CD with songs she loves that will bring back memories. You can also include a book of poetry and some handmade chocolates.

Finally, consider an eReader. They are not cheap, but eReaders can more than pay for themselves in convenience over a short time. I just bought a Kobo Glow and re-joined the Toronto Public Library. I love that I can download books free from the library at any time of the day or night and up the font size to easily read at night when my eyes are tired.

Do you have any great ideas for frugal and fun Mother’s Day gifts? Send us an email to so*********@sa*********.com and share your ideas with us. If your story is posted, your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And remember to put a dollar in the retirement savings jar every time you use one of our money-saving ideas.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

16-May	Spring cleaning	How spring cleaning can save you money
23-May	Budgeting	How to set up a budget and why
30-May	Wedding	How much should you spend on a wedding gift?

By Sheryl Smolkin

There is lots of interesting reading in the blogosphere this week.

Squawkfox Kerry K. Taylor counsels husband Carl on what to do with the $100 bill he found.

On boomer & echo Boomer comments on senior discounts vanishing from our banks.

Marissa is a 20-something recent grad with credit card debt and student loans. On Thirty Six Months she talks about being a good consumer by voting with your wallet.

Timeless Finance blogger Adina J. says if she had the choice, she would earn more instead of spending less to stay solvent.

And finally, Riscario Insider reviews Toronto Star consumer columnist Ellen Roseman’s terrific new book Fightback: 81 ways to help you save money and protect yourself from corporate trickery.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?”  Send us an email with the information to so*********@sa*********.com and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

By Sheryl Smolkin

Once the snow finally melts and the first tender shoots of green grass poke through the mud, I can’t wait to see beds of beautiful flowers on my street. But a garden can be expensive to plant and maintain unless you know what you are doing.

To give you some tips about putting in an inexpensive, low maintenance garden, we talked to Jill Umpherville, the greenhouse manager and third-generation owner at Dutch Growers Garden Centre in Saskatoon. Here is what she told us.

1. Do your research: Go to Pinterest and get inspired. Search gardening catalogues and the Internet. Figure out the direction your house faces so you know if it is sunny or shady and you can get plants that fit the area. Come to the garden centre with ideas so the staff knows how best to help you.
2. When to plant: Don’t plant flowers in Saskatchewan until temperatures at night do not drop below five degrees for about a week. Before that, you may want to put flats of flowers out during the day and bring them in at night to harden them.
3. Early flowers: Pansies are a cold tolerant plant that you can put in early. But they won’t survive nights where the temperature is below -10, so cover them or put them on a cart and bring them into your garage at night.
4. First steps: If you want a neat looking flower bed, put in edging. Also add mulch. This will save you time, as beds with mulch don’t have to be weeded.
5. Prepare the soil: If you live in an area with heavy clay make sure you have a nice base of topsoil. A triple mix of peat moss, top soil and a little bit of manure will provide the soil with nutrients.
6. Get advice: Depending on your space, you probably need fewer shrubs and bedding plants than you think because they spread.
7. Hanging baskets: If you have the space to start plants from seed it may be more economical to plant your own hanging baskets. However, with the short growing season in Saskatchewan, buying them already planted will give you instant colour that will last longer.
8. Perennials: There are dozens of varieties of perennials that do not have to be replaced yearly. For example, Dutch Growers has over 40 varieties of hostas with colours ranging from a bright vibrant green to chartreuse. This plant typically flourishes in the shade. Day lilies are hardy flowering plants that bloom year after year.
9. Annuals: Inexpensive tried and true annuals are colourful petunias, marigolds, lobelia and impatiens (shade).
10. Getting value: Look for plants you can lift out of the pot with roots wrapped around the pot. This means the plants are well-rooted. Also look for a deep green colour in the leaves (unless it is a chartreuse plant). This shows the plant is not nutrient deficient. A flowering plant should have additional buds so you know it will bloom right away and all season long.

Are you on a tight budget? Whether you want to spend $25 for a pot of flowers for your condo or thousands to landscape a large property, Umpherville says everybody can have a garden. “Let people at the garden centre know what your budget is. They will help you work within it,” she says.

Sign up today, refer a friend or transfer funds from an RRSP to the SPP before May 21, 2013, and you could win a $500 Dutch growers gift card. You can find the full contest rules here.

Have you started planning your garden yet? Send an email to so*********@sa*********.com and share your ideas with us. If your story is posted, your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And remember to put a dollar in the retirement savings jar every time you use one of our money-saving ideas.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

9-May	Mother’s day	Mother’s day gifts for every budget
16-May	Spring cleaning	Cleaning your closets? What to do with stuff
23-May	Budget	How to set up a budget and why

By Sheryl Smolkin

Last week we linked you to blogs exploring the road to retirement. Today we present resources for younger readers who may be just starting to get their finances in order.

On Darwin’s Money you can five novel ways to save money. One option is to cancel services you don’t need.

Timeless Finance wonders if you would date somebody who’s in debt. She says almost everybody has some debt so if debt is the deal-breaker there wouldn’t be much dating going on.

Do you and your partner have only joint accounts? Young And Thrifty lists 5 benefits of separate chequing accounts.

If your bundle of joy is due anytime. Find out how maternity benefits work from Brenda Spiering, on Brighter Life.

And Krystal Yee’s blog how much should you save before moving out on Give me back my five bucks is almost two years old, but will still be of interest to people faced with the same decision.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?”  Send us an email with the information to so*********@sa*********.com and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

By Sheryl Smolkin

Have you ever handed your home renovation contractor cash to avoid paying provincial sales tax and GST? Do you accept cash for your in-home daycare services and conveniently “forget” to remit source deductions or claim the income for tax purposes?

If either of these scenarios strikes a chord, chances are you are a participant in the underground economy (UE). A September 2012 Statistics Canada study on the UE in Canada pegs the level of underground activity at $35 billion in 2009.

The UE is any legal business activity that is unreported or under-reported for tax purposes. This can include failing to file returns or omitting an entire business activity, also referred to as “moonlighting” or working “off the books.”

Under-reporting income received, such as “skimming” a portion of business income, bartering, or failing to report a portion of employment income such as tips and gratuities is also included in the UE. The three most significant industry sectors accounting for almost two-thirds of UE activity are construction, retail trade and accommodation/food services.

Why should you care? After all nobody wants any more taxes than they have to.

Well for one thing, paying your taxes is the law. Evading taxes is illegal and can result in criminal convictions leading to fines and jail time in addition to any taxes, interest, and penalties owing.

For example, in December 2012 a Saskatoon man was fined $15,734 for tax evasion for the years 2008 and 2009. He purchased and sold two separate properties for profit and deliberately did not report the income earned from these sources to evade taxes.

In addition, he knowingly failed to report rental income earned from a property, and management fees received from two other renovation projects. The total amount of income found unreported during the years under investigation was $79,195. This resulted in the evasion of federal income tax in the amount of $19,687.

The fine of $15,734 represents 80% of the tax evaded. In addition to the court fines, all outstanding taxes plus penalties and interest must also be paid.

The investigation of tax affairs arose from inconsistencies uncovered during a routine income tax audit which led the CRA to obtain a search warrant and to seize income tax records from the tax evader’s personal residence.

Tax cheating also places an unfair burden on law-abiding businesses and individual taxpayers because overall tax rates must be higher for governments to raise the necessary funds to pay for services.

Businesses that offer lower prices because of their failure to comply with Canada’s tax laws gain an unfair advantage. Tax-cheating employers also gain an unreasonable competitive edge by paying wages under the table in cash, in order to avoid paying the employer portion of employment insurance premiums and Canada Pension Plan contributions. The “knock on effect” is that their employees are eventually deprived of benefits from these important social programs.

Finally, those who avoid paying taxes are taking money that is needed for important investments in schools, hospitals, and other vital government services.  In addition, cash transactions with no written contract or receipt offer no consumer protection and make it difficult for consumers to seek recourse.

Just because you haven’t been caught yet doesn’t mean you won’t be caught in future.

The Canada Revenue Agency has a variety of tools to detect those who do not report all of their income, including on-site visits by officers, information obtained from third-party reporting, leads from other audit files, informants, and indications that taxpayers are living beyond the level of income they report.

If you haven’t declared all of your sales and income in the past, you may be able to correct your information using the CRA’s Voluntary Disclosures Program. If you make a full disclosure before any audit or criminal investigation is started, you may only have to pay the taxes owing plus interest, but not the penalties.

While it may be tempting at times to try and avoid paying some or all of the taxes you, in the long run doing the right thing will actually save you money.

Have you filed your tax return yet? Send us an email to so*********@sa*********.com and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And remember to put a dollar in the retirement savings jar every time you use one of our money-saving ideas.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

2-May	Gardening	Cheapest ways to plant a maintenance-free garden
9-May	Mother’s day	Mother’s day gifts for every budget
16-May	Spring cleaning	How spring cleaning can save you money

By Sheryl Smolkin

This week our favourite bloggers have been writing about getting ready for retirement.

On Boomer and Echo, Boomer asks Have You Made Your Retirement Plans? — not only saving enough money, but deciding where you plan to live and how you will fill your time.

However, for RetiredSyd, retirement is a already full-time job. She is thrilled to finally be learning to play the piano and improvising retirement as she goes along.

Canadian Finance blogger Tom Drake de-mystifies Locked in Retirement Accounts.

RetireHappy gives you the facts so you can decide whether an annuity is right for you.

And on Brighter Life retiree Dave Dineen realizes he and his wife have 27 bank, investment, credit, and insurance accounts, so it may be time to shut a few down.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?”  Send us an email with the information to so*********@sa*********.com and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

By Sheryl Smolkin

According to weddingbells.ca, the average expected cost of a wedding in Canada excluding the honeymoon is $22,429 and if you include the honeymoon, the bill increases to $27,899.

Here is the average budget breakdown based on anticipated costs:

Venue	$9,255	Limo	$753
Honeymoon	$5,470	Cake	$584
Rings/bands	$2,470	Jewellery	$483
Photographer	$2,206	Hairstylist	$467
Bridal Gown	$1,847	Guest favours	$452
Decor/Florist	$1,343	Bridesmaid’s dresses	$428
DJ/Musicians	$1,247	Stationery	$384

Because weddings frequently end up going over budget, the average actual cost of a wedding is $31,110 in Canada.

Even if you have been dreaming of a fancy, traditional wedding since you could walk, that’s an awful lot of money to spend for one day when you are still paying off student loans or saving for a down payment on your first house.

Not everyone can be as frugal as Kerry K. Taylor (aka Squawkfox) who had only four guests and spent $591.12 in total on her wedding to Carl. But Part 1 and Part 2 of her wedding blogs are very entertaining and contain lots of terrific frugal helpful hints.

Here are a few of my suggestions based in part on a great list of Cheap Wedding Tips and Ideas I found online and coloured by my experience helping my daughter plan her wedding several years ago.

Invitations: Engraved invitations with return cards, envelopes and stamps can be very expensive. You can get beautiful paper and envelopes from a stationery store and print your own invitations using a laser printer for a fraction of the cost. You can also create an electronic invitation and have guests RSVP to an email address or a website. 

Venue & food: Look for a free or low cost venue like a community centre or an outdoor setting like a park or beach for a summer wedding. Sometimes it’s cheaper to get married on a week night or have a morning wedding followed by lunch instead of an evening ceremony.

If you can select your own caterer and friends and family are willing to contribute part of the meal, you will save a bundle. Also, try to find a venue that will allow you to get a liquor licence and buy your own beverages instead of paying per drink or per bottle.

But keep in mind that you may have to rent tables, chairs, dishes and even a tent for an unconventional venue. In addition to servers, you will need people to do setup, strike down and cleanup after the party. You may be more than willing to pay for a “wedding package” offered by a hotel or banquet hall that ensures you don’t have to worry about these logistics on your special day.

Rings/bands: Get simple gold or white gold bands. Think of options like coloured or semi-precious stones rather than diamonds. See if there are any family antiques or heirlooms you can incorporate into the design.

Bridal gown: Before you say “yes to the dress” and spend thousands of dollars at a traditional bridal salon, consider other options. Your mother or older sister’s dress may have great sentimental value and it may be possible to alter the dress to fit. It’s worth checking out stores that sell prom dresses or other evening gowns, particularly if you are getting married in a more casual setting like a beach. If you take a sample size, you may find your dream dress at a seasonal sale at a high-end dress store.

And don’t forget pre-owned wedding dresses available online or from The Brides Project, a charity that raises money for cancer.

Bridesmaid dresses: You have to watch the movie 27 dresses  to fully appreciate how hideous bridesmaid dresses can be and remember how much you hated shelling out for the dress you wore to your second cousin’s wedding. Allowing attendants to choose the same colour attire in styles that suit them makes everyone more comfortable. My daughter’s attendants all wore short black dresses they chose themselves with red shoes.

Flowers and decor: Buy seasonal flowers in bulk at a local market.  Display them attractively with tea lights in glass vases you can purchase from the dollar store. For a Christmas wedding poinsettias and dried branches sprayed white can make very effective centerpieces. I am not “crafty” but for those of you who are, there are lots of ideas on Pinterest.

Wedding cake: We decided to substitute a tiered plate of exotic cupcakes for a more traditional wedding cake. They tasted better and, there were only a few left over by the end of the night. 

Photographer: See if you can find a photographer who will take pictures of the wedding and in return for an hourly rate, give you a CD with all of the pictures. You can select the pictures you want to print and even create your own photo books online or using the services of a local camera store. To augment the professional photos, put disposable cameras on every table and ask your guest take pictures throughout the event.

Weddings are emotional occasions that bring out the best and the worst in people. One of the biggest challenges can be paring down the guest list to stay on budget without alienating someone.

You want your wedding to be perfect, but remember it’s just the first day of the rest of your life. You will be off to a much better start if in the early years of your marriage if you don’t have the additional burden of paying off debts for a wedding you couldn’t really afford.

Have you planned a wedding? Send us an email to so*********@sa*********.com and tell us about how you saved money. Your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And don’t forget that the Saskatchewan Pension Plan offers a flexible way to save affordable amounts for retirement.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

25-Apr	Taxes	Why declating all of your income can save you money
2-May	Gardening	Cheapest ways to plant a maintenance-free garden
9-May	Mother’s day	Mother’s day gifts for every budget

By Sheryl Smolkin

This week Jon Chevreau, the editor of Moneysense magazine celebrated his 60^th birthday and the release of the U.S. edition of his book Findependence Day. You can listen to a podcast interview I did with Jon last summer.

In a “must read” blog he wrote to mark the occasion, Jon made an important distinction between early retirement and financial independence:

“Financial independence is not the same as retirement,” Chevreau says. “Ideally, it precedes retirement by decades. It means you continue to work because you want to, not because you have to.”

Exploring a similar topic, on Darwin’s Money, the author debunks some myths about extreme early retirement and says, “The problem I have with people declaring that they’ve retired in an ‘extreme’ fashion is that they’re either not really retired, or they’re relying on a spouse, which, well, isn’t really the same thing.”

So based on the discussion in the two posts above, did guest blogger Robert (a financial planner) on Canadian Dream: Free at 45 really retire at age 35, or has he simply achieved financial independence? To find a purpose in “retirement” he has gone back to school with the goal of eventually living and working overseas.

The same question may be asked of accountant “Retired Syd” who retired in her 40s. On Retirement: A full-time job she muses about the best place to live for the next chapter in her life. Because her priority is friends and family, she concludes that living close to the people she loves is more important than any dreams of settling in a more distant locale.

But She Thinks I’m Cheap has already made the leap to London with his wife and in his latest blog you can read about their experience relocating overseas and re-entering the workforce.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?”  Send us an email with the information to so*********@sa*********.com and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

SPP posted a return of 0.60 to the balanced fund (BF) and 0.037 to the short-term fund (STF). The year to date return in the BF is 4.65% and in the STF is 0.110%.

Market index returns for March 2013 were:

Index	Mar 2013 return (%)
S&P/TSX Composite (Canadian equities)	-0.19
S&P 500 (C$) (US equities)	2.53
MSCI EAFE (C$) (Non-north American equities)	-0.37
DEX Universe Bond (Canadian bonds)	0.44
DEX 91 day T-bill	0.07

Click here for a complete list of returns.

By Sheryl Smolkin

It seems like filing income tax returns gets more complicated every year. Most of us will be e-filing this year because the Canada Revenue Agency is no longer sending paper forms to every household. But even if you carefully fill in the blanks on an electronic form, it’s easy to miss important deductions or tax credits that will help you to hold on to more of your hard-earned money.

Here is a list of 10 tax deductions and tax credits to remember when you are filing your tax return.

1. Line 208 – Saskatchewan Pension Plan contributions
   You must have available RRSP room to make an SPP contribution. SPP contributions should be reported on Schedule 7 of your income tax form and claimed on line 208. Both your application and your contribution must be received by SPP before a tax receipt will be issued.SPP contributions will be taken into account in determining RRSP over-contributions. Spousal contributions are permitted and if the contributor has available RRSP room, he or she may contribute and receive a tax deduction for both their personal and their spouse’s account. Spousal attribution rules apply to SPP.
2. Line 214 – Childcare expenses
   The annual childcare expenses you can deduct depend on the age of your child. For example:
   • For a child born in 2006 and later: $7,000
   • For a child born in 2012 or earlier: $10,000
   • For a child born 1996-2005:            $4,000

   What qualifies as a childcare expense and who can make the claim are discussed in detail on the Information Sheet and Form T778.

3. Line 215 – Disability supports deduction
   If you have an impairment in physical or mental functions, you can claim a disability supports deduction if you paid expenses that no one has claimed as medical expenses, and you paid them so you could:
   • Be employed or carry on a business (either alone or as an active partner).
   • Do research or similar work for which you received a grant; or
   • Attend a designated educational institution or a secondary school where you were enrolled in an educational program.

   You cannot claim amounts that were reimbursed by a non-taxable payment such as insurance. Expenses must be claimed in the same year they are paid.

4. Line 301 – Age amount
   You can claim this amount if you were 65 years of age or older on December 31, 2012, and your net income is less than $78,684. If your net income was:
   • $33,884 or less, you can claim $6,720.
   • More than $33,884, but less than $78,684, complete the chart for line 301 on the Federal Worksheet to calculate your claim.

   Don’t forget to also claim the corresponding provincial tax credit.

5. Line 319 –  Interest paid on your student loan
   You may be eligible to claim an amount for the interest paid on your student loan in 2012 or the preceding five years for post-secondary education if you received it under:
   • The Canada Student Loans Act.
   • The Canada Student Financial Assistance Act; or
   • A similar provincial or territorial government law.
6. Line 324 – Tuition, education, and textbook amounts transferred from a child
   The maximum tuition, education, and textbook amount transferred from a child (or from each child), is $5,000 minus the amounts that he or she uses, even if there is still an unclaimed part. Tuition, education, and textbook amounts that the student carried forward from a previous year cannot be transferred. Only one person can claim this transfer from the student. However, it does not have to be the same parent or grandparent that claims the student as a dependant.
7. Line 330 – Medical expenses
   You can claim on line 330 the total eligible medical expenses you or your spouse or common-law partner paid for:
   • Yourself.
   • Your spouse or common-law partner; and
   • Your child or your spouse’s or common-law partner’s child born in 1995 or later.

   The amount you can claim is the lesser of:

   • 3% of your net income; or
   • $2,109.

   To maximize this claim, it should be deducted by the spouse with the lower income.

8. Line 331 – Allowable amount of medical expenses for other dependants
   Claim on line 331 the part of eligible medical expenses you or your spouse or common-law partner paid for the following persons who depended on you for support:
   • Your child or your spouse’s or common-law partner’s child who was born in 1994 or earlier, or grandchild; or
   • Your or your spouse’s or common-law partner’s parent, grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew who was a resident of Canada at any time in the year.
9. Line 365 – Children’s fitness amount
   You can claim to a maximum of $500 per child, the fees paid in 2012 relating to the cost of registration or membership for your child or your spouse’s or common-law partner’s child in a prescribed program of physical activity.
10. Line 370 – Children’s arts amount
    You can claim to a maximum of $500 per child the fees paid in 2012 relating to the cost of registration or membership of your child or your spouse’s or common-law partner’s child in a prescribed program of artistic, cultural, recreational, or developmental activity.

Have you filed your taxes already? Send us an email to so*********@sa*********.com and tell us about other valuable tax deductions we may have missed. If your story is posted, your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And remember to put a dollar in the retirement savings jar every time you use one of our money-saving ideas.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

18-Apr	Wedding	How to beat the high cost of weddings
25-Apr	Taxes	Why you should file your tax return on time
2-May	Gardening	Cheapest ways to plant a maintenance-free garden