I can’t even begin. Go read the story for yourself. Happy Friday.

This man regularly stands outside of the VanCity building where I work. Often he’ll be by the starbucks (the one by the Main Street skytrain). Anyway,

Just received notice on this initiative happening citywide on Vancouver street-corners, Saturday the 23rd from 1-2pm.

I’ll extricate myself from work to be there.

STAND: “HOMES FOR ALL!”
8 Locations:
- Main St. & 33rd Avenue (Kia Salomons and CALM)
- Main St. & King Edward (Ned Jabobs and CALM)
- Arbutus & King Edward (Maggie Geiser and CHC)
- Broadway & McDonald (Julie Hughes and CHC)
- Broadway & Heather (Rider Cooey and CHC)
- Commercial & 1st Avenue (Dave Diewert and Streams of Justice)
- Cordova & Gore (Anne Kennedy and Social Justice Cttee. at St James Anglican Church)
- Burrard & Nelson (Bobbie Phillips and St Andrew’s-Wesley United Church Housing and Mental Health Action Group)

Please join us at any of the above locations. We have held STANDS for HOUSING at Main and 33rd Ave. since October, and we believe there can be a big impact with STANDS throughout the city.
The idea of the STAND is based on the moving example of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, mothers whose children were “disappeared”: by the military, ‘76 to ‘83. They stood every week in a city square wearing white scarves. The scarves became an international “brand” for peaceful protests.

Similarly, ours is not a rally, but a visual presence. Our initial STAND has been near Little Mountain Housing complex, awaiting ‘redevelopment’ in 2010 and with 100 homes already sitting empty. Your STAND could be within walking distance of your home. It need last for only one hour, Saturday, 1:00 to 2:00 pm. We hand out leaflets to pedestrians and cars at the red light, discussing the great and growing need for permanent social housing, not just temporary supportive housing. We urge people to join us or create their own STAND in their neighbourhoods.

POLICIES THAT CAUSE HOMELESSNESS MUST BE CHANGED

We hope you’ll join this action on February 23 and beyond.
This action is organized by CALM, Citywide Housing Coalition, and Streams of Justice

In my early adulthood, my dad pointed out that in addition to love, marriage is also about becoming an economic unit. Having spoken to numerous couples about their finances, I have to agree. I asked my friends over at DivineMatchmaking about their experience setting couples up –where did the financial aspects come into play? Check out their response, and if you have had experience either starting a relationship (like Krystal) or well into the relationship and sifting through how to work cooperatively on finances, I’d love to hear, so leave a comment below.

Everyone knows that money can be a deal breaker. Most relationships end in divorce due to money matters or infidelity, and it is because of this that couples need to be aware of and focused on their financial situations before taking it to the next level; and they must also know how to manage the green situation once they’re in.

Here are a few basic tips for sorting out the small stuff, before it becomes big:

1. Openly discuss your finances with your partner, and develop a plan. Do you want joint bank accounts or separate? One car or two, etc.

2. Understand each other’s credit history so it’s no surprise when you go to buy that house together.

3. Give yourselves time to save up to buy that new house

4. Get debt under control before making the plunge.

5. And most importantly, stay focused- don’t let money problems get in the way of your love for one another. Life is too short.

Money is one of the last things you want to talk about when you’re falling in love, but the first thing you should talk about when things get serious. No longer do we live in a society where the husband is the sole breadwinner and the woman is the homemaker. Today more than ever, people entering into relationships share equal weight of financial responsibility, and most likely bring something to the relationship whether it is a little security or a lot of debt.

Especially in today’s economic and cultural situation (i.e. the bigger the better), it is important if not essential to know how, when, and to what extent you and your partner have to manage your money. Money matters have become both a blessing and burden; couples are more likely to discuss their sex lives than the state of their bank account.

Bottom line: money does matter; managing money in an economical, functional, and appropriate way can make or break a relationship.

Divine Intervention. Matchmaking of the Highest Order.

Readers – what do you think?  Are relationships as much about being an economic unit as love? 

Cha-ching; cha-ching! Some awesome deals this week.

Freebie #1

If you read this blog, I bet you know this show, featuring Gail Vaz-Oxlade
who works with couples up to their eyeballs in debt, and gets them turned around.

She does very similar work as me, but she’s a lot further down the road professionally. She rocks, imho. (although I’m a lot softer in my approach)

Freebie: teleseminar with Gail as the guest for 100 people hosted by Cdn Financial Advisor. Just go register on his site (I imagine you’ll get follow up e-mails, so use your ‘casual’ e-mail address like yahoo or hotmail). I’ll be on the call too, if I can at all manage it.

If you’ve never done a teleseminar before, you will receive an e-mail with the ph# plus a code. Usually, the guest/host talk for a while, then the lines are opened to take questions directly to Gail.

Freebie #2 (for my fellow Metro-Vancouverites): Free Vivaldi Concert this Friday

Pacific Baroque Orchestra

is offering a free (or by donation) concert this Friday, 7:30pm (I think) at
St. James Anglican Church (my parish). These concerts are especially intended for residents of the dtes, but all are truly welcome (we’ve yet to pack out the house, so there’s room for you).

Concert Program: Vivaldi! Featuring the exhilerating “Gloria” with a 30-voice children’s choir from Victoria. (ps: you likely have heard “Four Seasons” by Vivaldi).

Shoutout to my classical music blogger friends – care to join me for the concert? David, Urbanista, AmicusMusic?

Or blogging neighbours, CarollSill, Krystal, DavidEby, Steven VancouverManifesto and the inimitable Sean of BeyondRobson? (or you guys going to NorthernVoice, like everyone else?)

Freebie #3 BirthLounge 2: theme – how to source locally for your babies

On March 8th, Birth Lounge will host the second annual Birth Fest at the
Britannia Community Centre 10am-3pm, Gym D.
Birth Fest explores the philosophy of the Hundred Mile Diet by bringing together local maternity care service providers, vendors and performers to celebrate all that is available for growing families close to home.

• Who makes your diaper rash cream?
• Where can you get home-made prepared meals for those busy days after the baby is born?
• Where can you find toxin-free, wooden toys for children?

And Freebie #4

My offer is still on for my free e-book, “RRSPs in Plain English” – just e-mail me at nancy (symbol) your money by design (make that one word) dot com (fyi – if you don’t usually read blogs, we spell out our emails weird like that to prevent spam robots from understanding our addresses). Prefer to see, rather than read? In that case, one more time:

ps: and as always, it’s worth taking a gander over to Bargainista to see what she’s found by way of great deals.

Thank You, Aizik Ebert. If you haven’t privately offered up a blessing on this Toronto man, you should.

He’s filed a class action lawsuit against and , and

According to the National Post he is alleging senior execs of these companies conspired to “to fix, enhance and maintain the price of chocolate products in Canada”.

Mr. Ebert is representing all of us who purchased our chocolate fix from these companies in the past four years.

All the more power to him – I hope we get paid out in cocoa, personally.

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Econ 101 Lesson of the Day: Canada has a Competition Act. “Crimes include conspiracy, bid-rigging, discriminatory and predatory pricing, price maintenance, misleading advertising and deceptive marketing practices. These offences are prosecuted before criminal courts that may impose fines, order imprisonment, issue prohibition orders and interim injunctions, or any combination of these remedies.”