In a desperate stock market environment, real cash is hard to save

Today was supposed to be an important day. I was supposed to hit the gym (yes!), but before going, I check online, and the local Econofitness where I wanted to registered was closed... Too bad! I was going to respect one of my many New Year resolution, but it just didn't happen. At least not today.

However, I did exercised anyway, despite the rain. I went for a walk on the Mont-Royal Avenue. On my way back, I stop by the Renaud-Bray library on Saint-Denis to read magazines, like I usually do, and to my surprise, I saw a "Quebec celebrity" with his young baby: Guy A. Lepage. I wasn't sure if it was him or not, but I check later on his Twitter account, and I saw that he had post a message about pushing a stroller... and taking note of all the stores that are closed in the Plateau Mont-Royal... It was the man. People left him alone. Only New Brunswickers like myself can get really excited when seeing a celebrity! hahaha! And it honestly very often happen when I am at my worst, wearing   jogging and no make-up on because its Sunday. I didn't learn my lesson yet. 

Plateau Mont-Royal is among one of the most expensive places in Montreal, its not a surprise that many stores have to closed. Rent for business owners might be extra expensive. At a point, there's too many restaurants and little boutiques, all cannot survived. And I think that this reality will be more present in 2016. As the stock market go down, people are getting scare and spend less. Its actually how I react to the very stressful climate we are in right now. Its not something that will be fix overnight. Some compare what we are living right now to 2008 but its far different. 2008 was about the US mortgage crisis. Lately, we had been facing a big drop in the value of oil, many jobs lost in Western Canada, China is coming out with a bunch of new problems that we never had to deal before - or choose to ignore. In all this what 2016 will be like? What I feel is that 2016 will be another very rough year.

You can imagine, now more than ever before, I am extra careful with my spending and I am currently writing down in my agenda how much I am spending and for which purposes... It could seem quite drastic, but I lost thousand of dollars on the stock market alone, I had book a trip to Cuba in February, and I am trying to put away some cash that would eventually stay in my bank account... Possible or not? Montreal itself doesn't make it an easy place to save money. It need a lot of self-control. Everything become possible only from the minute you put time and efforts into it. For the week of January 3th, I spent $120.73.

I don't have any formal cash reserved; its been the cased for the several past years. My dividend earnings bring in some cash, but all the extra money I earned in the past years went directly to buy new investments or to pay down some debt. I would like to have a couple thousands saved at the bank. My worst fear would be to have to sell some of my investments to cover some emergencies spending. Be 100% invested is not a good thing, for the simple reason that money is always and will always be needed. This is really not easy for me because the thrill of my next investment move is what used to keep me going. But in a market with such volatility, its my own little world that is collapsing under my feet and its not fun. Its not fun at all.