Dec 1 2017
Oct 14 2017
VNCS Japanese Cultural Fair 2017
The Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society
proudly presents
The 18th Annual (2017) Japanese Cultural Fair
Saturday, October 21st
Esquimalt Recreation Centre
10:00AM TO 4:00PM
FREE ADMISSION
Family Friendly!
For more information please visit www.vncs.ca and www.facebook.com/vncs.ca.
Oct 14 2016
VNCS Japanese Cultural Fair 2016
The Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society
proudly presents
The 17th Annual (2016) Japanese Cultural Fair
Saturday, October 22nd
Esquimalt Recreation Centre
10:00AM TO 4:00PM
FREE ADMISSION
Family Friendly!
For more information please visit www.vncs.ca and www.facebook.com/vncs.ca.
Oct 14 2015
VNCS Japanese Cultural Fair 2015
The Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society
proudly presents
The 16th Annual (2015) Japanese Cultural Fair
Saturday, October 24th
Esquimalt Recreation Centre
10:00AM TO 4:00PM
FREE ADMISSION
Family Friendly!
For more information please visit www.vncs.ca and www.facebook.com/vncs.ca.
May 17 2015
The Lazy Investor – Derek Foster
Two words…dividend investing. I am not sure when I stumbled upon the dividend investing strategy, but stumble upon it I did, which lead me to the Lazy Investor by Derek Foster. It is a really straight forward book about Dividend Reinvestment Plans (aka DRiPs or DRiPing) and Stock Purchase Plans (aka SPP) also also referred to as Optional Cash Purchasing (aka OCP) which when combined together over the long term make for a solid income generation plan.
More
May 10 2015
Five Wealth Secrets 96% of Us Don’t Know – Craig Hill
A gift from my Mom. She knew we were well into our war on debt and this handy little book got us thinking about more than just paying down debt. It got us thinking about the future and also what legacy we might leave for our descendants.The five wealth secrets are:
- Use Jars
- Focus on Vision
- Invest in Multiplication
- Anticipate Economic Cycles
- Leave an Inheritance for Two Generations
May 1 2015
Mercer Website Update 2015 – Tomidou Added
It’s been a couple of years since we paid much attention to the Mercer’s website. We were working on a side project called “Tomi Dou“. Tomi is Japanese for “wealth” and Dou is Japanese for “the way of” Tomi Dou = “The Way of Wealth” which is a collection of our strategies for getting out of debt (something we accomplished in November 2014) and hopefully our journey to financial independence. Instead of releasing a whole new sub-blog we decided to that move all those articles into our main site here: http://themercers.ca/category/tomi-dou-the-way-of-wealth/. We’re hoping others will benefit from some our lessons learned.
By Craig "hachiroku" Mercer • News •
Apr 24 2015
Order Out Of Chaos has finally launched!
I am happy to announce that I have finally launched my Order Out Of Chaos site (http://www.themercers.ca/OrderOutOfChaos/). It’s a platform for project management and methodology which is what fills my work days. I love what I do and want to share it with others.
The purpose of the site is to:
- Allow me to speak candidly about my thoughts primarily on project/program/portfolio management, secondarily on benefits realization management, change management and process improvement.
- Explore how the above disciplines can be layered together and their effectiveness multiplied through systems thinking.
- Allow me to explore the nature of variation (aka waste) and what we might do about it on the macro (e.g.: project management) and micro (e.g.: process improvement) levels.
- Allow me to share tools and templates that I have either used in real life or want too but have not had the chance yet (perhaps even becoming a resource for new and veteran project managers alike?).
- Share my experiences with using Microsoft SharePoint for project delivery.
I started creating content for this site back in the summer of 2012. Can you believe it took me almost 3 years to launch it?!?! Time flies when you are having fun. 🙂
By Craig "hachiroku" Mercer • News •
Jan 21 2015
Reduce costs on communications…bundle em up!
You can reduce your monthly communications costs significantly by bundling services with the same provider. We classify communications as:
- Internet Service
- Telephone Service
- Cable TV Service
- Mobile Phone Service
We got rid of our cable TV years ago but had for a long time our internet service through Shaw and our telephone service through Telus. By switching our phone over to Shaw and bundling it with our internet service we were able to save on average $25/mth which when multiplied over a year is $300.00. Now I’ll admit that we’re a little old fashioned in that we keep a “landline” phone when in all honesty we could get by just fine with Kana’s mobile phone (I also have a phone provided by work but if it wasn’t provided by work I would not have one). However, the point is that there are options when looking to reduce your monthly communications costs. You could get rid of cable and just have NetFlix.
Jan 17 2015
Reduce costs on your mobile phone – DITCH the CONTRACT and the DATA yo!
I’ve never really seen the point in a smart phone…or GPS for that matter because I don’t like trusting computers (but that is another story). Let me digress a little….when Kana and I moved to Japan in 2004 we went to get mobile phones (this was before the iPhone which came out in 2007) and the sales person was going on about the camera, the video options, the texting….and I said “Kana could you ask her if it is a phone?”. Kana asked and the sales person who looking a little puzzled said “Yes it is a phone”. I said “Good let’s buy 2!”. I wanted a phone and I wanted the cheapest one…the cheapest one to purchase and the cheapest monthly rate.
More
Jan 10 2015
Reduce costs on your groceries…do the research!
One of the biggest weekly/monthly expenses is groceries. Groceries are not optional without food you will die, but the price you pay for food can be optional depending on your location (e.g.: in cities there are way more choices than in the rural countryside).
Back in 2007 we made the choice to shop for groceries at our local Safeway because they had a member discount program and because we collected AIR MILES. This decision was also compounded by the fact that we bought our gas at Shell which also was an AIR MILES retailer and on the way to Safeway. The AIR MILES really came in handy over the years as we cashed in miles for a new vacuum cleaner, a king sized duvet, a home phone set, a DVD player, a Blu-Ray player and more.
More
Jan 3 2015
Where’s your money going? Creating a Monthly Summary
Once one comes to the sobering conclusion that they are in fact slaves to money and they need to declare “DEBT TOTAL WAR”, the question then becomes: “Where do I/we go from here?”.
The first step in unleashing debt total war is to understand where your money is going. This is best accomplished by creating a Monthly Summary. This is the first weapon in the arsenal of financial freedom.
We began a monthly summary in 2007 shortly after moving back from Japan. We were amazed at how poorly we understood where our money was going until we started capturing it and looking at it through the lense of a holy warrior. Suddenly our enemy’s finger prints could be seen…and of course, the enemy was us! When we looked at the numbers we were actually adding about $65.00/mth onto the credit card debt. Knowledge is power…and applying that knowledge to our monthly finances became very powerful indeed. During the course of debt total war we went from going $65 further into the hole to paying off $1000 of debt each month.
More
Dec 12 2014
Welcome to Tomi Dou – the Way of Wealth.
Welcome to Tomi Dou – the Way of Wealth. A new section in the Mercer Adventures.
A while back I was having lunch with a good friend and I was sharing how within a month we would be debt free, having paid off all the student loans, credit card and credit line debt. We had been fighting the battle for the better part of 10 years, were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn’t a train!
My friend then shared his ongoing struggle with debt and I encouraged him to declare a “debt jihad” a holy war against debt. He said he’d like to but he just wasn’t sure where to start. I shared some of the things that we had done like making sure we never paid for data on Kana’s iPhone, negotiating a lower rent with our landlord and learning how to save hundreds of dollars per year on groceries.
He said “Bro you should blog this! I’d follow along and I am sure others would too.”. I said I’d think about it. That night I awoke about 4:00am and was restless, tossing and turning thinking about my good friend’s ongoing struggle knowing countless others were out there struggling too…I got up, made a bunch of notes in my journal and decided that I would take up the challenge to document our family’s journey…
- our recognition that we were slaves to debt unable to make the kinds of decisions we wanted to
- our frustration at being unable to help others the way we wanted to
- the ways we learned to wage war on debt
- the ways we learned to budget and bring spending under control
- how we learned to save even while paying off debt
- our continuing journey to learn how to invest our money while paying the minimum of fees
All of which, in time, will lead to prosperity not only for us but for our kids, our grand kids and beyond.
DISCLAIMER! Kana and I are not good bloggers. We are not money experts, we are not financial advisers and we don’t have all the answers. All we have is our stories, our stories of how we learned to become disciplined in our spending, to bring income and expenses under control so that we could get to the starting line of Tomi Dou….being debt free. Where we go from here we aren’t 100% sure…but it will be an adventure for sure. Won’t you join us?
By Craig "hachiroku" Mercer • Tomi Dou (The Way of Wealth) •
Nov 15 2014
Welcome to the first day of being DEBT FREE!
November 15th, 2014 marks the first day for the Mercer Family of being debt free. The credit line was paid off at midnight. Breathing a sigh of relief, our holy war against debt has been successful and we are no longer slaves to debt. I no longer have to look at the interest payments and curse myself for making poor financial decisions. It feels good folks and we ain’t never going “back to Egypt”!
Now our sights are set on the horizon with the battle to get out of debt won now it is time to think about getting our money working for us and begin the next campaign…SAVING & INVESTING!
By Craig "hachiroku" Mercer • Tomi Dou (The Way of Wealth) •
Oct 22 2014
Scotch Fest 2014

Auk wee I, Once again tiss time
to rattle the claymores and fill the Quaich.
Then let the flowing Quaich go round
and boldly let the pibroch sound
Till every glen and rock resound.
All wee clansmen and women are welcome
To the Thirteenth Annual Scotch Fest 2014.
So bring your See ya Jimmy and get ready to crack your kranium.
7:00 PM AT 2985 Harriet Rd Nov 15th 2014 Hope to see you all then.
Cheers
For new people who will be coming
Please bring a bottle of
Single malt scotch to share.
If scotch is not your thing,
Well bring beer or wine and have a good time.
Oct 14 2014
VNCS Japanese Cultural Fair 2014
The Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society
proudly presents
The 15th Annual (2014) Japanese Cultural Fair
Saturday, October 25th
Esquimalt Recreation Centre
10:00AM TO 4:00PM
FREE ADMISSION
Family Friendly!
For more information please visit www.vncs.ca and www.facebook.com/vncs.ca.
Oct 14 2018
VNCS Japanese Cultural Fair 2018
The Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society
proudly presents
The 19th Annual (2018) Japanese Cultural Fair
Saturday, October 27th
Esquimalt Recreation Centre
10:00AM TO 4:00PM
FREE ADMISSION
Family Friendly!
For more information please visit www.vncs.ca and www.facebook.com/vncs.ca.
By Craig "hachiroku" Mercer • Victoria Nikkei •