Some time ago, the manufacturer of Polysporin held a contest to see who had the oldest tube of this antibacterial cream. I thought I had a sure thing with my 25-year-old tube, but I guess I was wrong because I didn’t win.
Related: 10 useless kitchen gadgets
We all pay attention to expiration dates when we buy certain food products. Even if we use the dates only as guidelines, there are tell-tale signs that a product has gone bad – moldy bread, chunky milk, or that layer of fur on the cream cheese – and we toss it out.
But what about those items sitting in your cupboard for years after a zealous bulk purchase that have no expiries? How long do these products last?
I have had a jar of maraschino cherries in my fridge since my thirty-something sons were in elementary school. They still look pretty, but how will they taste if I have a sudden urge to bake a pineapple upside-down cake?
Even though there are no expiry dates shown, most items don’t last forever as I recently discovered when I used an old box of dishwasher detergent. The undissolved soap sat in the holder in a congealed lump at the end of the cycle.
Related: Extended warranties – good deal, or cash grab?
Here is a handy keep-or-toss guide to expiration dates. If you like to stock up when you see a great price, or buy mega-packs at the warehouse store, only buy what you can use within these time periods.
Beverages
- Beer, unopened – 4 months
- Gourmet coffee beans – 3 weeks in a paper bag
- Ground beans – 1 week in a sealed container
- Juice, unopened – 8 months from the production date. Opened – 7-10 days
Food and Condiments
- Dried pasta – 12 months
- Frozen vegetables, unopened – 18-24 months. Opened – 1 month
- Maple syrup – 1 year
- Brown sugar – indefinitely (Most people toss this out when it turns hard, but you can store it with a piece of bread, slice of apple, or moistened clay “Sugar Bear.”)
- Honey – indefinitely. Re-liquefy in the microwave.
- Marshmallows, unopened – 40 weeks. Opened – 3 months
- Mayonnaise, unopened – indefinitely. Opened – 2-3 months
- Mustard – 2 years
- Maraschino cherries, unopened – 3-4 years. Opened – 6 months, refrigerated
- Olives, unopened – 3 years. Opened – 3 months
- Olive Oil – 2 years from manufacturing date
- Tabasco Sauce – 5 years
- Vinegar – 31/2 years
- Baking soda, indefinitely (if not fresh use for cleaning not baking)
Toiletries
All dates are from the manufacture date, which is displayed on the packaging, or can be found on the website.
- Bar soap – 18-36 months
- Bath gel, body wash – 3 years
- Hand/body lotion – 3 years
- Shampoo and Conditioner – 2-3 years
- Deodorant – 1-2 years
- Hair spray/gel – 2-3 years
- Lip balm – 5 years
- Shaving cream – at least 2 years
- Perfume – 1-2 years
Household Products
- Aerosol air freshener – 2 years
- Alkaline batteries – 7 years
- Lithium batteries – 10 years
- Bleach – 3-6 months
- Dish soap (liquid or powder) – 1 year
- Laundry detergent (liquid or powder), unopened – 9-12 months
- Opened – 6 months
- Furniture polish – 2 years
- Windex – 2 years
- Miracle Gro liquid, opened – 2-5 years. Liquid water-soluble – indefinite
- Motor Oil, unopened – 2-5 years. Opened – 3 months
Miscellaneous
- Replace pillows every year, 2 years if you use a pillow protector
- A good mattress lasts 9 – 10 years. Replace if you don’t sleep well or wake up with a sore back.
- Smoke alarm – change after 10 years. 20% of US homes have smoke alarms that don’t work. Test monthly and replace batteries yearly.
In Conclusion
Expiration doesn’t necessarily mean the product will turn putrid or ineffective once the date passes.
Food colour or flavour may be affected but the product is still generally safe to consume.
Using detergents past their prime may not get your clothes as clean as a fresh package.
Related: Why today’s appliances look good, but don’t last
These dates are rough, conservative guidelines and depend largely on how you store the items. Most need dry, stable temperatures. Liquids will usually degrade faster than solid products and unopened products still in their vacuum-sealed packaging will last longer.
To keep track try writing the date of purchase on the label with a Sharpie before storing.
When you’re doing your spring-cleaning, pitch out any suspicious products. It’s always best to discard any product that has separated, clumped or has a funny smell, or if your health and safety depend on it’s freshness.
What’s lurking in your cabinets?
My DIY investing journey began after the global financial crisis in 2008-09. It wasn’t until markets crashed by as much as 50 percent that I started to take notice of my investment statements and performance. Aside from the significant decline in my portfolio, the most alarming number was the 2.7% MER being paid on a global equity mutual fund.
Enough was enough and so in mid-2009 I opened a discount brokerage account at TD, transferred my portfolio there, and bought individual stocks with a focus on dividend growth.
The timing couldn’t have been better: dividend stocks were out of favour and trading at extremely discounted valuations. In just five-and-a-half months my new strategy paid off handsomely – returning over 35 percent over the remainder of 2009.
I suspect that most DIY investors have similar stories – underperformance and high fees caused many to dump their advisors, sell their mutual funds, and strike out on their own.
Related: 5 challenges that DIY investors face
And if the initial results were anything like mine, what followed was a lot of self-congratulating and back patting. DIYs like me were brimming with overconfidence. But what was lost on me at the time was the old John F. Kennedy aphorism, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
Indeed, anyone who stayed invested after the great crash of 2008 was amply rewarded by the five-year bull market run that followed. DIY investors like me falsely took credit – attributing the success to their ability to pick winning stocks – instead of recognizing that we were all benefiting from a rising stock market and that our fortunate timing could be explained as simple luck.
Dividend stocks have outperformed the broader market for a few years, but the tide is starting to turn. Value stocks are harder to come by today and I don’t have the patience to wait on the sidelines until they become more attractive, nor do I have the ability to unearth the hidden gems that are often overlooked by analysts and institutional investors.
Related: How behavioural biases kept me from becoming an indexer
I diligently track the rate of return on my investments and compare the results against two appropriate benchmarks. All active investors should do the same; otherwise it’s impossible to tell if your strategy is working.
Outside of that glorious run in 2009 my portfolio has barely topped its benchmarks of CDZ (the iShares dividend aristocrats ETF) and XIU (the iShares S&P/TSX 60 index fund). This year my portfolio badly under-performed those funds – by 4.38% and 3.50% respectively.
2014 Portfolio rate of return
| Month-end | Return (%) | Value ($) | New cash |
| Dec 2013 | — | $83,086.47 | — |
| Jan 2014 | -0.45% | $82,711.71 | — |
| Feb 2014 | 2.84% | $85,064.30 | — |
| Mar 2014 | 2.11% | $95,521.18 | $8,507.45 |
| Apr 2014 | 1.69% | $97,135.12 | — |
| May 2014 | -0.12% | $97,023.22 | — |
| Jun 2014 | 2.48% | $99,427.12 | — |
| Jul 2014 | 0.81% | $100,230.00 | — |
| Aug 2014 | 2.22% | $102,456.10 | — |
| Sep 2014 | -2.96% | $99,426.63 | — |
| Oct 2014 | -0.02% | $99,409.50 | — |
| Nov 2014 | 1.30% | $100,699.26 | — |
| Dec 2014 | -1.52% | $100,646.89 | $1,500.00 |
| YTD return % | 8.53% |
Performance versus benchmark
| My portfolio | CDZ | XIU | |
| 1 year (2014) | 8.53% | 12.91% | 12.03% |
| 3 years | 11.48% | 11.81% | 10.96% |
| 5 years | 11.69% | 11.37% | 7.10% |
| Since Aug 2009 | 14.79% | 13.41% | 7.88% |
Okay, this year aside it hasn’t been all that bad. But lately I haven’t felt that the time and effort spent managing my portfolio has been worthwhile. My last few stock picks were flat-out terrible (Rogers Sugar, Canadian Oil Sands) and I drifted away from the core ideas behind dividend growth investing, which is to buy blue-chip stocks when they are value-priced and hold them for the rising dividends.
Related: How to get started with dividend investing
That’s not to say that I lost faith in the dividend growth strategy – but you need extreme discipline and dedication to stick with this approach for the long term. That means keeping new cash and dividends on the sidelines – often for years – until better stock prices come along.
I no longer wanted to worry about market timing, analyst reports, and researching ideas for new companies in which to invest. I wanted a simple strategy that required minimal maintenance while still giving me the opportunity to reach my investing goals.
That strategy, as you now know, is an easy two-fund solution built with Vanguard’s All World ex-Canada ETF (VXC) and its Canada All Cap Index ETF (VCN). That’s it.
Here’s been the best part:
So far the best thing about switching from 24 dividend stocks to 2 ETFs has been unsubscribing from 24 company email alerts.
— Boomer and Echo (@BoomerandEcho) January 9, 2015
You can track your rate of return using these handy calculators developed by PWL Capital’s Justin Bender. Thanks to Justin for helping me put together the past returns for my portfolio and its benchmarks again this year.
How did your investments perform last year?
For a while now I’ve dithered over when to sell my portfolio of dividend stocks and implement my two-fund ETF solution. The tanking stock market didn’t help – particularly with oil and gas stocks plummeting and a few of my holdings underwater. Behaviourally, I wanted badly to wait until oil prices recovered so I didn’t have to sell those stocks at a loss.
But on Thursday I finally took the plunge and sold 24 dividend stocks, worth roughly $100,000, and immediately replaced them with two ETFs from Vanguard. I’m not going to lie, it was hard to sell my babies:
Finally did it. Sold all of my dividend stocks. Feels like a part of me died today.
— Boomer and Echo (@BoomerandEcho) January 7, 2015
To get over my behavioural biases, I had to forget about each individual piece and simply treat it as one big portfolio. Then I confirmed what I already knew: that my $100,000 was better off invested in two broadly diversified and low cost ETFs (which includes over 3,000 stocks from around the world) than it was invested in just 24 Canadian companies.
More on this Monday when I share my investment rate of return for 2014. Stay tuned.
This week’s recap:
Not the smoothest segue ever, but I’ve once again entered Financial Uproar’s stock picking competition after finishing in last place for 2014. I was determined not to suffer that shame two years in a row, which is why I went with four of the safest, blue-chip value stocks I could find: Goldman Sachs, Chevron, Travelers Insurance, and AT&T. Wish me luck!
On Monday I offered up four solutions for you to save more this year, including a 52-week money saving challenge.
On Wednesday Marie explained the ins and outs of ETFs.
On Friday we collaborated on the first Boomer & Echo financial makeover and looked at how a couple should manage proceeds from the sale of a rental property.
Finally, on Rewards Cards Canada this week I asked whether you pay off your credit card balance immediately or wait until the balance is due.
Weekend reading:
There was a lot of great reading published over the first week of January. Let’s get to it:
The Canadian Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights (FAIR) is hopeful that Canadian regulators will finally clampdown on the use of embedded commissions on mutual fund sales. I agree, a ban is coming whether the industry likes it or not.
Canadian Couch Potato published the 2014 returns for its model portfolios. You’ll see on Monday that all four of these portfolios beat my returns for the year.
Speaking of returns, Norm Rothery updated his excellent periodic table of annual returns, which shows the returns from each asset class from 2004 – 2014.
Michael James on Money posted his investment record to 2014. Note the huge spike in 1999. He also reviewed Benjamin Graham’s classic book, Security Analysis, to see if it would tempt him to return to his stock-picking ways.
Ben Carlson from A Wealth of Common Sense blog shares his hopes for 2015, including his hope for continued innovation in the investment industry.
“The great thing about the innovations we’ve seen over the past few years — robo-advisors, new ETFs, lower costs, social networks — is that the biggest beneficiaries have been average investors, not the big Wall Street firms.”
Ben also wrote a great piece about the danger of one-year performance numbers.
Turning to real estate, this Toronto Star article looks at how much you need to earn to buy a house in every major Canadian city.
Sheryl Smolkin explains how to unlock home equity at retirement.
Big Cajun Man says financial writers use too much jargon and catch phrases in their writing.
Barry Choi lists seven things we should stop wasting our money on.
Dan Wesley shares a cautionary tale of how a one-day car rental nearly cost him $2,100. Dan also looked at the times when rewards programs aren’t worth the trouble.
One of those reasons is the incredible amount of data being collected on consumers and their buying behaviour.
Patrick Sojka suggests that 2015 is the year that credit card rewards come crashing down to earth.
Sean Cooper shared his experience getting laser eye surgery with Lasik MD. Despite the cost, he says it was worth it.
Glenn Cooke explained what you really need to know about permanent life insurance over on the My Own Advisor blog.
In this video, Preet Banerjee explains how the enhanced child benefit will boost your 2015 family finances.
With the Alberta economy reeling after the massive drop in oil prices, Ted Morton says it’s time to politician-proof Alberta’s Heritage Fund.
Have a great weekend, everyone!