My Annual Free $1,500 Has Arrived

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This is my third year of taking every toonie and loonie and throwing it into a jar for the year as my coin-savings account.

This year, it added up to $1,512! That’s entirely free money. It kept my pockets from sagging, my cup hold in the car empty and I never missed any of it. Yes, I find ways to “get” coins. I’ll go buy a coffee and use a five dollar bill knowing it’ll get me a toonie and a loonie. Any little trick to grow the pot with money I never miss!

If you didn’t know how well this works: You do now. Give it a try for a year. But making it smaller coin won’t work. You can search the stories back a few years to find it. I took a big pop bottle and filled it with small coin once. Turns out that was barely a hundred bucks if I remember correctly.

If $1000 to $1500 isn’t a big incentive for you: Congrats! Your financial world is different than the majority of the population.

If you pay mostly by credit or debit card: Sorry. Studies show you overspend 12 to 18% total. I know, you’re not going to admit that – but it’s true. There’s no direct association with money when you just pull out your plastic. McDonalds sales on credit or debit are 70+% higher, vending machines over 100% and there are tons of other examples. Try switching (back?) to real money. You may end up with a free thousand bucks or more and will definitely spend less. After all, when you’re out of real money you’ll need to leave the store!

A 60% Discount So You Can Pay 400% More – Seriously

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We’ve talked a number of times about the games retailers play on discounts.
If you search my stories you’ll find a number of them that are quite
eye-opening.

This one is another perfect example. I am trying to get a custom canvas
print of 12×54 inches and re-ordering some client gifts, which are standard
12×12 inch. The custom one is tricky to price out – the standard 12×12 is a
no-brainer: It should be around $14.

Here is the canvas champ shopping cart where they’re currently parked
because the price isn’t what I’m willing to pay:

 

$18 for each, then a 15% discount and free shipping. I’ve paid from $11 to
$16 over the past few years and multiple orders…so I’ll wait for a while.

Here is the other company called canvas pop out of Ontario. Their Black
Friday promotion is a 60% discount. Wow – who wouldn’t be excited by that! But
their business model is to use insane pretend retail prices and then apply the
discount that’s totally useless. After all, it’s not the discount. It’s what
you end up paying!!

$181 for the same $14 canvas! Then the 60% discount and STILL a net price of $72!

In other words: Do you want a huge 60% discount and still end up paying FOUR TIMES MORE? Why do they do it? Because very few people do the math or the comparison shopping. That has to be true or they would immediately change their pricing got-ya!

The Worst Sales to Avoid!

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The most misleading pricing or “sales” to be very careful with are the “weekly” or “bi-monthly” payments, any vehicle lease and “percentage off” if you buy one at regular price, etc.

Add to that a lot more frequent ads that promote a discount but do not list a price in the first place! 25% off WHAT?

Since you have no idea of the sticker price, you have no idea what you’ll be paying. This ad, from this chain, is likely to be legit as this chain wouldn’t play games by raising the retail price, then giving a percentage discount. But lots do…

Setting aside the obvious that you’re spending and not saving – this isn’t a deal anyway, irrespective of price. Tires almost always have a sale of buy three get the fourth free. Since you need four tires on a vehicle, that’s a 25% discount pretty much year round at one place or another.

Yes, I’ve got my winter tires on. I do need to replace them, but I’ll wait until the rush season of October/November is over with and there are real sales before I’ll replace mine. As always – buyer…or shopper beware!

A Heads-Up If You Have Aeroplan Points

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Air Canada’s Aeroplan program has made a massive change in the program that a number of people have realized the hard way!

If you haven’t had any activity (earning or redemption) in an 18-month period your points will be wiped out and gone. I want to hope that this massive change notice went to their customers, but I didn’t get it or perhaps didn’t see it.

If you’ve listened to me for any length of time, you’ve heard me point out that any points program is like bananas and not a savings account! Their value diminishes, the redemption thresholds increase and they may expire. Well – here we are!

If you know it’s been more than 18-months, you’re out of luck. If you’re not sure, log in (or set up online access) with your Aeroplan number and have a look. If they’re still there, check your transaction history. TODAY would be good! If you’re within a couple of months of losing your points, you’ll need to at least earn one point to trigger another 18-month cycle.

Unfortunately, that may be harder than you think. Sure you can earn points on Air Canada activity, but anywhere else gets harder if you need a few points quickly! I sent to people to the Bay and/or Sport Check – turns out that neither takes Aeroplan. Yes, it’s still shown on the website but that’s not the case. You can try Starbucks but it requires you to set up the app and link it.

Two other options: If your birthday month just happened, or is close, you’ll get an email with a promotion. Select the few points (vs. a flight discount) to get the points quickly. Or go to the site and buy something on the overpriced retail stuff. Maybe you can find a $20 gift card of some kind. After all, a transaction is a transaction. Just don’t wait too long!

Update March 26 2024: It appears that Chevron has signed up to accept Aeroplan points. If so, you may just need to detour to them for a tank of gas using your Aeroplan card in order to keep your points alive. Nice to find with more retailers cancelling than joining! As of right now, it’s the only national chain that I’m aware of…

Skip the Coffee & Save the Money Used To Be Bogus…

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Have you ever heard the financial tip that you can save two bucks a week if you just skip a coffee out and that’ll turn into….yada yada yada?

Well, I’ve never agreed with that. Save two bucks and it’ll most likely go towards a chocolate bar or a lottery ticket. But then I heard a story last week from someone in a whole different financial league than a two dollar coffee.

The lady really “had to have” (the excuse for impulse buying everything from vehicle to clothes to everything) a pumpkin spice latte. Stuck at work, she ordered one from Starbucks with a delivery app. The price? $17. I nearly fainted. 17 bucks for a fancy coffee that she had to have right then. No, it couldn’t wait for after work – it had to be this impulse buy right now.

Good for her I guess. I think it’s one of the most stupid waste of money I’ve come across. But it’s not my money! So maybe the old save two bucks a week skipping coffee can be revised and updated? Skip a $17 coffee once a week and THAT will add up to some huge money.

Starbucks certainly hopes not. They sold over $480 million in pumpkin spice lattes last year. And now there’s pumpkin spice everything available from every retailer…

Want to Rent A 72 Sq Ft Apartment?

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With the massive increase in rents, imagine what you’d pay in places like downtown LA, Manhattan, Toronto or Vancouver!

One of the few options, if you don’t want one, two or three roommates is to downsize to less square footage. This is a story of a lady that really wants to live in Manhattan on a budget. How? A micro apartment of 72 square feet for $1,345 a month.

Her futon turns into a sofa, there’s no stove, so it’s a hotplate and air fryer and the entire bathroom is a shower. Finding clothes is hard as they have to stashed everywhere. For a balcony she can sit on the fire escape out her window. Having people over is…well…a challenge.

If you’re living in a studio apartment, you likely have around 600 square feet. If you’re in a one-bedroom it’s maybe 800 or more. So could you downsize to one-tenth that space? What would it take? Count me out for being able to do that.

Here’s the story from Business Insider or just search “Manhattan 72 square foot apartment.” https://www.insider.com/living-in-microstudio-apartment-in-nyc-what-its-like-cost-2021-6

This Hotel Saving Makes Sense

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Far away travel typically involves three things: A flight, car rental and hotel. While flights have come down quite a bit in price, hotels and car rentals are still insane. There are two holidays I want to take post COVID, but not when a car rental is around $80 a day – no way until ALL THREE are reasonable prices.

If you have or will stay at a favorite hotel, you’ll notice that there have been changes in housekeeping. Most every hotel just hasn’t hired back a large percentage of their housekeeping staff. The owner hotels want to save the money and the managed properties have a fixed budget they give to their manager. Since housekeeping is one of the biggest expenses, those managers have no choice but to cut back on staff in order to stay within their budget.

On a recent business trip, one hotel chain had a great idea: They’ll still give you the rare daily housekeeping, but you can get $10 off if you skip a weekend day. That makes sense, and for most of us, that’s worth doing. The rest of the hotel chains just simply need you to adjust to the new reality of housekeeping every three or four days.

Amazon Will Find You

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Amazon has nowhere near the lowest prices on even half of their products. Study after study and a simple price comparison will show that pretty quickly. But they’ve “trained” an entire generation of younger people to have their Prime membership and just click to buy. Good for Amazon – not so good for your spending.

But you have to give it to them that they are, by far, the most efficient company for deliveries. I’m in a new subdivision that’s still expanding and building. Two blocks up the street they just built 4 new 6-plex rentals. They finished one of the buildings September 30th. The investor owner took possession on October 1st and the first renters moved in on the 2nd. Yes, the day after!

That’s not the wow. One week later, Amazon “found” the new renters for a delivery! A new street, a brand new building, no address on the building at all, but Amazon found it for a delivery! THAT is pretty impressive…