Canada Post Financial and Eating Out at Lunch

Senator Elizabeth Warren has been promoting this idea for over a year in the U.S. But what about here in Canada? The post office is not exactly a growing business, but a very necessary one that isn’t making money, keeps charging more, and isn’t going to go away in our lifetime.

The post office is already a vast network of locations all across the country. They’re in remote areas that aren’t even serviced by a bank. Why can’t the post office sell prepaid debit cards, do cheque cashing, incoming and outgoing foreign money transfers to relatives, small loans and the likes?

Even if it just re-directs 10% of people from payday lenders or cheque cashing places it would save Canadians billions of dollars, rescue the post office and a ton of jobs there, become really convenient for people, and a new revenue stream.

 

Last year (2016) there were 430 million fewer lunchtime restaurant visits in the U.S. It has to be true in Canada, too, judging by the vast number of lunch ads from Boston Pizza to Subway, Tim’s and others. That’s a lot less eating out, or is it? Are we still buying at the lunch places but having desktop meals? That’s the slang for eating at your desk.

If you’re someone who has cut down, what I want to know is whether that money is getting saved, used to pay down bills, or just leaking out into some other “mystery” spending the rest of the week, in whatever, instead of food at lunch. Just because we eat out less, doesn’t mean we’re actually saving anything…

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