Jacklad's Canadian Finance Blog

Hi, my name is Jackie and I'm a software junkie.

It's true - I love trying new software. What I don't like are crippled versions, hour-long trials, etc.

What I do like are initiatives like http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/. I don't know how sustainable the model is, but I'm along for the ride.

So far the free giveaways have been largely games and image editing software - both of which I like, so it's all right with me. And the price is right!

Well, today was not a no-spend day, but that was by design. After 3pm on Halloween, the candy starts getting marked down, so that's when I stock up.

But I did some additionally shopping while I was out. I broke the handle on my laundry hamper this morning, and decided it was time to replace it. Well, I actually replaced it with two laundry baskets - a standard one for my sons' room (which is just across the hall from the laundry room) and a hip-hugger model for the upstairs bedrooms. I figured that if I'm going to be lugging laundry up and down the stairs, I may as well do it comfort.

So I spend about $15 for both, which got me thinking about cost effectiveness. The broken hamper was a Rubbermaid (shades of a recent forum thread) that was over 15 years old. I think I got my money's worth!

If I get the same wear out of my new (Rubbermaid, naturally) laundry baskets, they will cost me about $1 per year. Sure, I could have saved a couple of dollars by going with a cheaper brand, but I figured I'd splurge on reliability.

... but no complaints, as it was also a nospend day. Tomorrow is my day to play the landlord and collect the rent from my tenant. We got lucky and bought the house right next door, which makes being a landlord much, much easier.

It was also a cool and damp day, so I made a big pot of beef Madras curry. Beef - $8.50, onions $.75, celery $.60, garlic $.35, pepper strips $1.00, curry paste $1.00, tomato paste $.45, tinned tomatoes $3.00 - total $15.55. Sounds pricey, but it makes enough for two full meals for the six of us. Add about $1.00 for the brown rice each time and it's about $1.50 per serving.

Tomorrow night is pasta, which is much more cost efficient - I can feed the six of us for less than $.50 each. But the rest of the curry is safely in the freezer and will probably reappear next Saturday, but this time with Nan bread instead of rice.

I'm not a big fan of fall or winter weather, but I do like the cooker weather for cooking those "stick to your ribs" meals.

So I spent some time thinking about what I could put in this blog. I'm not a coupon queen or financial expert or even a paragon of fiscal virtue.

I'm just an ordinary person doing the ordinary things that make up daily life. So I decided to make a category for the little, ordinary things that may not mean much by themselves but can add up to pennies saved. And pennies add up to dollars, and dollars add up to debt freedom...

Today I did my weekly grocery shopping, and noted two specific instances of an opportunity to save pennies. First, I needed to get sugar. I normally grab the 4 kg bag, but today I noted that the 2kg bags were less than half the price of the larger bag, and a better buy as a result. So the lesson is to compare unit prices - normally, the larger sizes of anything are the better value, but not always.

The second lesson came in the canned vegetable aisle. I like to keep some tinned mushrooms in the pantry to throw into casseroles, and there was a case lot sale. For a case of 12 tins, both whole canned mushrooms and sliced mushrooms were $8.98. Not bad, considering that a case will normally last me about six months. But the real bargain was the mushroom "pieces and stems". Not as pretty as their siblings, but 12 tins for only $5.98. That's a savings of 25¢ per tin. Now, just between you and me, I really don't care if the mushrooms I throw into the mix are pretty (well, there goes my shot at the Martha Stewart wannabe award, but they taste exactly the same.) The lesson is to compare similar products - and to keep an eye on those shelf prices. The pieces and stems were right next to the others, and I'm sure more than one person just grabbed a case without noticing the difference in price.

OK, so I've added some of my made-in-Canada links to the sidebar.

Some are obvious choices, but a few require a little explanation.

Both Red Flag Deals and Frugal Shopper offer great forums, but Red Flag is actually more "acquisition" oriented. You'll find lots of great deals posted, but be careful not to be sucked into the "look how much money I saved" mindset. If you didn't need to spend it, or didn't budget to spend it, then spending it doesn't save a thing. Red Flag Deals has a better Personal Finance section on their forums, while Frugal Shopper is more coupon/shopping/household oriented. It's probably not surprising that most of the active posters at RFD are male, while most of those at FS are women. ;-)

Oh - and the financial calculators? A lot of Canadians don't realize that mortgages are managed differently in Canada than they are in the US (interest is calculated semi-annually versus annually/compounded monthly). If you need to do a calculation, that difference can bite you if you use an American calculator.

Feel free to send me your useful Canadian financial links if you think I've missed a good one!

I've been thinking of starting this for some time, but just had to tonight - you can blame Imasaver (laugh). I just had to start a blog so that I could comment and save her striploin...