Canadian Personal Finance Blog

The topic isn’t really just Home Finance but it is a subtopic, so good enough, I guess.

Spend $6 to Save $24 per week?

While at the Tim Horton’s which is run inside of my company I noticed that they had their BIG MUG on sale (big porcelain mug) and I decided to buy one for myself. I got some free coffee with it, which was nice, however, I bought it to save money (it’s always odd to say that, but in this case it is true).

My company has free coffee stations all over the company (however the Tim Horton’s run by our Cafeteria company still does roaring business), however, I did not have a mug at work to drink this free coffee with, so I decided to purchase the Big Mug, to take advantage of this free coffee. My figuring is I will save 3 cups of Tim’s coffee a day (about a $5 value) each day so about $25 a week with this mug.

I can hear my regular readers pointing out that if I had just taken one of the THOUSANDS of mugs I have at home I could have saved that money with NO investment. Well it was a good idea at the time.

But it’s only for 12 months…

I found out that Rogers has a discount for my company (40% for the first year) for High Speed Internet (and for their cable and home phone as well). Someone at work lamented, “… but it’s only for 12 months…”. My answer to that is “So what?”, I’d rather have the 12 months of discounts for now.

My case might be not generic, since I was looking for a new high speed access provider (I have been using AOL Broadband, but it is just too darn expensive). This now allows me to get high speed access for 50% less for the next 12 months and I can still keep my AOL access as well (AOL is getting out of the physical access business and is trying to reinvent itself to be more like Yahoo!).

I’ll take the 12 month discount thank you.

And if you think that these small savings are no big deal, keep finding these kind of savings in your day to day lives and you might be surprised just how much money is left in your bank account at the end of the month.

How are your teeth? Mine are not in great shape and I have had a history of bad teeth, and it hasn’t got much better as I got older. Currently I have 4 Crowns in my mouth and at least 3 teeth that I would guess will soon become crowns.

Crowns are a wonderful thing that for some reason is viewed as a Prosthetic for most insurance plans, and thus are rarely covered more than 50% by most Dental plans (and in some cases not at all). What does this mean, financially?

Each crown with installation has been approximately $1000 each (that does not seem completely out of whack with what I have heard from other folks, so I don’t blame my dentist for this charge). This means I have been out of pocket almost $2000 so far for the crowns that I have had put in, and that is a LARGE chunk of change, as I had not planned on these expenses, but I will be in the future.

Do I have other options? Yes, I could have the teeth extracted, but then I must get either dentures or a real prosthetic, both of which are not covered much under most dental plans.

Other interesting dentistry related expenses might be Orthodontic work, for you (adults are getting braces more and more) or for your kids. This is usually only covered 50% by most dental plans. A lot of times if both parents are working they can get almost all of this work done, but for us lucky single income families we only get about 1/2 of the expense covered (unless it is for a medical condition like a cleft pallet, in which case it is mostly covered under Medicare (and rightfully so)).

That ability to cover both 1/2’s of a coverage shortfall that dual income families (that both have benefits plans) is yet another advantage that dual income families have over single income families.

My kids wonder why I keep bugging them to brush their teeth? For your financial future, that’s why!!!

For my regular readers (you know who you are), this past summer I spent a while hunting down roofing contrators in the Ottawa area, to get my roof replaced. This usually entailed me having someone see how lousy my roof looked from the street and knocking on my door (which gave me a very strange cross section of quotes, let me tell you). I then phoned a bunch of contractors and found out that thanks to the building boom in Ottawa, no one likes to do 1 roof much (except for the guys that wander around giving out quotes to people’s who’s roofs look like crap).

I came across a new web site for the folks in Toronto (yes the GTA, or as we call it in Ottawa, The Big Smoke), which will help you get quotes for your home renovation,Toronto Roofing Quotes which looks interesting. It helps you get quotes from up to 5 contractors in the GTA to get a home renovation job done. The site only gets you quotes, you choose which contractor you want to go with (and checking with the Better Business Bureau for your area, is always a good thing to do in this area (I have watched enough Holmes on Homes to know that one)). I can’t use the service, because, I doubt these contractors want to come up the 401 to replace my windows (this coming summer’s money pit), but if you live in Toronto (Big Smoke, or Toronto the Good) and need renovation, this would be a good site to start your renovation contractor search with.

Now I must put a caveat that I am getting paid to say this by PayPerPost, but I have checked out the web site, and it looks like a good idea, wish we had one in Ottawa.

–C8j

Well if you ask the carpet salesman from a large chain store that is what he “threatened” me with when he came by to show me carpet for my basement. No this rant isn’t about oil prices, it’s about salesman, who should think about choosing another profession.

Now I know why I did not go into sales, and I also know some good salesmen, and this carpet guy would not be counted in that list. He wanted to be “RIGHT” all the time (and I think that is the first and biggest mistake any salesman can make): first he tells my wife that she asked him to bring light carpet samples only (we have a black lab and a black cat and 4 kids, I don’t think she asked for that), then he said she never mentioned “mono-filament” carpets (which I know she did), and finally he basically told me that he couldn’t discount any prices, so don’t ask. My conclusion was that this guy didn’t want a sale at all (ok, I don’t know that, but I can assure you that is what is going to happen). As a salesman you shouldn’t allow customers to have a wrong impression of your product, but blatantly telling them they are WRONG will usually never make a sale.

We went to Home Depot to talk to them, and it was much better, and they had a much better price too. I think we’ll try to talk to one more place (there is a new store around our house that sells carpet), and then make our decision. Home Depot also pointed out a few things, but in a nice manner that we should think about (i.e. nice: not confronting us saying, “You know you haven’t thought of this…!”)

Conclusions: Never feel pressured by a salesman, if you do walk away or ask for a different one. If a salesman makes you feel dumb, walk away, it’s not his or her job to do that. If your salesman doesn’t answer ALL your questions, RUN AWAY QUICKLY.

Remember it is YOUR money you are spending, and there are always other options.