Canadian Personal Finance Blog

My wife and I have fallen into the daily trip to the grocery store trap (very dangerous, because you just never figure out how much you are spending until you do your Quarterly Financial Report).

We came up with an idea, that I am pretty sure we can’t live up to, but I throw it out to the folks who might also have fallen into this gas wasting, and money wasting trap.

Premise: You are spending too much money going to shop every day for groceries, and you are wasting gas doing the trip every single day.

Walk !

Yup, if you are going to go to the grocery store every day, you must walk there ( we will accept cycling there or taking the bus, if you have a bus pass). I will allow for if you go shopping on the weekends, you can drive 1 day, to pick up a “weekly order“, however all other times you must walk.

Why walking? Am I some kind of Physical Fitness Wacko? Nope, but let me be more precise:

Benefits

1. Exercise (yes, you, the one that is eating that second donut, I mean you). For me the walk is about 1.5 km each way, maybe, I tried it out today, and it is about a 55 minute round trip proposal. Exercise tends to help your appetite get under control as well.
2. You will only buy what you can carry home with you. If you are taking the bus, you might want to put some kind of limitation on this, but if you are walking, you aren’t as likely to over buy, because, you know how much you can carry all the way back home.
3. There will be days where you go, “We don’t need fennel that much”, and not buy it that day. You will then not buy the donuts, and/or other things that you might impulse buy too.
4. You save money on the gas, and right now, that is not chump change either. If you cut out 5 trips a week? Over the year that could add up to some serious money.
5. If you go with your wife, it gives you time to walk and talk without the kids around too!

Flaws

1. It’s pouring, and you just ran out of milk for your toddler, because the teenage locusts drank it all.  (sorry dear, the big cajun wife is driving)
2. You need your meds and have run out of your prescription (no plan of this kind should be life threatening). Go get your meds, you are allowed to take your car!
3. The walk to your grocery store is over 5 Km (one way), then I guess it’s ok, but my bet is, you don’t shop every day if that is the case as well!

As I said, me and Mrs. C8j may try this out, we did on Monday, and it was quite nice, but I was on vacation that day as well.

As I mentioned last week we purchased a new camera last week and didn’t get the extended warranty.

This past Friday (6 days after purchasing the camera),  I read the Future Shop flyer and saw that the same camera is now selling for $50.00 less. I tend to read the Future Shop and Best Buy flyers because I am a techno-geek and like to window shop for things I can’t afford (and know I shouldn’t buy), and this time it paid off very nicely.

I went off to Best Buy, and was my normal polite self, I had my bill with me from the previous Saturday and spoke to the young lady at the Customer Service (sic) desk (I also brought a copy of the Future Shop Ad for the camera). The young lady was very polite as well and then checked and Best Buy was in fact carrying my Camera (Canon S5 IS) for $50.00 less also, and because of this my account was credited for $56.50 (after tax rebates and such).

Well worth the trip, even though I most likely spent $4.00 worth of petroleum to get my money, but money well retrieved. Most electronics stores, and I believe most big box stores (aka Wal-Mart) have this kind of purchase protection plan and it is important to make sure you are not being over-charged and you are taking advantage of later sales on products you have purchased.

I am thinking now, I should have raised a mild stink and asked for more than $50.00 back, because the sales person at Best Buy should have known this camera was going to be on sale in the next few days, but I didn’t think of it at the time.

Extended Warranty?!?

As I stood in line I saw another interesting piece of consumer sleuthing that I feel it is important to report on as well.

A young lady was in front of me, and she had her iPOD touch with her, and there was some issue with it not working correctly. The young lady had her original box, and her extended warranty (which we said she paid $70 for (I believe)), and the Customer Service rep was very polite and said she’d have a look at it.

The Customer Service rep then told her something that caused my ear hear to prick up. Evidently if the Best Buy Customer rep couldn’t repair or make the iPOD work successfully, the young lady (customer) would have to send it to Apple, because it is within a year of purchase and Apple does all repairs in the first year.

Let that sink in, the customer has purchased an extended warranty from Best Buy, however, Apple’s warranty covers the exact same repair in the first year (presumably the first year of the extended warranty as well).

Read that previous sentence again, and tell me you didn’t at least have a “WTF” moment.

What is the use of this “Extended Warranty” if Apple repairs this and not Best Buy? The Customer Service rep in fact said, the customer must send the iPOD back to Apple, because Apple will not accept the iPOD if it is sent in by Best Buy. Another “WTF” moment for me.

So the extended warranty you purchase overlaps with Apple’s, and is effectively redundant (i.e. useless).

This week I took a short trip for my company, and I was astounded at how much it ended up costing, just in flight charges.

My company used to have a travel department, where people booked trips for you, found the best deals, but also discussed with you about how you wanted your travel to work. This task was then outsourced and is now being run by Amex Travel, which has a Web Portal that all travel booking must be done through. The booking of the trip is chocked full of questions and then it gives you a staggering array of choices and decisions about cheaper flights and such, which I usually ignore, and then get a nasty note saying I am not playing nicely, but that is for another posting.

This week’s one day travel’s costs were:

• Air Fare alone was $356  which isn’t too bad given I booked fairly late, and I was only doing a day trip.
• Add on a $10 Air Transport Tax
• Add $20 in GST
• Add $35 Airport Improvement Fee
• And you end up with $420.94 total cost
• Whoops forgot there is an $8 service fee that Amex travel throws on top of this, that you only see on your credit card later.

Fine, I had to travel and I had to pay, so I booked it. Away we went, our meetings went well and we finished early, so then we tried come home on an earlier flight. There was room on an earlier flight, but due to the type of the flight booked, I had to pay a $55.00 re-booking fee on top of all of this.

I am in the wrong business, airline travel has more hidden fees and tricks than the Mutual Fund business (OK maybe not, but it feels that way). Luckily I didn’t pay for this out of my own pocket, but now I know why I don’t fly places any more.

I grow weary of losing money $2 at a time on all the service fees thrown on top of the original price of things. Can’t someone just quote me a price and then not kill me adding more to it?