Canadian Capitalist

We recently received a call from our credit card provider asking to confirm some recent transactions. This has happened a few times already and the only reason I can think of is that we used the credit card once at Winners last Fall (As you may recall, credit and debit card information was stolen from [...]

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I replaced the two old-fashioned incandescent bulbs in our porch with the energy-saving compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs supplied by Project Porchlight last weekend. Project Porchlight is a campaign by a non-profit organization that aims to deliver one free CFL to every household in Canada. The new lamps are 13 Watts and replace bulbs that [...]

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A post on Sitting Pretty reminded me of an old post on saving on groceries by avoiding wastage. To recap, many studies have shown the American households waste an average of 14% of their food purchases, worth about $590 every year. I am guessing that Canadians waste a similar amount of food and our household [...]

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I cannot count the number of times an energy marketer knocked on our door and suggested that we sign up for a fixed-rate natural gas contract for heating our home. One of the arguments they use in their pitch is similar to the one quoted in this CBC article: consumers “would have been better off [...]

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Enbridge (TSX: ENB) has announced that it is once again cutting the price of natural gas to 22.54 ¢/m³ starting in October. The new rate is 19% cheaper than the current rate of 27.9 ¢/m³ and well below the 29.47 ¢/m³ rate that Enbridge charged during the same time last year. Note that the new [...]

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Just the other day, I was browsing the Personal Finance bookshelves at my local Chapters store and leafed through a book titled The Smart Canadian’s Guide to Building Wealth. I almost skipped over a chapter that advised against renting-to-own when I noticed a sidebar titled “A Note to Ontario Homeowners”. The note asked why the [...]

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I have been a member of CAA for many years and since I have recently received the annual renewal notice in the mail, I am wondering if it is worth keeping the membership. My basic membership costs $62 + GST and though I have been renewing for years without a second thought, I don’t use [...]

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Enbridge (TSX: ENB) has announced that starting July 1st, it will start charging 27.9 ¢/m³ for supplying natural gas to its residential customers. The new rate is 17.5% cheaper than the current rate of 33.8 ¢/m³ and 32% cheaper than last winter. Note that the new rate includes an adjustment to refund customers because the [...]

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I use Virgin Mobile’s prepaid service and have been very impressed with their 120-day expiry period for top-ups of $15 or more. I referred many friends to their service and now find that Virgin Mobile has significantly shortened their expiry periods. While Virgin Mobile continues to offers the best value for occasional users, I would [...]

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After years of using the American Express AIR MILES credit card, I recently applied for the American Express Costco Cash Rebate Card. The rewards rate on the AIR MILES credit card is 0.68%, whereas the Costco Cash Rebate is 1.5% (on spending over $5,000 to a maximum of $500).
In the comments to the earlier post, [...]

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