It is quite common for homeowners to rent their hot water heaters here in Ontario. The rentals cost anywhere between $15 for an old tank to $20 or more for a new one. Years ago, we stopped renting our old water heater and I’ve been meaning to replace it for a while now. But, what [...]
Yesterday’s post on Virgin Mobile’s recent service changes elicited a useful tip from Shane and Million Dollar Journey: Check out Speak Out Wireless, which is offered through 7-Eleven convenience stores, along with Petro-Canada Mobility as an alternative to Virgin Mobile. Speak Out is roughly the same as Petro-Canada Mobility — both piggy-back on the Rogers [...]
As occasional users of cell phones, we subscribe to Virgin Mobile’s pay-as-you-go service. When I signed up initially, a $25 top-up lasted 120 days (i.e. the amount of time you have to top up to prevent your unused credit from expiring) but about two years back, Virgin Mobile reduced the expiry across the board and [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
