Churned: CIBC Tim Hortons Visa

So lets talk about my first sub-par churn.

For anyone not familiar with churning, in the personal finance world, it is the act of signing up for a credit card, just to get the (usually) juicy sign up bonus such as cash back, Air Miles, bonus points..etc…and then cancelling the card your reward has been credited and spent.  Is this legal? Certainly.  Is this taking advantage of the credit card company?   Probably, however, these companies are making an offer, and you are accepting their terms and conditions, following those terms and conditions.  Nothing wrong with that. I compare this to the act of accepting a dinner invitation from someone who you don’t intend to become friends with.  You go have your nice dinner, say thank you, and do you best to never see the dinner host again in a social situation.  Again, is this ethical?  I would argue on a personal level no, on a business level yes.  These credit card companies know not everyone is going to stick around using this credit card forever.

Back to this particular churn.  So there was a sign I noticed in a Tim Hortons advertising their new (this was about 2 years ago)”Tim Hortons Visa” card.  This card was special because with this card you could simply redeem your points right at Tim Horton’s for your morning double-double (that’s a coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars for all you non Canadians).  That wasn’t a big appeal to me because I don’t frequent Timmy’s much, but the initial $25 free at Tim’s was ok, and the thing that really caught my eye was the coupon that attached to the sign that offered an EXTRA $50 at Tim Horton’s if you simply took this coupon to a CIBC branch.  So $75 of cash at Tim’s would probably cover me for about 2 years, I only get an occasional coffee there, and personally I don’t enjoy much of their food offerings, however a free bagel is a nice option if I happen to forget my lunch or don’t have time to make one for work in the morning.  So I went for it.  I applied, brought the coupon to the branch as instructed; and here is where things went a bit sideways.  The clerk said the coupon was not needed, and she took no action with it.  I should have spoken up to get more into but I let it be.  A week or two later I get a call to say that I was approved for the card, and I just had to bring ID to a branch.  No problem.  I bring my ID to the branch, and again show the coupon to the clerk, she says she had never seen one, and asks someone else about it and says she doesn’t need to do anything with it.  Fine, I’m doubting this, but I don’t push it.  I get my card in the mail a few weeks later, and make a purchase, which I believe was the only requirement to get the bonus money.  I wait another month or so for the statement to show up with my purchase, and it has my bonus money as well, $25. hmmmm  So I call the credit card and ask about the extra $50.  They say they never received the code to give me the extra $50, so the $25 is all I get.  Boooourns!!!

So there you have it.  I will fully admit that I could have been a bit more aggressive in pursuing the bonus $50, but I wasn’t; and I did do everything that was asked of me in order to get the $50, so that was disappointing.  I will also add that this is the first churn where I felt it wasn’t worth my time for the end result.  You can read about my other churns here.

Anyone else churing out there?  How are your experiences?  Great?  Bad?  I would like to know.  Please leave a like if you found this post at least minimally useful or slightly entertaining!

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Updated About Page

I’ve updated my About page as you can probably guess from the post title.  However I wanted to make the update a bit more visible to everyone, especially my regulars, the 4 people who check out my blog on a semi annual basis.

Let me be clear, the last thing I want to do is tell you what to do with your money.  What I want everyone to understand is the basics of how money works. I also want people to  know that there are options for things to do with your money besides spending it, and how those other things work, and what the results of not spending your money look like.  From there, if you want to continue spending your hard earned money, so be it.  My site will not go into great specifics on how to save money on groceries, or complex investment strategies.  There are plenty of other website that already do this.  This blog will mostly be my take on personal finance in general, maybe with a few rants thrown in here and there.  I like to keep my life simple, so my advice will be simple.  If I’m given the option of doing a,b,c,d,e and f to save $100 a year, or the option of doing a,b, and c to save $55 dollars a year, I’m probably going to stick with the easier option most often.  I will admit I’m lazy.  Which reminds me I heard someone say the other day that lazy people always find efficient ways to do things, so yes, I am lazy efficient.  Sometimes being efficient means saving less (maybe even spending more) money on occasion, but that is ok, with the very general assumption that I find value in spending money on this thing.

I stated this blog out to mostly focus on early retirement, and while that is still a goal of mine, I guess it’s not a goal for everyone, and that is alight (although highly disappointing).  After initially hearing about early retirement, mainly from Mr Money Mustache, I thought it was one of the greatest things I’d ever discovered. However when I started sharing this new found information with friends, co-workers, and family there was (and still is) much ridicule and skepticism, so they clearly did get the same level of enthusiasm as I.   Even my wife isn’t on board with the idea (which is extremely disappointing to say the least), however I will continue to press on to the best of my ability.  It may also make for some interesting posts as we disagree with finances going forward.

Finally, I just want to be clear about my wife and I’s income.  We have a combined of approximately $110,000 (I don’t share the actual amount since I blog anonymously), which seems to be an upper middle class income (very hard to find a source to pin down middle class income these days it seems).  I want to be clear about this for two reasons.  First, a lot of blogs out there seem to originate from individuals or families with high incomes, and I mean high incomes right off the bat out of college.  Some of these same blogs also generate a fair amount of income on their own (via adds or referrals).  There is nothing wrong with that, and I’m not saying this blog will never do this, but this blog currently generates $0 (shocking!) However, I don’t think it’s really appropriate to humble brag how you paid off your $40K student debt in less than a year when you were making $100K per year, and your wife was “only” making $40K per year, since those types of income don’t apply to most people.  Second, there is a blog out there (more than one I’m sure) where the writer(s) claim (or claimed) to be “middle class” with typical income, and it was recently discovered that their “typical” income was over $200K, not to mention their blog income.  So I think it’s fair to say that this particular blog was being a bit disingenuous, to say the least. I also want to be clear that we have never won any significant lottery prize, received any large inheritance, we did however each pay for all (me) or most (her) of our university educations….. via student loans!

Please leave a like on a post if you enjoyed it, or even better leave a comment telling me so, or leave a question, you can even email me a topic you would like me to discuss.  Thanks for checking out The Fake Cheap!

The 3 C’s: Cars, Cells and Cable

Welcome back to the Fake Cheap train.  What’s that?  You never left to begin with?  I like you guys more and more each time I post.  No wonder I want to share such great financial tips with you.  With that being said, lets begin.

Let’s talk about areas where everyone can start saving money, significant money, and all within the next 24 hours in some cases.  I’ll keep this fresh in your mind by calling these things the 3 C’s.  As you can see the 3 C’s are Cars, Cells and Cable. I want you to think about these 3 things or a minute, and tell me, how much time in an average day to you spend in a car, on your cell, and watching cable?   I bet that number just blew your mind.  I’m going guess that most people spend 1-2 hours in a car, another 1-2 hours on their cell, texting, playing games, on social media, and then topping that off with another 3-4 hours of cable, totaling anywhere from 5 to 8 hours.  So you sleep for about 7 hours, you work for about 8 hours, that leaves you 9 hours…..and you spend a most of this time on the 3 C’s!  Now ask yourself:  What in the sweet jiminy cricket are you doing with your life???  And of course, these 3 things aren’t only draining away your time, but also your money.

The 1st C – Cars

I can hear you already: “I need my car!” or “I love my truck, no way I’m giving that up!” I’m not going to talk you into giving up your vehicle, not yet anyway.  I really want to ease you into the world of saving.    So first, let’s make sure you use your vehicle efficiently.  That means drive, as little as possible.  Make stops on your way home, no dreaded special trips!* Also, when you drive, accelerate steadily.  And when you drive on the highway, instead of going 120 km/h try out about 100, about 20% slower, but about 30% more fuel efficient.  Now lets make sure you have a reasonable vehicle.  Do you own a truck or SUV?  Do you haul large or heavy objects, or many people frequently?  Key word people: frequently.  If no, then great, you can start finding a more reasonable vehicle right this second.  There is NO reason to own a vehicle that requires MORE gas, or larger MORE expensive tires than needed.  Get an efficient person mover…a car! If you have a car payment and it is more than about $400 per month, I beg you to take a good long look at that number and think of what else that money could be doing for you, hint: making you money by ways of investments.

The 2nd C – Cable

You pay money you don’t have, to spend time watching things you don’t need to see, in order to have something to talk about with people that you don’t like.  (Yes, that is a slightly altered line from Fight Club).   How much is your cable bill?  Seriously go and get it and look at it.  Is it bundled with other things so you can’t really tell how much?  Then call your provider, like now, and ask them how much, and then ask them how you can lower it.  Threaten to leave them, if you must. Play the game!  I would love to say I don’t have cable, but I would be lying.  This is how I do it with my cable company, which is also my internet and home phone provider.  So way back a few years ago I was a sukka paying full price for cable, then The Fake Cheap roared to life and cancelled the cable.  This dropped by bill by about $80 a month, and let me tell you that is a metric F ton of money.  Now here is the kicker, after a few months, I called and got the cable hooked back up, and the goods news of this is that since I was adding a “new” service I was eligible for the promo rate again, so I paid only about $15 more a month on top of my internet and home phone, and got the whole cable deal HD/PVR.  Then the promo ran out, I canceled again, waited a few months, and got the promo deal again.  This once again dropped by bill from nearly a whopping $200 to under $150, so the promo was not as good as the first time, but still some sweet savings to be had for sure.  Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game.  One other thing I should mention is that you won’t miss the cable, you will adapt, that is what we humans do.  You will survive, and survive with MORE money.

The 3rd C – Cells

This might be my most cringe worthy topic.  I. Can’t. Believe. The. Money. People. Spend. On. Their. Cell. Phone.  I’ve heard the vomit inducing figures “Oh yeah, I only had to pay $600 for this phone, and then it was only $75 a month for the plan for 2 years, and sometimes I don’t even have to pay extra for my data.”  Do you have a cell plan like this?   Get rid of it now!  Sell you phone tomorrow, heck pay someone to take your phone from you, and pay whatever penalty they ask, and then thank me later.  You are throwing your money and your time away on these stupid phones!  Yes, I have a phone, the details can be found here.  The TL;DR of it is that my phone and plan cost me about $12 a month. (Update coming shortly) YES, that is the phone AND the plan, $12, 12 dollars, not a typo twelve.  “But it’s not an iPhone” Of course it’s not an iPhone!  It calls people and texts people.  DONE.

So there you have it, 3 C’s for you to keep in mind,  I strongly urge you to review how much money (and time) the 3 C’s are costing you, and see how you can do better.

Comment below (if you dare) and let me know if you plan to take or have taken any action on one or all of the 3 C’s and let me know the results.

Give me a like if you find this article helpful, or if you know, like the article.

Fake Cheap out!

*A special trip is something I define as driving more than 3 km only to go and pick up 1 item, or a few items when not in an emergency situation. So driving to get a coffee that is 5 minutes away, that doesn’t happen anymore.  Got it?  We’re going to get along great 🙂

The Fake Cheap Rating. The lower the stars, the cheaper I was/am. The higher the stars the more “fake” cheap I am/was.  I have a car, I have a cell, and I have cable, no cheapness going on here!

Churned: Scotiabank Scene Visa

Welcome back to The Fake Cheap.  It feels good to get back into the blog, I think I last posted in February, but who is counting?  I thought I would add another cc (that’s credit card for anyone not fluent in personal finance) churn, especially since my first churn article seems to also be my most popular post ‘round here. Hopefully someone got that Counting Crowns reference?

Anyway, yes I churned the Scotiabank Scence Visa as the title says, and it did take a while for the plastic to melt down and turn to a delicious fatty tasting butter…ok, so what I actually did for this churn was to sign up for the card, strictly for the sign up bonus, which was enough scene points for 5 free movies!!!  I know, I couldn’t believe it either.  These 5 free movies have a value of about what, $60-$70, I think it’s about $12-$13 per movie ticket these days, well for a “normal” ticket without the shaking seat and the smells,or whatever else they have added now.  Some of you might be thinking who would waste all this time for about $60 bucks?  (Especially any Americans reading, and out of the thousands reading, I’m sure someone is American, our sign up bonuses here in Canada are really just a fraction of what is offered to you)  First I would say, it really took very little time, (less time than writing this article) and second I would say it took me about 30 minutes, so $60 tax free, for 30 minutes of work?  Yes please.  Maybe some of you are underwhelmed at this, because there are better offers out there, and there are, but I felt like hitting this one, plus some offers are better at other times, so you have to time it right because some of the sign up bonuses you can only get once, like the a fore mentioned TD Aeroplan visa I do believe.

So this churn went pretty well, I signed up for the card, it arrived, I believe the scene points were awarded on my first statement, after my first purchase, no dollar amount attached, so that was nice.  Normally you have to spend like $500 over 3 months or something like that, but this was like, nope, buy something..anything, and slap it on this card and BAM!! 5 free movies…on the next statement.  So that was a piece of cake.  Another nice thing about the reward being scene points, is that you could probably cancel the card immediately after you get awarded the points, and since scene points are separate from the cc, you probably wouldn’t have any issue.  What I did was actually held on to the card for a bit, and then cancel it, which was also no real hassle, I just called the number on the back of the card, and said I would like to cancel, and they were like “ok”, I don’t even think they tried to get me to stick around.  And that was it, a quick application for the card, a call activate the card, and a call to cancel the card, maybe 30 minutes work.

How do you get to qualify for these credit cards?   Well you need decent, credit, not even  good credit.  How do you get decent credit?  By following my blog! Pay your bills on time, don’t rack up debt, put something on a credit card once in a while, pay it ALL off  each month so you don’t pay any interest, and you WILL qualify for most of these offers.  Credit isn’t something I’ve spoken much about, but I assure you, there are many other great PF blogs around, maybe check out my blog roll up there on the right, that do discuss credit, and I hope to touch on it more in the future.  You can also get your credit report via Equifax or TransUnion, for free once per year I believe, but ask them, not me.  It should also be noted that if you tend to max out credit cards quickly, then churning likely isn’t for you.  If you end up paying interest on a thousand dollars or two you’ve racked up on the card, any sign up bonus “profit” will be eaten up by the interest quite quickly.

Remember, always be ready to churn, or else let that cash burn!

Save HUNDREDS of Dollars Over Your Lifetime by Doing This

The scanning code of practice.  Ever heard of it?  Like most people probably not.  But you NEED to know what this is.

You know how annoying it is when you go to buy something that you think is $7.99, but then it scans at the cash as $9.99, then you have to have point it out to the cashier (it’s not his/her fault by the way that the price came up wrong, they are just scanning bar codes, so don’t be a jackass during this process.)  that the item should be $7.99?  Then usually someone verifies the price, and says “Yes, it’s marked as $7.99.” So then the cashier makes the change and you get your item for $7.99, right?  WRONG.  You get that item for FREE.  That is correct, for NOTHING.  Well you do if the store follows the “Scanning Code of Practice” as per the good people at the Retail Council of Canada.  And you know who follows the Scanning Code of Practice?  Just about every major retailer, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Loblaw’s (Superstore) and even Costco, check the link for a complete listing.

To add a bit more clarification, if your item scans more, and the item you are buying is $10 or less, you get that item for FREE.  If the item is over $10, then you get $10 off that item, so your $12.99 purchase that came up at $14.99, will be $4.99 after the adjustment.  If you happen to be buying multiple items that scanned incorrectly, then the discount applies to the first item only.  Follow my link above if you want other details, but the examples above are the most common occurrences. And let me tell you, the occurrences can be common, depending where you shop.  I’m not big on calling out the stores which screw up their prices the most since I fear highly paid corporate lawyers who might be looking for something to do, but two really jump out in my mind, one being a large well known pharmacy based store, and another a department store retailer.  Now anytime I go to these places, you bet I’m taking extra time to check the prices on the shelf and match them up with my receipt.  I would estimate that the department store has an inaccurate price about 40-50% of the time, staggering indeed, and the pharmacy store 10-20% of the time.   I am going to take a moment to call out two stores where you can likely save yourself some time, and just stuff the receipt right in your pocket, because I would wager my first born what you were charged was 100% accurate: Wal-Mart and Superstore, I’ve never personally had a scanning error from either of these stores, I don’t shop at Wal-Mart often, and Superstore has been my regular choice for groceries for a few years, so it is very impressive they’ve not made an error, at least not that I have caught, yet.

Getting back to my personal experience when calling out a store for charging the wrong amount, they have actually almost all gone smoothly.  I mention to the cashier that a price has come up wrong when she is scanning in my order, and again be nice here, “Excuse me I think that was $5.99 on the shelf.” or something along those lines will do the trick.  Usually someone goes to have a look on the shelf (I volunteer sometimes and take a picture with my phone) and comes back and confirms with the cashier, then the cashier applies the discount and everybody is happy.  Occasionally the cashier may just update the price without giving you the item or the discount, at which I point I say “I think I get that for free, due to the scanning code of practice right?”Once again, keep it polite, she didn’t just murder your grandmother.   And if the cashier still looks puzzled, then I point of the Scanning code of Practice sign or sticker located by the cash, then usually a supervisor is called.  Now I’ve only had one time where a cashier lady gave me a bit of an issue.  I bought an item which was supposed to be $1.59 or something, but it came up at $1.99 or something like that, which I pointed out, so she just changed the price.  I said something along the lines of “Shouldn’t I get that for free due to the Scanning Code of Practice?”  She said no, because I didn’t actually get charged, as in I didn’t actually pay yet, the incorrect amount.  So I just said something like “Oh really…”.  Now my take is that you don’t HAVE to actually be charged, because the Scanning code of Practice is about price accuracy, the price came up wrong, so the Scanning Code of Practice should be followed in my book.  I would love to hear someone’s take, or from someone with some info in the comments below.  As for this particular event, I just went along with it, because I was on my lunch from work, and didn’t have much time, and also I was also only 99.9% sure I was right.  Afterwards, it occurred to me that this method doesn’t make much sense, since it would take more time for the store and the customer to correct the issue; meaning the customer would have to save the receipt and then to back to customer service and get a refund, rather than the cashier pushing a few buttons.  So now, whenever go to this store, that is what I do, I make sure to actually pay for everything so I have the incorrect amount right on my receipt, and there shouldn’t be an issue, however I don’t go to this place often, so I haven’t had a chance to see if the same thing might reoccur.  One other personal story I’ll add is that I’ve actually also used the Scanning Code of Practice to my advantage once to get the same free item 2 days in a row, and then the same item again a few days later, so it took the store about a week to correct their error.  It was a large bag of chips, I originally bought them because they were on sale for $1.99, but they wrung up at $2.99 or whatever, so I got the item for free.  I went back the next day, mostly out of curiosity to see if the error was fixed, it wasn’t so more free chips for me.  I then went back a few days later and the error was still not fixed, so MORE free chips.  The next day the error was fixed.  So this tells you that very few people check their receipts, because the store wouldn’t  give away dozens of bags of chips everyday.  I told the story to someone at work, and they told me I was ripping off the store.  Hmmm what??  I’m willing to pay the correct amount for the chips, it’s the stores own fault for not updating their pricing, that is my take on it.  Also, how many people paid an extra $1 or whatever for their chips?  That’s all gravy for the bottom line for the retailer.

So there you have it the Scanning Code of Practice in a nutshell.  Thanks to CBC’s recent article reminding me that I had this draft sitting here mostly ready to go.

What is your take on the Scanning Code of Practice?  Should you get more of a discount? Have you called out a store for using the incorrect price, what was the result?   And what about my free chips?  Think I was ripping off the store?   Please leave me a like if you enjoyed the post.  Thanks!!

 

 

 

Net Worth Update: January 2017

Welcome back to The Fake Cheap, your 4th favorite (at least, I hope) personal finance blog and my first post of 2017.

What is Net Worth? It is simply your assets minus your liabilities, find our more here.

It is that time once again, my semi annual net worth update, I’m going to try to update my NW each January and July.

First, lets reflect back and have a look at my Jan 2016 net worth, which was $115,000.  This is the most recent figure I have provided, although I have still been calculating my NW every two months on my own.

If you are new to recording your net worth, just one net worth statement isn’t super helpful.  It will show you where you are at presently, but for tracking your own, I suggest calculating it quarterly, since this will help keep you motivated by seeing an increase (hopefully) over each  quarter.  If you find that too tedious, you calculate it semi-annually instead.  Or if you really enjoy crunching the numbers, you can also add it up hourly!  I kid, I kid.

Back my own story:  January 2017: net worth $142,000 .

Change from Jan 2016: + 23%  or + $27,000 Amazing!  Pretty darn good, if I were to toot my own horn, and of course I did this while only making small “sacrifices” to my lifestyle, I am The Fake Cheap, remember.

Note that this number is much more than just investment returns (which I estimate at about 8% for us for the year, as per my annual statements that have started to trickle in).  this includes the amount of debt we paid off, the money we put into RRSPs and TFSAs, and other things like our tax refund (which largely went to pay off debt), increase in home value (as per our tax assessment).  Find out more here if you want to know more about how to calculate your net worth.  There isn’t one right way to calculate your net worth, but there sure are some wrong ways!

 

Questions you may have (I’ve left these questions from a previous posting, they aren’t directly related to the above post, but you may find them interesting):

You are off by 2K from your quick calculation from your actual amount, what could cause this?

I would say much of this would be accounted for by 2 main factors: cash we happened to have on hand at the time I calculated my net worth and the remainder would be due to increases in investments.  Even though the Canadian markets are down, other areas are not, also dividends are still being paid by my investments, and mutual fund disbursements also normally occur at calendar year end.  I bought more investments/mutual funds this year, that generally means more disbursement at year end.

Why are you paying off debt and withdrawing from your line of credit at the same time, that don’t make no sense?!

Good question, but work on your grammar.  I could have just as easily made minimum only payments to my low interest rate credit card, and invested the rest for likely a better return.  However, I went the route I did because I will still have this debt at the end of the low rate offer (over a year from now) and yes, there could be more of these offers before this one expires, but there is no guarantee of this.  So yes, I would agree I could likely be doing even better with my money, but I’m The Fake Cheap, remember?

Please leave a comment, a question or a cookie below.  And if you found this post at least half interesting, a like would be nice.  Likewise if you found it a huge waste of your time, I want to know about that too.

Stay tuned, another super fun post is coming in just a few days!  Shocking!!!

Do you want to play a game? How long would your money last?

You said that using the voice of that clown doll from Saw, right?  If not, try again, it is mandatory.

This is a fun game to play, well it is if you like personal finance, and we know you like personal finance, since you are here, right?  So let’s play.

So what you do is first of all add up any savings/investments you have, which is quite easy to do since this information is found in your net worth.

Then you have a look at all your monthly expenses/bills.  For this game I like to calculate any loan payments as the minimum amount, and I would also remove our daycare expense, also no more aside from fancy restaurant meals (which we don’t have many of anyway.)

Then you imagine that you (and your spouse/partner, if applicable) immediately stop receiving any sort of income, and just live off your existing savings and investments.  For simplicity, I don’t bother trying to factor in returns on investments or employment benefits, etc…just straight up how long until we need more money once what we have, or roughly have, runs out.   With that being said…lets play!

So my (our) current savings/investments is about 68K

Our monthly expenses for the use of this game I put at $2,400.  I got to this figure by using the lowest payments for lines of credit, credit cards, etc and day care is no longer an expense, the only other change I would make to my expenses is no more restaurant or fast food meals and no more buying coffee out, also much less gas needed for cars, and we would also stop RRSP and TFSA contributions.  The bulk of the $2,400 comes from my fixed bills like the mortgage payment, and also largely from the monthly grocery bill, the reminder is other fixed expenses like the utility bill, and maybe a sliver of spending money

So we can see that if both my wife and I had no income starting immediately* we would be A-ok for about 28 months.  (68K/2.4= 28).   I thought it might be a bit longer than that, but it is what it is.

Maybe you think this is a stupid game, and you want to make your own rules.  Well go ahead!  Either way send a comment my way with your thoughts and results, maybe you could stay afloat longer than The Fake Cheap.

 
* Yes, I realize this is an extremely unlikely scenario due to severance from our employers and likely payments from Canada’s Employment Insurance program, and also likely increased government child benefit payments, but it’s just a game, remember?