Picture of the Week: Lonely Dog

Wel­come to my new “How To… Canada” series! In this series, I’ll try to put my knowl­edge to good use and shed some light on my new coun­try: Canada. You will learn how some immi­gra­tion tips and tricks, how to improve your pro­fi­ciency in both offi­cial lan­guages, how to find a job, how to set­tle in Canada etc. I’ll pub­lish a new “How To… Canada” post every Saturday.

Money is always a bit tight for new­com­ers to Canada. Set­tling in a new coun­try is expen­sive, espe­cially between the immi­gra­tion fees, the set­tling expenses and the fact you may not get a good job right away. So here are a few tips on man­ag­ing your money in Canada.

First thing you need to remem­ber, is that the prices you see in stores are before tax. This is very impor­tant because it adds up and makes a dif­fer­ence on the final price you pay!

In Canada there are three types of sales taxes:

• Provin­cial sales taxes (PST) — in every province but Alberta, Yukon, North­west Ter­ri­to­ries and Nunavut. Goods to which the tax is applied varies by province, as does the rate.
• Fed­eral Goods and Ser­vices Tax (GST) — the cur­rent rate is 5%
• Har­mo­nized Sales Tax (HST) — this tax is the com­bi­na­tion of the GST and PST into a sin­gle tax. There is a HST (instead of a GST + PST) in New Brunswick, New­found­land, and Nova Scotia.

In any case, the com­bined provin­cial and fed­eral taxes are between 5% (Alberta) and 15.5% (PEI). Now, it may not make a huge dif­fer­ence on a bot­tle of Coke, but it does on a meal, a car or fur­ni­tures! And as I said, taxes are never included. So make sure you cal­cu­late the total price before mak­ing a big purchase.

North Amer­ica, in gen­eral, is a coun­try where sup­ply and demand rule the mar­ket. Prices can be quite com­pet­i­tive and you may take advan­tage of pro­mo­tions, deals and offers, for almost every kind of goods. You can use these fol­low­ing tips to make your money go further:

• Check stores fly­ers and pro­mo­tions weekly. Many gro­cery store chains, such as Loblaws, Food Basic, Loebs or the Cana­dian Super­store pub­lish weekly fly­ers and high­light dis­counted prod­ucts, or “special”.
• Col­lect and use coupons: No, you won’t look cheap. Cana­di­ans love their coupons and you will see many peo­ple using them! You can eas­ily save a few cents or dol­lars on prod­ucts you would buy any­way. We usu­ally have coupons book­lets mailed at home. You can check these fol­low­ing coupon web­sites: Smart Canucks, Red Flag Deal or Save.
• Take advan­tage of the var­i­ous reward pro­grams offered in your favorite stores. Many pop­u­lar chains, such as Shop­per Drug Mart, Loblaws, Sub­way etc. invite you to apply for a free point card. This card, often given on-the-spot, will be swiped each time you make a pur­chase at the par­tic­u­lar store and will even­tu­ally get you rewards. I per­son­ally have the Shop­per Opti­mum card and get about $75 to $150 in reward every 6 months or so, just buy­ing basic toi­letry prod­ucts — not bad! I also have a Scene card and I col­lect the point to get free movie tick­ets at Cine­plex. Works well!
• Shop local: not only it’s good for the envi­ron­ment and it ben­e­fits local farm­ers and pro­duc­ers, but you will also get bet­ter deals. I find veg­gies’ price has really raised lately, but at the mar­ket, I can still find fresh zuc­chi­nis, pep­pers, beans, toma­toes etc. for a good price. Plus, veg­gies actu­ally look like veg­gies. Phew, I’m tired of this unatural shine and bright colors…
• Buy in bulk: stores such as the Bulk Barn are a great place to stock up on herbs, dry pasta, spread (hazel­nut, choco­late etc.). No fancy pack­ag­ing but great prices.
• Last rule is, stock up on non-perishable items when there is a pro­mo­tion. Pasta sauces, soups, rice, canned veg­gies, toi­letry such as soap, sham­poo, tooth­paste etc. won’t go bad and there are spe­cials reg­u­larly on these prod­ucts (and many others!).

The best part in Canada is that we have shops that cater to all kind of bud­get. You don’t have to stick to the cheap­est ones, but still visit them once in a while and you will save on basic items. Get to know the shops in your neigh­bor­hood and com­pare the prices. Chances are you will notice one super­mar­ket usu­ally has good price on veg­gies, the other one has great fresh meat and fish, the third one is no-frills but has cheap cans etc. As for me, I shop at Food Basic for veg­gies (in the win­ter, since I go to the mar­ket in the sum­mer), Loblaws or Farm Boy for meat & fish and then at eth­nic stores for inter­na­tional food (the best noo­dles will always be found in Chinatown).

The hard­est part I find in North Amer­ica is to resist the sale pressure:

• Ditch the plas­tic: credit cards are great because they help you build a credit his­tory but you I find you gen­er­ally tend to spend more using them. Pay daily pur­chases with cash and you will real­ize how much you really spend.
• Resist sale pres­sure: chances are, you will be offered credit cards when you shop at depart­ment stores, paid “extras” when order­ing food and spe­cial “one day only” deals any­where else. There is noth­ing wrong with that. Just make sure you actu­ally want the deals.
• Watch the inter­est rate: if you are short on cash, there are solu­tions. Usu­ally not the ones adver­tised on T.V though. Beware of these “pay­day loans” and cash advances. The inter­est rate is just unbe­liev­ably high.
• Read the fine print: there is almost always a trick. Make sure the coupon you have in your hand is valid (typ­i­cal for restau­rants, the coupon won’t be valid Fri­day — Sun­day), that all “extras” are included in the price and that you don’t com­mit your­self for longer than you wish (i.e cell phones plans).

Happy shop­ping!

Related posts:

1. How To Bank in Canada (4÷10)
2. How To Work Tem­porar­ily In Canada (2÷10)
3. How To Visit Canada (3÷10)
4. How To Immi­grate to Canada (1÷10)
5. How To Learn More About Canada (10÷10)