Penny Pinching

On first impression, I might not strike you as someone you'd call "frugal" - I have a fondness for scotch and cigars, drive a luxury car, enjoy travelling, etc. - but I'm something of a penny-pincher in other areas of my life, which helps to cover the defray the costs of Cuban robustos and single malt.

I'm always on the look-out for new ways to save money without making sacrifices. So, I'd like to share some of my cost-cutting strategies and would invite you to post yours, as well.

1.) Skype: Although I've only started using Skype recently, I'm absolutely hooked. The best feature by far is the $3/month dial-out service, which covers unlimited calls to anywhere in North America. Based on this, I've been able to trim back my Rogers cell phone plan by another $17, plus tax.

Savings: $15 per month x 12 months = $180, or the cost of a very fine dinner for two at AquaTerra.

2.) Insurance: When it comes to car insurance, I like my coverage low and my deductible high. Having a $2,000 deductible vice a $500 deductible saves between $200 and $500 per year - though I am careful to ensure that I do have liability coverage of at last $1M, which actually isn't that expensive.

I'm also careful to read through the cardholder agreement for credit cards, so I know whether they cover additional warranties, car rental insurance, travel insurance, and so on. I've saved at least $700 in hotel and restaurant costs as the result of travel insurance, alone.

Savings: $1,200 per year, or a week-long trip to Costa Rica during the low season.

3.) Rewards Points: I'm careful to compare the different Visa cards and the rewards they offer. When I switched to a RBC Avion card from the CIBC Aerogold*, they waived the annual fee and gave me 15,000 travel miles, or a free $350 plane ticket (tax incl). If I put on another $15,000 on my card over the year, that's $700 in free travel.

Savings: $700, or three boxes of Cuaba Exclusivos and a bottle of 16 y/o Lagavulin.

4.) Low-Cost Banking: All of my banking is either done at PC Financial (which has no fees) or with institutions where I have the minimum balance to avoid monthly fees. StatsCan says that the average Canadian spends $15 per month on bank fees, or $180 per year.

I also don't allow my credit cards to carry a balance. I've said this before, and I'll say it again - credit card debt is the financial equivalent of a sucking chest wound. It's nature's way of telling you to slow down. I don't even want to think about what average credit card debt is, but I've seen estimates of around $2200 per person, which sounds about right to me. That's around $400 per year, just in interest.

Savings: $580, or enough to purchase sufficient premium gasoline for 5,400 km in an SUV.

5.) Brown-bag Lunch: Before I worked from home, I was one of the few people in my office to bring a lunch with me. Even those who did bring a lunch usually brought some sort of frozen dinner. I'd estimate that the price difference between a cafeteria and a brown-bag lunch is around $6 per meal. It doesn't take long before that starts to ad up in a big way.

Savings: For an employee who eats at the cafeteria every day for 49 weeks a year, you're looking at an annual cost of $1470, or 80 pounds of gourmet, fair trade, shade-grown coffee.

Okay, your turn...

*For a while, I quite liked CIBC Aerogold - then Aeroplan waited four months to inform me that my reward flight had been cancelled, thereby causing me to lose my hotel deposit. When I confronted them about this, they told me to pound salt. When I explained my situation to RBC, they very kindly offered to waive my first annual fee and give me the points for joining.

My favorite part was when I cancelled the CIBC card and they - quite naturally - asked why. At the end of my tirade, all they could say was, "Oh, I see."

Good for Me

Six weeks into my year off, I've noticed a distinct trend in how people respond when I explain that I work full-time running a small charity - they almost always say, 'Good for you!' You might think this is a nice thing to say to someone, but what it really means is 'Better you than me.'

To illustrate my point, please answer the following multiple choice question.

1.) Which of the following statement are you most likely to respond to by saying, 'Good for you!'
A.) I am an investment banker.
B.) I am a model.
C.) I am taking a six-month 'round-the-world vacation.
D.) I am going to spend a year toiling under 40C heat in Uruguay, helping to build roads for orphanages.

I'm guessing that you chose D.

As someone who's said 'Good for you!' before, that's what I would choose.

My objection to being told 'Good for you!' is it implies I am some sort of self-suffering martyr, and that the only reason that I'm doing this is because my compassion for others outweighs any kind of sliver of self-interest that I may possess. This assumption does not bode well for charitable work, as there is only a small number of people who are willing to make such self-depricating gestures. Moreover, in my case it's simply not true - I'm having a great time, and am doing this for myself as much (or more) as I'm doing this for others.

There are so many personal benefits to this kind of work that I'm not going to try to list all of them, but here are just a few: sleeping late, being able to pursue my own interests when my mood suits, being able to have a beer and a cigar while I work, setting my own hours and judging my effectiveness by what I accomplish and not by how many hours I put in.

Lastly, there's also the most important benefit of all: it gives me the chance to create something meaningful. I take pride in my work and I enjoy what I do. That's no reason to say, 'Better you than me.'

Update!

Now that the dust has settled slightly, I figured I'd fill you in on what's happened in the past... uh... 3 months.

- My good friend Sean came down to visit me in Ottawa for Canada Day long weekend. We spent a lot of time hanging out at "The Works", the notorious Ottawa burger restaurant. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to play the ponies at Carleton Raceway. Next time, though. Sean is now plying his trade as a geo-physicist on an ocean-going vessel. I told him that if he starts seeing anonymous henchmen in blue jumpsuits, then he should try to swim for it.

- Jenn, Rudi, Sofia and Noah came for a visit, and darned if my niece and nephew aren't growing up quick. We went to the Perth Road Village Fish Fry, but left before the fist fights started, which apparently happens by the end of the night. The fish, however, was all shades of awesome. Sofi got to spend some time with "Uncle Wy", though not as much as we'd hoped - but I'll be going back to Calgary for Christmas, and should have a week to engage in further uncley activities.

- A bunch of us spent Labour Day weekend out at the cottage, and were fortunate enough to have some pretty fantastic weather. Jess and Peter have bought their own place out there, and we were on hand to help my sister break in her new porch. I'd estimate each person ate, on average, 3 pounds of meat over the course of the weekend - but at least we had some Cuban cigars the size of our forearms to aide in digestion.

- Andrea and I bought a condo - yes, just like that, faster than most people would buy a car, or even a new pair of shoes. It was the first place we saw, and we knew it was the place for us pretty much right away. We still went through the formality of seeing a few other places, but end up putting in an offer less than a week after we started looking. The deal closed in the first week of September, and we're now in the process of moving in.

I hate moving, but it does give me a good excuse to get rid of some of the junk that's accumulated over the past few years - I'm donating a full suitcase to charity, and will likely have more to drop off once all's said and done. So, that's right - a childless couple living in a loft condo close to their respective workplaces. All I need is an eliptical trainer and annoying laugh, and my ascension into Yuppiedom is all but assured.

- Andrea, myself, Brian and Joanna went for a vacation at an off-season ski resort in Utah last week. It still feels odd telling people that I went for a vacation at an off-season ski resort, as it sounds like the kind of place you'd tell people you visited when what you really did was join a cult. Really, though, it was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time hiking, sightseeing, swimming, riding mechanical bulls, and otherwise being active, and spent the rest of the vacation eating, drinking and lounging by the pool.

One highlight was chartering a rafting company to take us about 6 miles up a river that we then floated down on tubes, whilst I smoked a fine Costa Rican cigar. The second highlight was the Alpine Sled, a flimsy plastic contraption that hurtled down a concrete track at about 80 km/h. I never managed to quite figure out how to break, and smoked the pylon at the end of the track twice, and barrelled into the safety pads once. Good times.

That's it for now. Andrea and I still have a lot of moving to do, but we should be done by the end of the weekend. Then, we just have to wait for the extra furniture to arrive, and we'll be all set. Visitors are welcome, but I hope you don't mind sleeping on the inflatable bed. Don't worry, we're reasonably certain that our kittens lack the means of detonating it with their claws at 3:48 am.