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."

Prague

Andrea and I went to Prague last week. If you don't have a lot of time, I'll leave it at this: If you go to Prague, bring sensible shoes.

Still with me? Okay, let's carry on.

In case you don't hate us already, Prague wasn't our first choice. We originally booked a first-class trip to Belize with Aeroplan points. About three weeks before our flight left, we got a call informing us that our flight was no longer 'economically viable', and had been cancelled. Oh, and all the money that we'd spent on our hotel? Yeah, that was down the tubes.

In case you weren't aware, Aeroplan can cancel your flight at any time, and all they have to do is refund your miles and your cash. My favorite part - and, of course, no one at Aeroplan told me this - was that our flight had been cancelled in May, but that Aeroplan didn't see fit to inform us of this fact until September. When I pointed out that this was a rather lax view of customer service, they told me to pound salt.

So, here's my recommendation: if you currently collect Aeroplan miles, switch to something else. Anything else. Personally, I'm going for the RBC Avion card. Also: I have so not given this up.

To add insult to injury, we had a week that we needed to fill, and still needed to fly somewhere. So, we had to suck up our pride and go back to Aeroplan to get our flight. After much trial and error, we found a flight to somewhere interesting that didn't have a $600 fuel surcharge hanging on for the ride. Destination: Prague.

We decided to spend the whole week in the one city. A.) I wasn't in the mood for death-travelling, and B.) It's the kind of city that you can take a week to see. Oh, and C.) Pints of beer cost less than $2.

We left this past Thursday at around 2:00 pm. Andrea left work early, while I'd spent the day packing and tidying up around the condo. (The joys of being "retired".) The flight was more-or-less a straight shot, Ottawa to Frankfurt overnight and then a quick hop to Prague on Friday morning.

I don't mind transtlantic travel - the drinks are free, and those new entertainment centres are actually pretty decent. I drank a few Heineken, watched Get Smart, and promptly fell asleep until around 8:00 am. Unfortunately, due to the time change, that meant that I only got around 3 hours of sleep that night.

The flight from Frankfurt to Prague was decent. Lufthansa knows how to do in-flight food, that's for sure. None of this triple-reheated, dehydrated, rehydrated junk they serve you on most airlines. For breakfast, they served two small pieces of bread with a slice of cheese. And you know what? It was tasty. Unlike the tomato-sauce-and-whipped-beef mixture that Air Canada served the previous night.

We stayed at Hotel Sonata, which is between the New Town and Old Town, out by the National Museum. It was a four-star boutique hotel but, just like Cuba, four-stars in Europe are not like four-stars in North America. The decor was orange but stylish, and they served a pretty good breakfast. Also, despite being just off a major road, it wasn't very noisy.

As far as the hotel staff was concerned, they always seemed to give the impression that you were bothering them, and that they had more important things to do than talk to you - like surf the Internet and stare at the floor tiles.

Our first meal was a disaster. I asked for a nice local restaurant that served traditional fare. What we got was over-priced, dried-out Czech "specialties" served by someone who might well have a degree in hucksterism. But, we learned our lesson - in the future, we would read the menu posted on the outside of restaurants, and I'd stay away from the Becherovka - and the rest of our meals were great.

If you go to Prague, be prepared to walk. A lot. Andrea and I would spend as much as nine hours walking over the course of a single day. Over the course of the week, we probably spent more than two full days walking.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing as there's a plethora of delicious, sugary, fattening foods and cheap pints to be had. Walking's also the only real way to explore Prague, as the best parts of the city are not to be found in some guidebook, but are found in that cafe or restaurant tucked into a side street that no one's ever heard of.

Don't get me wrong - the touristy stuff is actually pretty good. There's beautiful architecture in the square, and the castle is beautiful. The beaten path has terrific stops on it, like the Reduta Jazz Club and Cafe Louvre. But, you know what? I'm going to miss the mulled wine they serve out of carts, Godmother Pizzeria, a mug of Grog at the Last Call, and the locals assuming (against all odds) that we're just a couple of Czechs sitting down to a meal.

The week came and went much too quickly.

Well, enough of that. Time for the photos.

The National Theatre in Prague

A Small Orchestra Performs in one of the Castle's Churches

One of the Churches at the Castle

The View from the Mini-Eiffel Tower

Prague Wall Art

A Cart That Serves Both Mulled Wine and Sausages - and Happiness

The Main Drag, as Seen from the Museum

Obligatory Tourist Shot Blocked by a German

Obligatory Tourist Shot

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.