Tag Archives: saving basics

Banking: Saving Basics

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I know its been long overdue that I get away from the flashy stuff and start heading down the path of bank accounts, savings and the things we all don’t want to talk about. But unfortunately it’s happening and I’ve decided to start with some saving basics. One of the first steps to increase your net worth and prevent debt is to open up a savings account (don’t quote me on this, but it’s definitely a great first step). Most students, I hope, have a savings account but I’m going to assume most don’t, or don’t use it properly. Within this post I will cover just your standard savings account…don’t want to scare you off now.

Regular/Standard Savings Account

A savings account is something in addition to a preexisting chequing account that you already hold at your bank. It’s somewhere to put money that won’t be used on a day-to-day basis and allows you to earn a small amount of interest without having to invest yourself.

What you should look for in a savings account

  • Choose a savings account with the highest interest rate possible without service charges (us students don’t have money to just give away)
  • Some banks have been offering limited time “high” interest rates from about 1.5-2% on new deposits, check it out or inquire at your local branch
  • Check out online banks like ING, Ally and PC Financial that have a focus on savings accounts with relatively higher interest rates than major banks

Interest?!?

Yeah the word might sound scary, and even sound like your getting charged for something instead of earning it. In fact interest in a savings account is a good thing, not like those annoying charges on your credit card statement. Usually on a monthly basis interest is given as a percentage of the total value of your savings account, some banks might take the average monthly amount in your savings account instead.

Once you start seeing your interest deposits every month you will being to realize how low interest rates are these days. Huge interest values per month like $1, $2 and maybe one month it might even just reach $7. It’s definitely something to keep in perspective when it comes to how easily we pay for things that cost $10-$20 on a daily basis…see how long it takes to make that money back in interest! Might make you want to spend a little less on those McDonald’s burgers every week..

Final Thoughts

One of the issues that students may have is actually using their savings account as a chequing account. What I mean by this is a large portion of your savings account shouldn’t be touched on a frequent basis. It’s a place where monthly rent is pulled or that semester’s tuition comes from, but it shouldn’t be an account where daily withdrawals are made from in order to fund your night out downtown or your most recent clothing purchase.

It’s important to control your own bank account and be aware of the different products available at your bank AND what they can do for you. Having a savings account amazingly enough can help you save your money better, simply because it is also money that you don’t have easy instant access to

For more information check out this Government of Canada page on savings accounts. But seriously…my blog post is way more interest anyways.

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Simple and Easy Ways to Save on Food

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Food is definitely something that I talk about it a lot, and it’s obvious from the variety of  posts that I have already written on the topic. I decided as part of the new way I was going to write on this blog was to make things succinct, to the point and easy for readers to follow. So here are some general things that I think about when I go to the grocery store or some simple and easy ways to save on food.

    • Purchase generic brand or private label products instead of name brand foods

    • Yes I know everyone thinks the No Name brand tastes like crap, but that’s exactly what they want you to think because of the millions they spend on branding each year. What’s often the case is the same company that produces private label/no name food often has their own name brand product or is the name brand product you always buy just minus the flashy packaging.
  • Purchase full fruit instead of cut up packaged versions
    • Please don’t be extremely lazy. You can buy a full pineapple for $1 on sale at No Frills or pre cut pineapple for almost $3-$5. Oh and fruit trays are extremely expensive too, so please don’t buy them.
    • Buy a big bag of regular carrots, peel and cut them. It will turn out to be a lot cheaper than the $2-3 dollar bag of baby carrots.
    • Check out this site on how to cut an avocado, pineapple and mango, because yes I know they are annoying to cut.
  • Buy in Bulk
    • For the most part, buying in bulk will save you money. This is often the case with meat products. Of course your thinking, I don’t need 8 chicken breasts. Well eventually you do. Buy ziploc bags and bag up the meat in meal size portions and you have meat for a while and you’ve saved by buying in bulk and probably getting it on sale as well.
    • You can also buy yourself a really large piece of pork and cut your own pork chops and once again bag them in individual portions. Check out the video here
  • Don’t Buy in Bulk
    • Yup I know, I’m contradicting myself, but there are situations where buying in bulk may not be your cheapest option. Costco is one example. It’s really important to know your prices when you go to Costco because some products aren’t that cheap, it just seems cheap because its a massive box. A few products I have found at Costco that are a great deal is Liberte Greek Yogurt, 2 Tubs for about you $7.50 I believe, or 3kg of Oatmeal for $7 approximately as well. Know your prices and you will be fine
    • Also when using coupons it actually makes more sense to purchase smaller formats of the products and use more coupons. Instead of saving $0.50 on a $4 item, buy the smaller format at $2 and save more if you are using multiple coupons on multiple smaller formats.
  • Don’t Go For Variety
    • I’ve learned this the hard way. I thought I was going to be a gourmet chef and would make a variety of meals all the time. And of course I didn’t finish a bunch of food I purchased, it went bad and all the ingredients cost me quite a lot more. If you stick to a few staples and go for less variety you end up spending less and using it up without dumping half of it in the garbage. Your a student not a chef.

Also another tip when you really need to buy something and it’s not on sale, make sure to check the unit price of the product which is often in grams or kg.

This is a great way to compare 2 products and determine which is less expensive based on the cost per oz, lb, g or kg. A product that costs. $0.263 per oz is cheaper than a product that costs about $0.5 per oz

How do you save on food?