[Save Money in Canada] How to save money- not easy but very effective

It is not easy to save or reduce expense especially if you have tight budget. However, there might be a little bit more room if you are little bit more strict on you. Let's see how it works!

1. Quit smoking.
   - If you are smoker and have been suffering from tight budget, Quit smoking! Cigarette is too expensive in Canada and if you quit smoking, you can save almost $400 - $500.

2. Brew your own Alcohol(optional!)
  - Beer and wine are expensive and I have seen a lot of people who spent a lot of $$ on them. If you brew your own alcohol, you can save a lot of money but self control must be followed not to become alcoholic.

3. Buy your cloth when it is on season clearance for next season.
 - I saw many people spend hundreds of dollars at Value village to buy clothe. To tell you the truth, second hand shop is not always cheapest place to buy your clothe. Go hunt the cloth store when they have season clearance and register their mailing service to receive their coupon and sale information. My family usually use Gap to buy cloth from their season off sale with 40~50% additional off coupon. Here's example. I found one duckdown winter coat last spring at gap for $15 and we bought family winter cloth. We used 40% off coupon of entire purchase. that duckdown jacket became around $8.

4.Quit Tim Hortons, Starbucks and Keurig
  - How many cups of coffee do you usually drink a day and how much do you spend for that? Usually, people don't realize those small dollars you spend everyday adds up so quick and huge a month. Instead of buying coffee all the time from Tim Hortons or Starbucks, why don't you buy a french press travel mug and bring your own ground coffee with you? It sounds so difficult but actually it's not!
  - If you are suffering from not enough money, you should quit using Keurig. Be realistic! One Keurig usually cost 60 to 75cents per cup of coffee! buy a ground coffee that it will last longer and use your coffee machine or good french press to enjoy your coffee. If you want to enjoy your coffee fresh, you can invest little more money for vaccum container to store your coffee ground fresh. It is little costly right now, but it will save a lot of money in long run.

5. Remember Convenience means more money!
 - If store sells you something that is so convenient, it usually means more money than what you have to spend. You can use reusable cup and ground coffee for keurig instead of buying all those expensive cups. You can buy whole veges instead of already chopped up one. Save money with your little bit of labor.

6. Please make your own lunch and bring it with you!
  - Don't complain that you don't have enough money if you are buying your lunch everyday! It doesn't make sense! Why do  you spend $7 to $10 everyday at Mcdonald or Tim Hortons, if you don't have money? Go to grocery store and buy past noodles, couple of mixed frozen vege, pasta sauce and meat that you like and make a pasta. Freeze it and bring it with you for your lunch! It will cost about $10 for your four lunches!!

7. Use reward points
  - I go to Canadian tire gas bar and collect canadian tire money. Last two years, I saved about $150 of Canadian tire money that I could spend something else at Canadian Tire. I saved points at Shoppers drug mart and I could buy my netbook(worth $250) for $50 couple of years ago. Now, I am using PCplus card and I have $30 worth points. Wherever you go, please use your reward card and collect their point. Maximize how you can collect those points as well.  If you are good at budget, using credit card is one of the good tool to spending money and collecting their reward points too. I and my wife both claim about $300 worth gift card this year with our credit card but we always pays our bills so we don't have any debt.