Archive for the ‘Life in Canada’ Category

Big storm leaves damage in its wake.

Well I got up early this morning to watch the Royal Wedding of William & Kate. Because of the time difference the ceremony started at 6am here. Well worth it though, very nice ceremony and they both looked lovely and happy. Lets hope they stay that way.

That is all that has been on TV, the news etc here the Royal Wedding or the election. Yes we have another election here in Canada on Monday. I think this is the third since we have been here and it has always ended in a minority conservative government. This time though it looks like the NDP are creeping up and will give Harper a run for his money.

A lot of people are saying the election is a waste of time and money and that they cannot be bothered to vote. I agree it is probably a waste but it is happening so everyone who is able to vote should. Because we are relative newcomers we are yet to get citizenship and so cannot vote yet. I find this very frustrating as I live here and pay my taxes but have no say on how my money is spent. This is why I feel that those who do have a voting option should use it. If you don’t vote you have no right to moan about the government after.  There, I have had my say, end of subject.

We have both recently had reminder cards to renew our driving licences which expire in July. They are valid 5 years and we will have been here 5 years on July 7th, so have to get new ones. On the website it says renewals are $75, but mine says it will cost me $90 and Chris’s says $62.50, so no idea what that all means. No doubt we will find out when we renew.

Also up for renewal is our PR cards which again expire in July. There is a waiting list so we sent the applications off in February with all the relevant paperwork. Yesterday I got a letter saying I hadn’t included a copy of the reverse of my driving licence as requested and had sent a copy of a passport that was expired. This is very strange as my passport is brand new – I haven’t even used it yet and the driving licence was copied front and back on the same sheet of paper so if they have the front, they also have the back. I phoned to check all this but was told that I need to recopy all these and send again. Very frustrating, but not worth arguing about.

On Wednesday a big storm passed over both the eastern US and Canada including us. We were under a tornado warning as well as large hail and heavy rain warnings. The day started out lovely with blue skies and sun, but later in the afternoon it got darker and windier – then this cloud arrived.

We then had a thunder storm with rain, lightening etc. We lost electric momentarily, but thankfully not for long. We lost internet and TV and the rain hammered down and the winds were horrendous. We lost a few tree branches on some of our trees but overall came out unscathed. This morning we went into town and noticed that just along one road half a dozen houses had quite bad roof damage, many trees had been either knocked down or damaged. Our neighbours house had some of the siding blown off, so we got off very lightly it seems. In the US they suffered very badly with over 100 tornadoes and around 200 people being killed, very sad.

On a happier note: Only three weeks now till our daughter Stacey arrives with her girlfriend. We are very excited and have a lot planned whilst they are here, so we are going to be very busy.

 

 

Saving money is always good

Every so often I take a look at our contracts etc. with utilities and the like to see if I can get better options and plans. A couple of weeks ago I was looking at our satellite boxes we have for the TV and realized that they were now five years old and were large and bulky and silver. All our other TV equipment is black!

So I looked online at Shaw’s website to see if new versions were available and how much they cost. It turns out they did have new models which were much smaller and black and had additional features, but they were $199 each and we ideally needed two. Far too much money just on a whim of changing so I looked at Bell.

It seemed that we could get a better deal from Bell as new customers so I phoned Shaw to ask if they could do any better pricing on the unit. At first he offered me a discount so that we paid $150, but I said that was still too much as at the end of the day we didn’t have to change them. He then said he could offer me one for $99. I said could he offer me two at that price, he said no only one would be $99, the other $150, so again I declined and said I would not bother. He then told me to wait whilst he checked something out.

He came back to me a few minutes later saying that he could do both units at $99 after all. I said if he could do both units for a total of $99 he had a deal. The line went silent – I feared I had gone too far – but then he said okay! So I got two new satellite units for a total of $99 plus tax.

We later sold the old units on Kijiji and got back our money.

Yesterday I did the same with our cell phone. We were on a contract for our iPhone and although our phone usage was low, we used quite a bit of data. We were paying $65 plus tax per month, but last month went well over the 1GB limit and doubled our bill, so I wanted to know what we could do about it. I looked on the website and found the next level up was $85 per month with 2GB of data, so I called to make sure this was the best deal.

The guy I spoke to asked how we used the phone and what services we required etc. I explained our situation and he suggested a plan that would cost less, but give us more data usage but less caller use, which was fine by me. After going through the options we are now on a plan which offers 6GB of data, voicemail, 150 mins calls, unlimited evening & w/e calls, caller display, texting etc for $55 per month. So we have a lot more for a lot less money. Brilliant.

It definitely pays to check these things out every so often. It really does.

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