I’ve always considered myself good with finances. I set up budgets and stayed within my limits by tracking my purchases. It wasn’t until I had my twins I realized how much better I could be with my money. When I was on Maternity Leave I became part of a close-knit group of other parents with multiples (twins & triplets). Many multiple families have 3, 4 or even 5 plus kids and often these households have only one parent earning an income. Over the years I’ve learned many handy money saving tips from these families and I’m here to share the wealth (literally!)
- PC Points – easiest way, ever to earn money! This is a points card with Real Canadian Superstore (No Frills included) you receive points based on your purchases. Each Thursday they give you deals that if you purchase you get extra points (it’s through an app). You can earn extra points if you do your banking with PC and use your debit or MasterCard to make purchases. Most of the deals are small – for example if you purchase oranges you received 500 points which is .50 cents but trust me this adds up. And pay close attention for the big deals – for example if you purchase $200 in groceries get 20,000 points which is $20. I signed up in late 2013 and to date have cashed in on $930!!!
- PC Financial Banking – it’s completely free to bank and has no annual fees with their credit cards. Most people don’t know PC financial is owned by CIBC so you can do your PC banking at their branches. Plus, you’ll receive way more PC points when you use PC Financial cards
- Checkout 51– this is an app that has weekly deals (similar how PC points works) and if you purchase those items you’ll get money put into your account. Once you hit $20 you get a cheque mailed to you. All you have to do is purchase the products listed in their weekly deals, upload your receipt through the app and you get money back. I’ve joined about a year ago and so far am at $98.
- Ebates– is another app similar to these. It’s useful if you do online shopping. You find the stores you wish to shop at (for example Sport Check) and go through the Ebates site to buy products. You earn a percent back based on your purchase. I tried it once for a Xmas gift and just received a $6 cheque in the mail the other day.
- Price matching– many grocery stores price match. So if you find a really good deal in a flyer, you can take the flyer with you to a different store and ask the cashier to price match. Superstore, No Frills, Wal Mart, Toys R Us are a few stores that do this. ****No Frills often has incredible deals. (For example 24 pack bottled water $1.00) so I always keep an eye on their weekly flyer and then use it at superstore where I do my grocery shopping
- Flipp – this is a price matching app. You can search popular items such as cheese or chicken breast and it will populate all the grocery stores flyers with their current prices. You can use this to price match by taking screen shots (as long as the date is showing) and showing the cashier to price match.
- Couponing – I’m not big into coupons as I find it time intensive but this is a great save to save big bucks. There are many coupon groups on Facebook that post great deals. What people do is find coupons for a certain product then go on flipp to see where that product is on sale and in many cases you’ll get the product for free or next to nothing. For example- I saw someone post a deal for Frank’s Red Hot Sauce there was a $3 coupon and was on sale at Wal Mart for $2.95 and Wal Mart actually paid this person the .05 cent difference
- Stacking – this refers to doubling on deals. So for example a few weeks ago I found a great sale on diapers. That week I had a deal show up on my PC Points for 1000 points for every $10 I spend on diapers. I bought 2 boxes (over $60) so got $6 back on my PC Points and Checkout 51 also had $6 off when buy 2 boxes so I’m now up to $12 off plus the saving from the original sale ($5) I decided to go online to Huggies website and print off a $2 coupon so in total I saved $19 off diapers
- Save money in Winnipeg – great Facebook group for daily deals around Winnipeg. Saw this deal the other week- Giant Tiger was blowing out packages of bacon for $1.44
- Buying used – there are some great options for buying items used. kijiji is a common website. I’d also recommend Plateo’s Closet they sell high quality used clothes. You can also use these to sell your unwanted items and earn some money
Written by, PACE Program Manager Ashlie Wilson
UWPACE Student Life Blog 