I decided to shop around a little with different cell phone carriers due to my recent experience. At first a lot of the rates and plans seemed similar. I then got an e-mail from one of the phone carriers that offered a plan which is not normally displayed as a regular offer. It was definitely better than the one I was currently using with my existing carrier.

Since I’m not tied down to a contract, this made me curious if my existing provider would try to match it. Sure enough, they gave me new options which were a lot better than what I was currently getting.

Many times these extremely discounted plans are actually special corporate plans or ones reserved for say employees who work in the field. You can actually still get these plans as a regular consumer as well by simply phoning your carrier and asking about it as well. If your contract is expiring, that gives them even more reason to want to cater to you.

For those in Canada, here are examples of these plans from Telus and Bell that I was offered:

Bell:

-200 minutes anytime
-Unlimited Evenings and weekends from 6pm to 8am
-Incoming Member Calling
-Message Centre, Call Display, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding
-Long Distance rate plan
-System Fees Included

Under $26

Telus:

-200 daytime minutes
-Unlimited local night and weekends from 6pm to 8am
-Voicemail, Call Display, Call Waiting, Conference Calling
-System fees included

Under $25

You can actually negotiate for different features. To my knowledge, the Bell plan is normally a corporate plan and the Telus one is what employees could get. I’m currently going back and fourth to see which one is the best. I was also considering a data phone plan instead which would require something different. But, this is definitely a great way to save money on your cell phone bill.

Today I ran out of mailing stamps and so I went to the post office to purchase some more. I decided to buy a bundle of ten and the total came out to $5.51 including tax. I simply decided to pay with two five dollar bills.

When I handed the money to the clerk, he asked if I had change instead. I then reached into my pocket and all I had was two quarters which means that I was one cent short. Instead of taking the ten dollars, he just gave me back five dollars and asked me to give him the fifty cents instead.

I was puzzled a bit as obviously that wasn’t enough for the total and he just mentioned that it was okay and to just remember that I owe him one cent the next time I come in. So, I guess that means I am in debt to a vendor for one penny huh? I’m almost thinking of walking down there again and writing a check for one penny since I have a habit of always paying everything off to be debt free.

I wouldn’t do that of course, but there better not be any interest or hidden fees on that one penny!

I was just reading about this fairly new advertising program called widget bucks. By the looks of it, the concept seems similar to other online advertising platforms where you stick a code on your site which then generates ads to be displayed. I didn’t dive too in-depth with it yet, but the thing that caught my attention is that they are currently crediting new accounts with $25 and so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Although, it does mention that you need to make at least $50 to be able to cash it out.

While at this point it seems something like this would be more suited for a tech related site, I guess this shows that there are a lot of things out there to try in an attempt to generate an income.

This was kind of an interesting and unexpected event today. There was a person who knocked on the door wearing a pizza chef outfit. The first reaction was “Sorry, we didn’t order any pizza”. We then thought this would be one of those door to door solicitations which was the initial assumption, but instead the person wanted to give away a full frozen sized Delissio Pizza that you would normally have to buy from the store.

At first I was wondering if there was a catch, but by the looks of it seemed like it was a company advertising strategy as the person was driving a branded vehicle.

The name of person who brought the Pizza was Dave and I got to talk to him a little bit about this promotion that the company is doing as I personally never seen a company give away an entire pizza before in a door to door fashion.

I was just thinking how expensive this must be from a business point of view to execute this. In the end, I did take the free pizza though.

I guess that is one to save money on your food bill. So for anyone else in the Vancouver area, here’s a way to get a free lunch or dinner.

Yesterday there was a lottery jackpot here for about $37 million. As usual, I got to see people who immediately began to buy tickets in hopes to win. Some people were then debating with each other on what they would do with the money if they won. For example, some say that they would splurge it within reason and save the rest while another group said that they will spend some and give the rest to a charity.

Then an interesting comment was made on how while everyone says that now, chances are you will become a completely different person if you actually won and will probably do something different. An example was that one person has a friend that said if she won the lottery she would give some away to her friends. She actually did win, but did not end up giving her friends anything. Of course, some people said no way as they will always be the same person.

I was then asked what I would do if I won that much money. I always like to help people and so I personally have the mindset of if there is some kind of good cause to help and I have ample resources to do so, I would want to try and build/establish something that will then provide a continuous stream of resources/income for it as oppose to say a one time happening.

Would I personally think that amount of money would change me to the point where I wouldn’t do that? I can confidently say no as regardless if I fortunately won or earned my way to that type of situation that is a goal in life that I have anyways. In my opinion, life must be pretty boring if one just sat there by themselves with their wealth.