I was just reading this news article about a large Walmart Supercenter that opened up in the Surrey area and with the pictures I saw it sure does look big. There was some quotes from company representatives mentioning that is the way of the future where we can go into one place and have everything that we need available.

Within that article also talked about a local business where that new Walmart store opened up around and he mentioned that he wasn’t too worried about these Supercenters as he believes people will still go to him due to his service quality.

For myself, I usually go to specialty stores to buy things whenever possible over general stores. I usually found that it is cheaper this way too as specialty stores often carry more of a particular product where they can get it cheaper. At the same time, they often carry more brands to give you better choices to compare your dollar to from my experience.

Today I had to photocopy a lot of documents and at 5 cents a page it came out to over $40. I was actually with another person as well and for some reason he decided to ask the store clerk why it wasn’t 3 cents a copy instead as it seems like he was trying to drive the price down for me. His thought was that you can buy hundreds of paper for like a few dollars and so it shouldn’t cost that much.

It was an individually owned shop as the person running the photocopier happened to own the business. He first mentioned that he needs to make a living and light heartedly mentioned how he had to give 1 cent to the photocopy people and about another for the paper and toner. Therefore, if he charged 3 cent he mentioned that his profit would only be 1 cent.

The person I was with still didn’t really buy that though and even on the way out he thought it was highway robbery to pay over $40 for that. It was kind of funny though. While there probably would have been cheaper places, I was in a semi-rush unfortunately and at the same time I always look at things from the businesses perspective too.

Otherwise that’s like me saying how expensive can it really be for say a person to tutor you to learn something as all they are doing is talking right? In general though, I think from a business end a 30% profit margin is usually reasonable. Of course you can’t really use that for everything, but that is the figure that I am personally contempt with when I’m the consumer.

There was a piece of news here about a person that won the lottery and the interesting thing was that his winning ticket was almost a year old. It wasn’t until recently that he decided to claim the prize as he mentioned that he needed time to think about what he would do with his new found wealth.

I have been hearing so many negative opinions about this such as people thinking it is so dumb as the person could have theoretically claimed the prize and let it sit in a savings account while he was thinking it over. This is definitely not the first time I have heard people who don’t come forward in claiming their winnings right away for similar reasons as they need time for it to sink in.

Makes me wonder if anyone could truly be that reckless and uncontrollable where once they have it in their possession they would simply blow it all away. Kind of doesn’t make sense to me though as if you are that disciplined to be able to not claim millions of dollars worth of money for such a long period of time then wouldn’t that kind of mean you are disciplined enough to just claim it and leave it in your bank during the meantime?

Yesterday I was told about my two younger cousins when it came to money and it was kind of funny as the two of them were brothers and yet when it came to money they both were polar opposites. One of them seems to be more about having the latest and greatest as he was one of the people that shelled out a lot of money for an iPhone. Sure enough too, he seems to be the one that has less saved.

When it came to the other person, he didn’t appear to spend any money at all but instead has all his money stashed up in the house. He was then asked why he didn’t spend it. The answer was true which made it funny I thought for a teenager as when it came to spending he mentioned that he doesn’t need to spend any money as everything he needs is at the house and is paid for already. The adult who asked the question didn’t know how to respond afterwards.

I was thinking how that is so true and even adults need to re-learn that from time to time as we tend to get caught up in spending money simply because we have the funds available.

Tonight I am attending a family gathering for my grandmother’s birthday party. As usually when it comes to birthdays everyone tries to find the person something that they would like. My mom decided to give her $100 from that climate action dividend cheque that people here in BC received not too long ago.

The funny thing is some people thought that is kind of weird as they believed that it almost fell along the lines of giving someone a present that you received from someone else which you have no use or interest in. I was thinking to myself how it’s just money and so it doesn’t really matter too much.

I often see people give away things that they have no use for as a way to not only save money but at the same time hoping that the new owner will find better use of it. While I have never been the recipient or provider using this method, I can’t see how people can be labeled as being say “cheap” for doing it if they genuinely thought you would like it.

Speaking for myself, in some strange ways too knowing that they didn’t have to spend much money on gifts for you is kind of a relief as I personally don’t like it when people think things like gifts are some kind of financial obligation.