One thing that I have often noticed when it comes to buying general groceries is that fruits and vegetables in larger supermarkets are often cheaper if you are buying it in a pre-packaged manner. On the other hand, if you are selecting it fresh and paying by the pound I have often found it is cheaper from smaller businesses.

As an example, recently I was looking at buying a bunch of carrots and went to a supermarket here called Superstore. They have a 5LB pre-packaged and selected bag of carrots for $1.98 each. In contract, most smaller stores would sell the same brand at about $1+ every 2LB. I looked at two smaller stores here in BC with one called Donald’s market and the other called Sunrise market.

But noticeably, if you opt to buy your own freshly selected fruits and vegetables by the pound as mentioned, it is remarkably cheaper at the smaller stores. For example, at Superstore I was looking at the apples and its prices for a specific brand was over $1 per pound. At the smaller stores they started at about 65 cents a pound.

This was a pretty consistent theme too. So that is one way to save money on your food bills if you are looking to save some money or possibly getting more for your dollar.

I saw a news report the other day about “Generation Y” people and questioning how the economy is going to impact this group of people. There were ordinary people in the interview such as some people living on loans, others getting by, etc. I’m personally a “Generation Y” individual and to me every generation is the same when it comes to one’s financial stability and situation for the most part as the choices you make is why you are where you are.

But like a lot of people, I personally have and like to learn from previous generations and take what I think works and doesn’t. Here are some points that molded my way of thinking about money and finance in life as a result of observing the previous generation and my knowledge at the time:

Getting And Maintaining A Credit Card Was A Foundation of Financial Success

I know most people in my generation are terrified over the credit card as it shouts out debt to them. Like how a lot of young people saw a car as a symbol of “making it” with many saving up to buy one, for me it was building up for the credit card.

When I saw some adults with credit cards and others mentioning that they were denied, at a young age this made me believe that having a credit card was a key separation between people who were very good with money and those that are just average. Therefore, what I learned from the previous generation of people was that getting and establishing that credit card at a young age was very important.

I had no clue about things like credit scores or how the approval processes worked exactly, but one thing I knew I had to do was save money as the main difference I saw was that the people without a credit card seemed to be broke all the time. Of course that’s not always true, but that is was what I saw. At the same time, I heard of people who have had one but because of mismanagement they were no longer eligible to use one. Again, that re-affirmed, my belief that people who had and were able to maintain a credit card were the financially successful ones.

I literally thought it was a grueling process as a result where say the bank will constantly look at how much money you have saved up, scrutinize how much you make, the amount you spend and so fourth. Right at the age of eligibility I applied for one and to me that was the first step to taking care of my finances and to avoid mistakes that previous generations have done.

Planning For Multiple Streams of Income

I also noticed that a lot of people from the previous generation would often complain that at times they don’t have enough money to pay for the bills and would sometimes have to take a second job. For people that were pretty well off financially, it seemed that many never had enough time for their personal life.

Of course you still hear that today too, but because of this I developed the mindset that it is necessary to find ways to generate multiple streams of income at an early age that would give you that extra money that you may need in the future and at the same time not tie you down time wise. Because of this, I was a lot more open minded and curious about alternative forms of revenue. While I am very diligent when it comes to many things before jumping into it, again learning from the previous generation made me more active in finding these opportunities.

Not Borrowing Money To Buy Things You Can’t Afford

I guess one of the last important points I learned from the previous generation is the simple concept where if you can’t afford it borrowing money isn’t the answer. Although, I took this to a bit more extreme than most would where I classified say student loans as bad as well.

Seeing some people talk about how they still struggled to pay off student loans or trying to pay off a bank loan for years well into their late thirties and forties didn’t seem wise to me. This is also why with credit cards I have always maintained the mentality that you should never use it on items that you cannot pay in full cash.

So, those are some of the key points I have learned personally from the previous generations while molding my path in this “Generation Y” era. Although, when you look at the points above I’d say the points can hold true for most generations as it is mostly dependent on what you think will work for your lifestyle.

For a lot of these online affiliate programs, companies usually give you an option to select what currency you would like them to pay you by when your funds accumulate to a certain balance. Almost similar to a Forex Trader, I sometimes hold off cashing in payments that were given to me in say a US currency if I think the Canadian dollar is dropping to earn more.

A quick example would be yesterday where the dollar was at about 82 cents US and today it is at about 79. Essentially, an extra 3 cents per dollar I would have lost if I cashed it in yesterday. Of course it is not much for a small volume, but it can mean a lot for higher payments. Therefore, many times I tell the companies to give me the payment in the presently stronger currency and has the best potential to earn more.

Is it worth it overall? I’d say yes not so much because of the money, but rather it kind of helps to teach yourself to earn more by just doing little changes and at the same time makes you realize that sometimes you have to do more active with your money then just leaving it in the bank to really get the most out of it.

Finally got around to counting all of the loose change. Again, here is the picture for reference:

The breakdown came out to something like this:

Pennies: 408 = $4.08
Nickels: 134 = $6.70
Dimes: 207 = $20.70
Quarters: 355 = $88.75
Loonies: 39 = $39
Toonies: 25 = $50

Total = $209.23

Not the highest I have accumulated, but decent I’d say. I know what surprises most people usually is how many quarters there are as normally one would expect to only have a lot of pennies. Most of my loose change comes from buying items from stores that don’t accept a credit card. Example, if an item was $1.50 most likely I would only have a five dollar bill and so at the end of the day that coin change gets stored.

Almost like a self disciplined savings contribution. I can easily imagine spending it too if I didn’t store it away at the end of the day. Now the trickier part is usually afterwards on what to use the money on as I don’t just want to spend it on say dinner but rather find a way to invest it to hopefully accumulate more funds.

Today while doing some shopping I saw some good deals for potential Christmas gifts such as various kids toys that would originally cost about $30 but was marked down to a single digit range. As well, I saw some grocery items that were on sale for like 50 cents when it would normally cost a dollar on average.

For things like the grocery items, there wasn’t anything else that I was interested in getting from that particular store and so the bill came out to about $3 only. In these cases though, what I noticed is that many times people think that is too little to use a credit card on and so as a result they either buy more things to rack up the bill to make the purchase feel more qualified or they simply pay in cash.

I’m personally an advocate in always trying to use the credit card as much as possible. As long as you use it responsibly, it’s a great way to make money as you can rack up on rewards and cash back options. I eventually got over the awkwardness on using it for small purchases as when I thought about it, the main people who thought it was a dumb idea and would ridicule others for doing so were usually the same people that seemed to never have any money left at the end of the day. Every little thing does add up.