As you may already know, every time that you use a credit card with a merchant they get hit with a transaction fee that eats into their sales margin. Sometimes you can actually use this knowledge to help yourself save money as well when it comes to small businesses. Example, mom and pop stores or people that solely operate the entire business on their own.

For example, say you were buying a $500 product and wanted to use your credit card. By doing so, let’s assume that the merchant gets hit with a 4% fee meaning they will automatically lose $20 off that sale. As a result, a lot of times I would ask the small business owner if I could get break on the price by paying by debit instead. In this case, let’s say $490. A lot of times the answer is yes too from my experience.

That $10 is a lot more savings than I would have gotten from reward points or cash back features on the card. Of course there are times where you would want to use the credit card regardless for protection, but this can be a mutually beneficial and sensible way to save money.

With Halloween coming up at the end of the month and seeing all those candy for sale one thing that comes to my mind immediately is how the prices for these products drop like a rock the very next day. Essentially, businesses want to get rid of them since they are kind of holiday specific.

This is true for most other holidays as well. Some people even go a little further such as buying Christmas presents for people after the actual holiday as that is when people start returning items and similarly businesses want to get rid of excess inventory.

I guess food items are usually the cheapest in a post occasion day as they have best before dates and of course no one wants to buy expired food which is an even more reason to get rid of it faster before it becomes close to it.

Here in BC, for our public transit system it is broken down into three zones of travel and a person has an option of buying a bus pass that enables them to travel through various zones. As you may have guessed, buying the pass that allows you to travel through all zones is more expensive.

Not too long ago there was this program called “Scrap It” that was introduced as a way to get rid of older car models off the road that are not as environmentally friendly. As an incentive, people can get an incentive worth up to a little over $2000.

Apparently there are a lot of people that don’t opt for the credit towards purchasing a new car but instead opt to get bus passes that are mailed to them every month. Interestingly enough, many of these people don’t even use transit and so instead they look to sell off their passes to others and there is no rules about it.

For example, a three zone pass is about $136 a month normally and there seems to be a never ending amount of people willing to part off with them for about $100 or less. Not a bad way to save money if you are a regular user of public transit.

Haven’t tried this myself personally, but the main thing to look out for from what I read are people that ask for a lump some and then mentioning that they will simply put your name as the address to deliver the passes to every month as from what I read the person can easily just take your name off the list afterwards.

If you find an honest seller though, it looks like it can be a good and perfectly legitimate way to benefit both parties.

I was looking at an advertisement recently that indicated how students enrolled in a qualified educational institute or teachers can qualify to get hundreds of dollars off a certain product. Upon reading the requirements further, it also indicated that even parents can buy it for themselves too as long as they have children that meet the criteria.

I personally see this mostly on software products and a lot of times on special services such as a cell phone plan. The qualifications just seem so broad that it’s almost like they should simply make it a regular price for every non commercial customer.

People always ask say retail employees that they personally know if they can get a discount through them, but interestingly enough a lot of people don’t ask for student and teacher discounts which can just as easily be obtained. Of course, the only catch is that some products, mostly software, are intended for the use of the student only which should be clearly indicated.

But for things like buying hardware or through student membership discounts many times the businesses encourage people to buy things for others with their benefits.

I met an elderly couple the other day who was telling me about their life before they immigrated here to Canada which was over four decades ago. Basically, everyone in the family had to at least have some kind of farming skill as for the most part they grew and harvested their own food. Of course, they were telling me how they didn’t have TV and all too.

As of now, they are pretty much retired and have a very healthy financial situation that is probably better than most when it comes to retirement. A lot of it they attributed to the fact that they can live without money to a certain degree that makes them more inclined to not buy things they don’t need or can’t afford. At the same time, they try to use their available resources to the max.

Guess that made me think where if I was to say stop earning an income as a means of survival today and simply went with the old fashion survival route, how long would I last? I know there are some people that wouldn’t know the first thing to do for example if they didn’t have a cell phone and I know for sure I’m not on that level.

I think it is a good thing to think about as by listing the things you literally wouldn’t know what to do without it should make you sit back and think if you did find a way how much money can you save as a result? Example, lot’s of people say they can’t live without a car. Just by quickly sitting down and trying to think of ways to replace it can probably open your eyes a lot when it comes to saving money.