Wallet Brief

The other day, I stopped by Burger King with my kid for a quick meal. We ordered a couple of burgers, fries, and nuggets, and by the time I got to the checkout screen, the total was higher than I expected. Fast food used to feel like an inexpensive option, but these days a family meal can easily cost $20 to $30 or more. What I've noticed is that two people can order almost the same meal and end up getting very different value. Some customers simply order from the menu, while others take advantage of the Burger King app, Royal Perks rewards, and ongoing promotions. After using Royal Perks for a while, I realized there are a few things worth checking before placing an order.

For a long time, I believed that the biggest challenges in managing money came from large expenses. Rent, utilities, transportation, and other fixed costs seemed like the obvious reasons why saving money sometimes felt difficult. After all, those were the expenses with the largest numbers attached to them. But over time, I started noticing something that didn't quite make sense. There were months when I hadn't made any major purchases, yet my bank balance still seemed lower than I expected by the end of the month. At first, I blamed inflation. Living in Canada, it often feels like everyday costs are gradually increasing. Grocery bills are higher than they used to be, eating out costs more, and even small errands seem more expensive than before. While those factors certainly played a role, I eventually realized there was another explanation. The real surprise wasn't in the large expenses I already knew about. It was in the dozens of small purchases that had quietly become pa...

Internet bills have quietly become one of those expenses many Canadian households simply accept. For a lot of families, paying $90-$100 a month for home internet is now pretty normal. Nothing special. Just a standard plan that somehow keeps getting more expensive every year. A while ago, I was helping a family member organize some paperwork when I came across something I didn't know existed. If you're a senior receiving the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), you may qualify for a TELUS internet plan starting at around $10 per month. That isn't a small discount. Compared to a $100 monthly internet bill, the difference works out to about $1,080 per year. What surprised me most wasn't the price. It was how few people seem to know about it. The program has been around for years, but many eligible seniors continue paying regular internet prices simply because they've never heard of it. If you or someone in your family receives GIS, here's how to find out if this pro...

It’s honestly a bit surprising to hear manufacturing being talked about again in Canada. A few years ago, almost every conversation about the Canadian economy seemed to revolve around the same topics: housing prices, mortgages, interest rates, and real estate investing. Economic discussions often felt like they eventually circled back to Toronto or Vancouver housing markets. But since the pandemic, the tone has started to shift. Supply chain disruptions and rising prices exposed how dependent Canada is on imports for many everyday products. A lot of people began noticing something that probably wasn’t discussed much before - " We don’t actually make that many of the things we consume ". You notice it even during a normal grocery run. Strawberries from Mexico. Grapes from Chile. Garlic from China. A large portion of electronics and household goods are imported as well. Most people never paid much attention to it until supply delays and inflation made it impossible to ignore. S...

Photo via TODAY There was a Lululemon story in the news recently that stuck in my head longer than it probably should have. Chip Wilson,  the founder of Lululemon agreed to stop publicly criticizing the company for the next 18 months. Which honestly says a lot, considering how openly he's talked for years about the brand losing its “cool factor” and becoming too mainstream. At first it sounded like normal founder drama. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized something. For a brand like Lululemon, losing its cool isn’t really about the clothes. Because people were never just buying leggings.

  Nvidia's Jensen Huang has been making a lot of noise lately — and not just about chips. The phrase getting more and more attention in tech circles right now is this: "The age of copper is over. The age of glass is here." Which raises an obvious question: why is the CEO of a semiconductor company suddenly talking about glass? That's exactly what I thought when I first came across it. Felt like an inside baseball tech thing, easy to scroll past. But the more I dug into it, the more it started looking less like a tech story — and more like a story about where money is moving. And eventually, where costs end up. Spoiler: they tend to end up with us.

Walking through the grocery store and casually picking up a loaf of bread — who would’ve thought that something so routine would turn into a story like this? Loblaw and George Weston were accused of artificially inflating bread prices between 2001 and 2021. A class action lawsuit followed, and in July 2024, a $500 million settlement was officially finalized. It’s kind of unsettling when you think about it. Something as ordinary as buying bread — something most of us never questioned — turned out to be affected by years of coordinated price-fixing. Realizing that I had been paying inflated prices for over a decade without even knowing… it leaves you with a bit of a “wait, what?” feeling. And I doubt I’m the only one. That’s why the bread settlement feels like more than just compensation —it’s also about trust from a consumer’s perspective. I actually filed a claim for the bread settlement last year. The process was surprisingly simple, and since receipts weren’t required, it’s no surpri...