How to Save when Winterizing Your Car

22 October 2008 by Jb
Filed under Saving Money + car

As we begin our descent into the deep freeze we call winter here in Canada, thoughts are starting to turn to the need for winter tires on our cars. Some provinces like Quebec have legislated the use of winter tires on all registered vehicles, while the rest haven’t. This is a debate that most Canadians will engage in at some point: do I get winter tires for my car? And then secondarily, when do I put them on my car?

Since I got a new car earlier this year, I was having that debate myself over the summer. I figured that since I’ve got 17″ sport/performance tires on the car, it would be a good idea to get winter tires. All-season performance tires are notorious for not being the best in the snow & ice & cold of winter. Plus I don’t actually like the brand of OEM tires my car has anyways, so I am all for getting different tires on there.

The hunt began for me in August, especially once I learned about my new job: it’s in a snow belt, and traditionally gets lots more snow than I’m used to getting these days. I quickly learned that winter tires are called winter tires and not just snow tires. Because in the winter the temperature goes down, and there’s both ice AND snow, winter tires are specially made to handle those three situations (to varying degrees.) Depending on your location, you may want a tire that handles better in snow & ice, or ones that handle dry, cold roads better. I’m actually going to need a tire that handles all three pretty well, so I had some work to do.

My new car model has a car “club” in my area, since it’s one of those sporty little cars that enthusiasts like to modify. (I have a Mazda 3 GT, and am a member of the Toronto Mazda 3 forum, not the club though–I don’t go to the meetings n’ things they have, although it sounds like a good group of people to hang out with!) On the forum, there’s all sorts of good discussions on all sorts of good topics. One interesting and smart aspect of the forum is the Sponsors section, where various auto-related businesses have applied and become sponsors of the forum (they might even be sponsors of the group, I’m not too sure about that.) One of them was having a group buy on winter tires, and was offering discounts based on the number of people who purchased. I investigated all the options he was presenting, spoke to the gentleman a few times, and then made a decision. I’m getting a great pair of Swedish winter tires PLUS steel rims for $720 + tax. How great is that? I was actually expecting to have to spend over $1000 on the rims and tires, so anything less than that is wonderful.

Next up is the windshield wipers; time to replace them anyways as they’re getting old, but also to get ones that will work better in the winter time. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for sales so that I can save some money on those too. Because of the size of the blades, each one ends up costing about $20 or so. I know some of you will say I could just buy the blades and slide them onto the wiper thingies, but that’s just a little too DIY for me. I will just buy whole new blades and be done with it.

What are you doing to winterize your car? Are you able to save any money while doing it?

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When Temptation Is Right In Your Face

17 October 2008 by Jb
Filed under Shop or No?

It’s happened to all of us: you pass right in front of a store just when your wallet is empty, and you’ve exhausted that week/month’s budget. There is that THING, the THING that you want, that you think you need.

But you must resist temptation. RESIST, I say!

I am now faced with this type of temptation every night as I drive home from work. My route takes me right-past-the, wait for it, Danier Leather Factory Outlet. I have long since had a weakness for leather-based goods, be it a coat, a jacket, gloves, wallet, or purse, it doesn’t matter. And Danier always has some really nice things. I see the sign blinking at me as I drive past in the evening: “All jackets $99, Purses 50% off”…off and on, off and on.

Thankfully the store is on the opposite side of the street from the direction I’m travelling, and with all the rush hour traffic, there’s just no way I could turn left into their parking lot. But I continue to drive on past, not even looking at the store as I go by….every-single-bloody-day.

*sigh*

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The Money Jars Are In The House

15 October 2008 by Jb
Filed under Solutions & Ideas

In an effort to chip away a little more drastically at my debt, I’ve implemented Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s Money Jar system. If you’ve ever seen her show, Till Debt do us Part, then you’re quite familiar with the money jars. If not, here’s a quick primer:

1. Keep track of your expenses for a few months.
2. Use Gail’s Interactive Budget Worksheet to figure out what your expenses are and should be.
3. Write down the weekly and monthly totals the Worksheet gives you.
4. Keep track of e-v-e-r-y single expense e-v-e-r-y day, and balance it against the Worksheet amounts.

That’s the basic gist of the plan. On the show, Gail puts the weekly budget amount into Money Jars that the couples then use for their expenses. You don’t have to actually use the cash, you can swipe your purchases, but the biggest thing is that you have to keep track of what you spend. Otherwise there’s no point.

Since I’m obviously not making any headway (or at least not much) in the right direction, I decided it was time to take some drastic action. I’ve come up with my numbers, and am now keeping track. I’m only on Week 2, and so far, I’m not doing so good. That was to be expected though, because I am used to a bi-weekly budget, not a weekly one. I would take out X amount of money each pay, and once it was gone, it was gone. If I blew it all the day after payday, so be it. But in this case I’ve got set amounts to spend each week in several categories, so I’m trying to get into the swing of things. I’m well within my monthly amounts, but the point is to try and stick to the weekly amounts first, THEN the monthly ones. So I’m taking baby steps here, but I think it’ll work out in the end.

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