Flipp Before Your Shopping Trip

Being a student is financially hard.  Being a student and a parent at the same time is financially harder.  I should know, I was one. I did survive (barely), and even moved on to purchasing a home, a car, and there is food in the house.  Since I know from experience that my family and I can survive having me be a student, I have decided to become one again.  You may wonder why I would want to do that.  It's simple really.  The house, the car, the food, and the countless other expenses life bestows upon families is eating up more of our family income than we would like. The only solution is to make more money, and the best way to do that is by upgrading my education. 

This time however I am more prepared.  I am wiser and have more experience handling money and making every dollar stretch to make ends meet.  I will share with you 3 of the ways I save my family money that will be beneficial to other students.

1. Download the Flipp app.  

Flipp is an app that brings up flyers from your local area. As you browse the flyers or search for specific items you can 'clip' (tap) the items you want to save.  Then you head to a price matching store (my favourite is Wal-Mart because they have the best price matching policy). If you see something you want to buy while in the store that you didn’t clip beforehand, search for it on the app to see if anyone has it at a better price. The more you use the app, the better you will be able to recognize a good sale. I easily save my family $40-80 every week using this app.

How much will you pay for blueberries?

2. Sign up for ebates.

Ebates is a no brainer for any online shopper.  Simply go to the app or the website before visiting your favourite online stores (eBay, Amazon, Old Navy, and hundreds more) and get paid a percentage of what you spend.  If you are shopping anyway, you may as well get paid for it.  After my Christmas Shopping I received a cheque back for over $75. 

Spending $100 at Old Navy is $4 back in your pocket.

3. Make cutbacks where you can. 

When we go to the movie theatre we refuse to buy snacks.  Popcorn and Drinks for a family of 4 should not cost more than the movie tickets.  By sacrificing (or saving ourselves from) the junk food, we’re able to go to move movies throughout the year. Students may want to think the same way when it comes to going out for drinks versus staying in and buying your own drinks. Doing that would save you not only on the drinks, but also on the Uber ride home.

Think of how many blueberries you could buy at FreshCo instead.

Students have a lot of expenses and not a lot of income. If you plan ahead and take time to save money on simple everyday items, you will find you have more money in your pocket to enjoy life along the way.  

This essay has been written as an entry for the 2018 Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada Scholarship Program. For more information, visit: https://www.consolidatedcredit.ca

PSA for Social Criminals

Hey you!

Yes, you!

The one about to send out a tweet looking for weed, like @rosa_sparkz did on July 22, 2015.
Step away from the keyboard!  This warning is for you.

The police are monitoring social media sites, including twitter. Your tweet will be found just like the aforementioned person's tweet was found. She received a reply from @PBCountySheriff just over an hour after her initial tweet asking where they should meet her.

Police departments all over North America are spending time online because that's where we are. It's where we talk to each other, post about where we are going, what we are doing, and who we are with.  We post photos and engage in conversations.  We sometimes look for products and services too.  The police are realizing that social media is a great tool to not only solve crimes, but also learn about a crime before it even takes place. 

They couldn't do this without people oversharing online though.  That is why I am warning you to back away.  Don't post about your crimes or publicly plot to engage in criminal activity.

Just look at an unidentified 16 year old who decided to pull a prank at a public library by flooding the toilets, causing the library to be closed for 5 months from over $200,000 worth of damage, and then telling his friend about it on Facebook. He tried to deny it until police showed him the messages he had written on Facebook as proof. 

Then there was a woman who thought that live streaming herself on Periscope while driving impaired with her children in the car was a good idea. One of her followers notified police who were able to track her down by following her live stream.

Sometimes though, it's not even that people post about the crime or intent to commit a crime. Sometimes it's simply that people cannot leave social media alone long enough! That's what happened to Nick Wig in July 2014.  He entered a home when the family wasn't there and stole a few things.  Before leaving he logged into Facebook on their computer and was easily identified due to his name and face being plastered on their computer screen. That's right, he didn't even remember to log out before leaving!

So again I tell you, be warned, the police are monitoring social media sites looking for you.  So don't post about your desire to buy illegal drugs, or brag about how great a driver you are after 10 beers, 5 shots of rum, and a Red Bull. And if you ever break into someone's house and rob them, don't leave your Facebook page wide open on their computer screen.

When it comes to committing crimes, lets make the police work for the evidence they need. Here are five ways we can make crime 'old school' again.

1.  Lets go back to police needing to interrogate people for confessions rather than reading them on social media.

2. Lets go back to police relying on a sketch artist's drawing to help identify suspects rather than leaving photographic evidence of our identity from our Facebook pages.

3. Let's go back to finding drugs in dark alleyways rather than broadcasting our addictions on social media for police to openly see.

4. Let's go back to pretending to be sober when driving under the influence until getting caught by a ride program or stuck in a tree, rather than live stream the experience so police can track us down before we smash into the tree.

5. Let's go back to he said she said rather than give civilians the evidence they need to rat us out to the police.

I hope you will take my advice and think before you post. Remember everything you post, tweet, share, comment, or like, just might be used against you. Keep your crimes offline.

This PSA has been brought to you as my scholarship application for: https://www.haywoodhunt.ca  I hope you enjoyed my blog.