Do you stock up on Canadian Tire money or Optimum points? If you do, this is for you.

I type this because the Bank of Canada announced that they will be keeping the overnight rate at 4 1/4 per cent, which means that we are steady. And when we’re steady, we like to spend (in moderation of course). Am I correct?

Now, for those who collect Canadian Tire money trying to save up to save big, I don’t think that that is a good idea. Why? Because of inflation. Becurr of that. Your Canadian Tire money is losing value if you don’t spend it! Prices go up and you’ll be needing more and more CT money to save more on your purchases. Therefore, if you save CT money, I recommend that you use it every time you make a purchase. They’ll keep giving you more and just keep spending it. That’s what I do with it.

Now with Optimum points. If you are not going to save up to 15,000 points or more, I recommend that you redeem your points at 3,500 points.

Check out the table:
3,500 – $5 – 700 points/$
7,000 – $10 – 700 points/$
15,000 – $25 – 600 points/$
30,000 – $55 – ~546 points/$
40,000 – $75 – ~533 points/$
75,000 – $150 – 500 points/$

Now you ask, “Why are you doing this?”

I answer with, I only have a limited idea! I’ll probably use this as a speech topic for my public speaking course that I am required to take next term. And I’ve been working on my 2007 budget (with macros and fun stuff in Excel) and I discovered that I like purchasing things from CT and SDM. And I know some people who would stock up on CT money. And the overnight rate was recently announced. And I did some banking with ING Direct. Which brings me to another topic.

Move your money to one of those internet banking institutions with substantially higher interest rates or if you do your research, invest! You wouldn’t believe how much more interest in terms of dollars (instead of cents) you would be getting from a bank like ING.

If you would like to start your account at ING with a 3.50% interest rate, send me a message with your email, so I can refer you. We both benefit from $13!

For those that can keep a minimum balance of over $1000.00 all the time, I would recommend that you get an Interest Plus™ savings account at President’s Choice Financial. They currently offer 4.00% interest!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 10:46 pm, and is filed under Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.