Here’s an example (private details hidden):
TD Green Visa – 1-800-983-8472 or 416-307-7722 (Collect)
BMO Mosaik MasterCard – 1-800-263-2263 or 514-877-0330 (Collect)
Driver’s Licence – Visit Office
Shoppers Optimum Card
TD Canada Trust Access Card – 1-866-222-3456
Citi Enrich MasterCard – 1-800-387-1616 or 416-947-2900 (Collect)
Student Card
Public Library Card
Business Cards
Scene Card
Insurance Card
Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance Card
Heart Saver (A) Card
Health Card – Visit Office
Smart Serve Certificate Card

Hopefully, this will help you avoid panic and will give you a peace of mind when you go out, partying hard!

Spending is definitely encouraged, but only if you have the means to do so. My principle is: minimize or eliminate debt at all times. How are my parents going to stimulate the economy? They want to buy a house. How am I going to stimulate the economy? Let’s do some Christmas shopping! Don’t get too excited though. I still think that investing your money is a better idea in the long run. Get your $5000 ready because you’ll want to open a Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) in January 2009. I would recommend investing in some index funds since GICs are no good with low interest rates.

Source: Bank of Canada – Bank of Canada lowers overnight rate target by 3/4 percentage point to 1 1/2 per cent

I was disappointed to see that RSS feeds were not available, although there are email alerts.

Links: Subscribe to receive email alerts.
Oct. 21, 2008 – Bank of Canada lowers overnight rate target by 1/4 percentage point to 2 1/4 per cent

I have been wanting to start a mutual funds account for a long time now, but I haven’t got the time. However, I want to get the forms done this weekend. For the past few months, Mark Carney and the Bank of Canada has decided to lower interest rates. If we’re heading into an economic recession, this is the perfect opportunity to purchase index funds and bank stocks. For this reason, I want to start my RRSP and begin contributing. I would encourage everyone else to do the same.

Link: New York Times – Can’t Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club

On a side note, I bought things today. I got two pairs of jeans for $45.60 after tax and a 12 piece computer repair tool kit (similar to the one at Liftow) for $5.67 after tax. Good deals, eh?

I opened an account to take advantage of their 4.5% interest rates at the beginning of July. Little did I know that it was a huge mistake. I want to do a little comparison. I also have an ING account and I’ve only had to call them maybe twice since I opened it a few years ago. These calls were to ask general questions. Now, it’s only been a month and I’ve called ICICI over 10 times already. Why? Because of their terrible system and service level. My first call to them was because the PIN they sent me by mail did not work. The guy said that he had to activate it and so he did. The next call was because my account was not linked. Now why in the world was it not linked??? I just sent them a cheque to open my account! ING is smart enough to link it. The guy told me that it was because I didn’t put the word “link” on my cheque. To boot, this was not stated on the website when I registered. WOW! So I had to link it online myself. An extra step that earned me $0.16 in random cash if I remember correctly. At least I got something for my trouble. Boy was I wrong.

The next thing I wanted to do was setup a recurring transfer indefinitely like an ING ASP. So I logged in and tried to do so but I couldn’t understand this one field that said “Number of Installments”. So I called in again to ask thinking that it’s splitting up my transfers into smaller pieces. The agent confirmed what I thought. I thought to myself, “Boy that’s funny, why would you split up a transfer.” Anyhow, so I spend some time with her on the phone asking if they’re able to set up a recurring transfer monthly for an indefinitely period of time. She says no and then we hang up. So I took a deep breath and said to myself, “Alright, for 4.5% I’m willing to go through some hardship and inconvenience.” I tried setting up a recurring transfer with 1 installment, but it rejected me. It seems that minimum is 2. So then I simply do a one time transfer and made a reminder to myself to do it once a month manually. This was July 17. I set it future-dated to July 31 at the end of the month after I get paid so that I have money in my external to transfer over. I log out.

A few days later, I log into my external account only to find that my balance went into the red by roughly $500!!! The culprit was ICICI. They had taken my money the next day (July 18) despite me setting it to July 31. Now before you think that I made a mistake, I didn’t. I double checked my setup since it was my first time doing so. I went to Future Transfers and it showed July 31. It was foolish of me to not save the reference number when I first set up the transfer. So now, my external bank is in the red, I got charged $35 for NSF, $5 for overdraft, and $0.27 in interest. I lost a total of $40.27!!! So much for the $0.16 I earned earlier.

Now begins my slew of calls to ICICI. I called them every other day (since it takes 2 business days per investigation). I’ve filed a total of 3 investigations with them. All of them coming back saying that it’s not their fault and it wasn’t a system error. They refused to reimburse me $40.27. I was really ticked off with them. I was always adamant that it was their system’s fault. Their investigation team said they have a reference number to prove it. Well so what?! if it’s a system glitch, it thinks I initiated for the 18th when I initiated on the 31st. Of course there’s a reference number!! Anyhow, it took a lot of effort just to talk to a supervisor and all he did was reiterate what the rep already told me. I asked for higher up in the chain of command and said none were available. I asked to speak with the investigation team but I was denied claiming that only internal employees can speak with them. Now I’m left with nowhere to go and $40.27 poorer. It will take months I already threatened to file a complaint with the BBB and remove my money from the account and I’m going to make good on my threats now. I will also go to the Ombudsman with this as well.

Sorry for this long tirade/story. I just thought it would benefit everyone to know all the details about what happened to me. If anyone can offer up some suggestions as to how I can get my money back, please do.

Thank you so much for listening. Hope this helps you to think twice before signing up with just any bank with a high interest rate.

In addition, there are many complaints to ICICI Bank at the Complaints Board. Even in the UK, ICICI Bank fails to be trusted according to the This is Money Blog. I am going to stay away from the ICICI Bank Canada and I would suggest everyone else to do the same. Despite the high interest rate, it’s not worth opening an account with them if you receive poor service and fraudulent acts in return.

Links: Complaints Board | ICICI Bank
Should you trust ICICI Bank? – This is Money Blog

Link: http://finance.google.ca

Link: Credit Cards and You: Credit Card Comparison Tables
Direct Link to PDF: Standard Credit Cards
Useful Tool: Credit Card Interactive Tool

ING Direct currently has a special offer with a rate at 4.25% available. You can read about it here: http://www.ingdirect.ca/summersale/
ING Direct’s current rate is at 3.50%.
I personally have an account at ING Direct. I can be your referral if you like.

Canadian Tire Financial Services has a special offer with a rate at 4.50% available. You can read about it here: https://www.myctfs.com/Products/HighIntSavings/
CTFS’s current rate is at 3.80%.

Sources:
Bank of Canada
Rogers Yahoo! News

They are smart because they are maintaining or attempting to maintain a positive cash flow. The purchasing of desks should be classified within the operational cash flow because furniture maintenance is one of the department’s core business activities. Cash flow is a short-term benchmark, so it’s a good idea that they are receiving their deposits before spending, which avoids the incurrence of debt. However, they will need to watch their spending until the Winter 2008 term approaches or until they receive full residence payments. Finally, I am satisfied that I have a place in residence already. Their postcard also made me feel special when it read, “You’ve got Priority! Students currently living in residence…” And I’m glad that the first year students coming in for the Fall will have new desks if they chose to live at V1.

What did I learn from this?

Maintaining positive cash flow averts debt. For example, I only use my credit card for the cash back feature. I will always have enough in the bank to fully pay the monthly bills. So it’s good to budget the amount of spending for every month.

For businesses:

• Personalized advertisements is a good marketing technique
• Non-refundable deposits provide the business with confidence in the customer
• Deposits also “bounds” the customer (they will lose money if discontinue)
• Deposits increase cash flow

For customers:

• The customers feel special from targeted advertisements
• It satisfies the customers because their good (in this case, residence room) is secured by the deposit
• (Future) customers will benefit from the improvements made by the business

Wow, I am learning from the university apart from my lectures, this is good!

Source: Wikipedia – Cash flow