Just sayin’.

This money coach loves these guys. And you will too. Not to mention you’ll love being a Saver.

I just put over 0.5 tonnes of pollution ( CO2) into the air we all share by flying from Yellowknife to Vancouver.

Until this morning, I forgot to deal with it!  Sorry, Planet and fellow humans!

One solution would be to stay put, but I don’t have it in me to pull that one off.

There is something I can do though, and so can everybody:  factor the price of cleaning that pollution up (why wouldn’t I?) into my trip costs.  How?  By purchasing carbon offset credits.  The money we pay goes to things like helping build alternative energy sources so that in time we can wean off of energy that harms the environment.

I just paid $30 to a carbon offset project, which is apparently about what I owed to clean up my part of the pollution.

It’s pretty cool.  The project I supported is in India, near a sugar (cane) farm.  Previously, the discarded canes just got burnt up or left to rot, releasing methane and CO2 into the air.  Now, the discarded canes get used to create energy, and also get converted into fertilizer.  Both of these have created additional business for the farmers, in addition to the environmental benefits.  Check out the vid below.

Would you like to counteract the pollution created by your travel?  (and why wouldn’t you?) It’s really easy. The David Suzuki Foundation and Pembina Institute did the homework for us and recommend which companies to use (see page 10).  I used Less.ca, the top-rated one.  Drop in your starting point and your destination, and it figures out roughly how much pollution your trip generates, and how much it will cost to counteract, then you purchase the credits online.

Photo Credit: Andrew Albuquerque

Gulp.

My hands tremble whenever I shell out over $300 at a time.  Today I swiped out $605.00 to our local sports shop.  If it wasn’t for the fantastic service by Acki, I don’t know that I could have done it.

No more cotton t-shirt, wool cardigan, Roots hoodie and feather vest for this winter runner hopeful!  Now that I know I’ll be in Yellowknife a couple more years+, I took an icy breath and bought the following to handle running in the coming -30C.

• Merino wool sports bra
• Base Layer (merino wool)
• Jacket (fleece lined windbreaker)
• Thermal running tights
• Salomon runners (gortex)

There are two problems though.

1. The jacket doesn’t have an inside pocket.  This means my iPhone (indispensable) will be in an outer pocket which will kill the battery in our -20C not to mention is more vulnerable if I fall.   Any suggestions for me on this?

2. The shoes, alas, I think must be returned.  The heel fits just a bit loosely and they slip up and down ever so slightly.  It’s ok for a brief bit but 30 minutes would turn into a real problem, I’m sure.  Or, when it’s cold, will I welcome the looseness for extra socks?

Photo Credit:  Teo

July’s posts have been chock-a-block with on-the-ground money tips for travellers to England, Russia, Thailand and today, we hear from Jean* about being money smart in Nicaragua.

(pssst: Want to become a world traveller but don’t have the money? My business helps folks set and attain those kinds of savings goals!)

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When my parents first told me they would be traveling to Nicaragua with my sister, my immediate reaction was, “Have fun with that.” But no more than a day later, my brother and I decided we would tag along for the trip.

For as long as I can remember, whenever I was asked if I would be interested to travel to the homeland, I would always say no and that it would never happen. “Not a chance in Hell!” I think I was afraid of what I would see and learn. Living in Canada, I have gotten quite used to my possessions and other things we may take for granted.

If you are going to be traveling to Nicaragua, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Do not advertise how well off you are by pulling your smartphone (or anything else of value, for that matter) out of your pocket. This is foolish because it is quite dangerous. You are likely to attract the attention of no-gooders anyway simply by being a tourist. You do not need to become a target.
2. Be prepared for the electricity and running water to cut out at the most inconvenient of times.
3. Dress lightly. Why you would even consider wearing long pants is just beyond me. They do provide great protection from the bugs though…

Now, as a super user of social media (Is saying “it consumes my life” too strong?), I usually rely heavily on Wi-Fi and for the most part (if at all), that isn’t an option in this country. So my one tip for those of you who are like me:

Turn off your mobile data. The cost of data in Nicaragua in roaming fees is astronomical. $25.60 per megabyte of data (if you are with Bell), to be exact. If you are looking to tweet or update your status on Facebook, set up the mobile texting service before your trip. The cost of sending a text is $0.75. A much better alternative. Facebook’s number is 32665 (FBOOK) and Twitter’s is 21212. You can set up these services straight from your phone or on the web. Leave all other events that would require data for cyber cafes. Cyber cafes are incredibly cheap and usually have 30min, 45min, or hourly rates for less than $2.50, maybe even $2.00. And you may want to keep phone calls short as they are $2.99/min. Don’t be a victim to the thought of “I’ll barely use the data, so I should be fine.” When they say apps run in the background, they mean it, and they consume a lot more data than you might think. Save yourself the headache and save yourself a lot of money.

Things are cheap in Nicaragua for the visitor. It was actually quite heartbreaking to see just what kind of life my family has. To bring things into perspective, I present to you some facts.

1. Beer can cost as little as $0.85, which, if you can stand to drink a beverage that will dehydrate you in the already blistering heat, I say go for it. My drink of choice during the whole trip was Coca-Cola, because water never did seem to come cold enough.
2. Food here is always fresh and local. Think about it! You are not paying to have someone bring in the food from another country. IT IS ALL THERE. And it is also cheap…for us. Twenty dollars really can get you so much. How much does the average Canadian family (say of four members) spend on groceries per week? Maybe around $150.00? Take that amount and think of it feeding your family for a whole month, if not more. Sounds great, right? Now think of how difficult that money is to come by, considering most homes are single income… Yeah…

And now for the kicker:

After speaking to one of our cousins’ wife, she was telling us how they had afforded to buy their home using the money earned by selling shoes that never quite made it to shelves, or were claimed. Think of how Winners sells brand name clothes for cheap because of defects in the stitching, missing buttons, etc. You know, the little things that don’t really matter. So a friend from the US would send down boxes of shoes, and she would sell them locally. When I asked, she told me that to buy the lot cost them 8,000 Cordobas, Nicaraguan currency. The materials to build the house cost another 8,000 Cordobas. This is in Esteli, one of the larger cities in Nicaragua. But let’s play a guessing game to see what that amount of money translates to in dollars.

For the total of 16,000 Cordobas, to buy yourself a lot and then build a home of approximately 800 square feet, what would be the equivalent cost in a consumer home electronic?

Would it be:
a. Nintendo Wii – $149.99
b. XBOX 360 250GB Kinect Bundle – $399.99
c. iPhone 4 32GB – $779.00
d. iMac 27-inch: 2.7GHz – $1,699.00

You might be shocked that I didn’t go any higher. Well, truth be told, I wouldn’t want to attract that much attention to my own home, depending on the location. But if you picked “c”, the iPhone 4 32GB model, you would be slightly over. The exchange rate that stuck with me the whole trip was 22.3:1. So for 8,000 Cordobas, that was around $360.00. So you could either own a vacation home in Nicaragua for the price of two XBOX 360’s for one of your LAN parties, or one iPhone 4, from which you might even be reading this very blog post. Kind of makes you think, hey?

Now, this entry is not meant to guilt you, but rather expose you to the reality of the kind of life you’ll be seeing if you take a trip down there. I have heard that one can spend nights in some cheap hostels for about $8.00, and transportation itself is very cheap and there are many options: mini-taxi, tricycle, motorized bike, motorcycle, mini-bus, you name it. Souvenirs are also very cheap, so you really won’t need to worry about how much you’re spending on gifts to bring back home to family and friends. Just don’t get too comfortable with how inexpensive most things are. Spend only for what you need, and if you feel you have some to spare, donate to the locals. You have no idea how much a little bit for us means a lot for them.

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Jean, aka Jeryes, is a long time Yellowknifer with bucket loads of ambition but with absolutely no direction. Dreaming of one day becoming either a musician, a designer, a writer, or a teacher (to name a few), he spends most of his days in the online universe correcting people for their misuse of punctuation and spelling errors. He is also allergic to cats.

Photo Credit: Damon_Torgeson

When I was debating between a month in England or in Halifax, on a whim I checked to see what train prices would be. Being a good money coach, I clicked the “deals” link and nearly fell off my seat.

$350 (instead of the usual $1200+ or so) for a late-June ride from Edmonton to Halifax (actually, it may have been Toronto, but still!)
First Class
Private cabin
All meals (legendarily gourmet) included
Private washroom; access to shower
Sleeper berth at night

My point is: Via Rail continuously offers fantastic deals. You can find them here. Why fly when you can sit back and glide through the Rocky Mountains, or across the Prairies and into the lush land of Southern Ontario or further?

Photo Credit: Madbuster77