Have It Your Way?

As the full menu price for most take-out foods moves beyond the reach of any household not having dual six figure incomes, it becomes mui importanto to game the system wherever possible. The chains talk a big game, but just try to find out what a Sausage & Egg McMuffin Value Meal costs ... on a computer? It's the dance of the seven veils. The other day, we got the new McDonald's April coupon book with the flyers, so I dug in ... just to see what was possible.

I fondly remember (in a former life) planning a trip to The Old Spaghetti Factory on The Esplanade, or a couple of times a year, to the Mermaid on Bay for Lobster Cardinale. These days, we plan trips to the McDonald's on Woodlawn. A few weeks ago, I lamented the $42 large pizza we got from Dominos when in a moment of weakness, we just ordered off the menu. SWMBO had run to Sudbury for a family emergency. They all went out for dinner. She had the bacon carbonara pasta dish, garlic bread and one drink. Her bill was $$82!

So, the first thing I learned is that McDonald currently has 304 items in their online menu. I counted them! Now, granted, a hundred of them are drinks but still, 200 food items? The second thing I learned is that while they still mail out coupon books, they really and truly want you to load and use the app. If you want to avoid placing two separate orders (so you can get a deal on both meals, you might be best served by ordering for one person on the app, then when you get to the speaker, place a coupon order for the second person. That sounds complicated, right? Well fasten your emotional seatbelts. The reason I went down this particular rabbit hole was to promote the points deal you can get at Shoppers for buying a McDonald's Gift Card. We get them them $100 at a time and you get 10% back in points. They work OK with a paper coupon but they do not work with the app? Can you imagine that for a corporate business strategy? Leave it to Reddit to find a hack. According to them, you use the app to generate a code for the deal that you want. Then select Q to pay at the restaurant. The app will generate a code. When you get to the speaker or the counter, give them the code. Your deal will appear on their screen. Then pay with your gift card.

SWMBO likes A & W. I just order whatever she wants and give them whatever funds they ask for. If she decides that she wants that twice a day, seven days a week, we can afford it. I will just get a large cardboard box and live under an overpass.

It's Not Me, It's You

One of the frustrating aspects to living on this earth right now is the epic onslaught of false information that is floating around the internet. Carney talked about fixing some of this when on the campaign trail and now, every time the Liberals ask me for money, I ask them how's that's going? Not very well apparently. So today, lets talk inflation, gas prices, and housing prices.

People are under the misconception that governments can fix everything ... including inflation. That is partly true. It's just that nobody really wants it fixed. Trust me, you don't. First, there is a direct correlation between deficit spending by governments (at all levels) and inflation. You simply must start there. Annual federal budget, 570 billion. Projected deficit, 80 billion or 9%. You really want want that fixed? Fire 414,000 government employees at all levels including police, firefighters, hospital workers, doctors, ambulance drivers, people who plough your roads in winter, people who figure out if your food is safe. Across the board. Now, while you are marching all of them out the door, cut CPP, OAS, disability, the military, unemployment insurance, welfare & native programs by 9% across the board. Oh wait! Out of the 80 billion of projected deficit, more than half of that goes to service our debt. That can't be cut. In fact, it could easily go up should interest rates spike. (More on that in a second.) So all the numbers I just quoted will need to be doubled. Fire 828,000 government workers and cut all government funded activities by 18%. Is that what Mr. Poilievre is proposing? Or is he cherry picking 1% of those totals and talking about trans teenagers and foreign aid as if that is the problem with our spending habits?

Did I mention interest rates? I believe I did. Raise interest rates. 15% should do it. I guarantee inflation will drop to zero. It's easy and Carney used to have that job, so he knows how. Then, everyone will be happy ... right?

While I'm expounding, if anything thinks that oil is not a global commodity, then they are just as smart as Donnie Trump. Congratulations. Mr. Carney (and your provincial premier) do control the taxes on gas and diesel fuel at the pumps. If your preferred candidate wants those cut, just have them list the programs (above) that will receive reduced funding? You might also consider gas taxes going to fund things like new road construction and maintenance, bridges, rail, ports, air traffic control. That sort of thing.

Lastly, how on god's good earth does a politician control the price of homes? I hear people from all three parties talking about it? Cut the price of lumber? Slash hourly labour rates? Wage and price controls for concrete? How about the price of land? That'll go over big. "We are controlling how much you can charge for the lots you own or your house when you want to trade up (or down)? And please do not suggest we need less permitting and less regulation? New homes are slapped together these days in ways that would make a builder from 30 years ago faint! There are entire TicToc channels dedicated to showing closing inspection horror shows.

All I am suggesting is the constant bleating about inflation, is perhaps ... overdone? If Macron knew how to fix it for France, he would ... and tell Carney. Great Britain has inflation ... so Starmer doesn't know. Stocker (Austria)? Merz (Germany)? Certainly if some economist has the magic formula, he would be a billionaire. Nations would be trotting out hash, hookers and hot tubs. "Whatever you want sir!" Now, a whole new class of self-appointed experts after minutes of study on Facebook and TicToc have determined that Poilievre knows the answer? The career politician who has never had one private sector job and has not introduced one single bill in twenty years of government. He knows the secret?

Here's what I know. Last year, I made well beneath 100K. I paid a full 25% of that in income tax. There are no deduction when you are melting RRSPs. The City of Guelph took another four grand off me. It's a nice sunny Thursday afternoon. There are no fighter jets streaking overhead. No smoke on the horizon. No apartment buildings split open by bombs with children spilling out. People are walking along my sidewalk with cute dogs and ugly babies. They seem happy? The garbage got picked up along with six bags of yard waste yesterday. The toilets flush. Clean looking water comes out of the tap. Every once and a while, a police car or fire truck slowly rolls by, just so I know they are there. Why are people so mad? I'm not even going to say it this week. Say it for me? We live ....

Our Optimum Week

Did you go cookie monster crazy last week? We did. Five boxes, oatmeal raisin, macadamia nuts, those black things with chocolate chips in them and peanut butter. That's 90 cookies split 15 ways in the freezer for next to nothing. Of course, I did a quick chart

Sorry guys, there just was not a lot going on in the flyers or the offers. Need perfume? 30% back in points. Overall continuity at $150. Nothing much doing at Freshco or Food Basics either. I gave you the best deals. I would grab these along with your fridge list, go light and wait for them to come to you next week.

We Are Watching

The Ramen Girl from Netflix - It's good acting as our slime ball boyfriend pretends to dump Britany Murphy. Not sure that has ever happened. I got sucked in by the "learning how to cook Ra-men element" but it doesn't hold a candle to better versions such as No Reservations (Catherine Zeta-Jones) which actually had some cooking in it. One star.

The Detroit Red Wings? In the Leaf game last night, the shots were 18 to 3 when I turned it off. Half the team has already decided to feign injury and get their golf game in shape for the summer. Watching skilled players take the puck in over the line vs. Berube's "dump and chase" every single rush ... was refreshing. Detroit won and retained their slim wildcard hopes.

... and finally

CIBC has finally gone and done it. I believe I have previously talked about consolidating all of my credit cards (IFK & DM) onto the high end PC Mastercard. I pay ten bucks a month for the thing, but seeing as I am approaching two million points again ... you can see why. If you are spending a combined four grand at Zehr's and Shoppers and don't have the Insiders Card, you simply have too much money. Congratulations.

I digress. The prospect of getting 3% cash back on my Costco gas purchases convinced me to get a Capital One / Costco MasterCard. Couple of years ago, they moved that card support over to CIBC. My card, was expiring April 3rd. When a new card did not arrive, I started calling. Apparently "call volumes are higher than expected". I waited an hour and hung up. The next morning, I called again, waited an hour, hung up. I tried live chat. Brutal response times earned them another abandoned call, but I did get a survey out of the deal. I trashed them. That got me an Email. Finally. A human. Hey buddy ... "I need a new card". I have a 16K credit limit and a zero balance month by month for the past four years. OK sir. We will get that right out to you. Nothing. My card has expired.

So, yesterday, I drove over to Costco. Got a brand new old-fangled white Cosoco membership card. While I was there I got a hotdog and two cans of Tim Horton's coffee for SWMBO. You pay $32.99 for the 875 g can at Zehr's. At Costco their larger 1.36 Kg can is also $32.99 for as long as I can remember. WHAT? It was $34.99. It's just went up two dollars in the past six years!
Stop foreign aid.
Stop immigration, it's the Somalis!
Fire Carney.
Fire the Liberals.
Canada is hellhole.
If only we had it good, like Burundi, or Arkansas?

Mitch & Maddie