Tis the season to be broke!

Goooooooooood Morning Kelowna!

I had all the angles covered!
With my list of carefully researched deals on bargain priced furniture and other household essentials I snaked my way through the cold streets of Kelowna sniffing for deals. Eureka!! After a one week shopping spree, I had ONLY spent $28 more than my budget on a total of 32 essential household items. I wanna thank all the business profs at Carleton U for teaching me the organizational and penny pinching strategies that allowed me to target only the low cost items around Kelowna.

There was one big problem though...I had not taken into consideration one MAJOR environmental threat. I forgot that my move into my apartment fell into the busy Xmas shopping week .. So after all my careful budgeting to minimize spending for my move to Kelowna, all hell broke loose during boxing week. I thought I was done shopping before going on holidays (btw I had a great time and Ill post some pics soon) when I somehow managed to spend more on gifts + shopping on "deals" + things I really DID NOT NEED than I spent buying furniture + bed + sofa + all the other major things around my house.

Therefore I am gonna dedicate this blog to rant about the how "the holidays are just a big money grab for corporations". The idea for this post came to me when I was complaining to a friend about being broke and she mentioned that exact phrase I quoted above. To prove my point lets go over some things about XMAS.

1) From my personal experience (7 years of working in retail) no matter what you buy others, they don't like or need it. Don't believe me, go to a mall and watch the return lines. Don't get me wrong, some times you do find someone something they really like or need but the majority of the time they return the stuff or don't return it cause its rude or they wanna give away to others, or they have no reciept.
A good example of the extremes this happens is when you see a gift you had given to someone get recycled. You know, passed down from person to person and finally made it back to you. Well I witnessed this once and let me tell you that it was embarrassing for the parties involved and hilarious for me. I am not against the spirit of Christmas and giving. If anyone should know a little something about the magic of this special time, its me being born on Boxing day. I just believe that if you are gonna give make sure you give it to the less fortunate and not the greedy corporations that are fighting for your money. It really is the thopught that counts. The best example of the extent that corporations are going to catagorize their products as gifts is the new McDonald's ad I got in my mail. Cant find the pic for you but it was a big mac rapped like a gift and the ad said "you still have one more gift to open" awe..... how cute! Just what I wanted a burger that is not made of meat that gives you the McTummy (see "Super Size Me" for refernece). Since when is a burger a gift and how come they never say "you can only eat one more before you burst"

2) Also why is everything $9.99 , $1299.99, and $69.99 ?? Why cant they just say $10 ... oh yeah ..that's because 9.99 is makes you think like you are saving money.

3) When you go to pay you get hit with the hidden costs of GST, PST, HST, FUCKST, SERVICE Fee, Shipping and handling fee, batteries not included....

(btw BC is only 14% !!YAY!! 1 % less that Ontario)

More reason for you Ontarioans (..hmmm...not sure how you say that?Maybe Ontarians) to move out west.

"Just imagine"

what you could do with all that extra cash?

4) Ever notice how Santa is never a thin, young, good looking guy in commercials. Thats because they don't want you to think that its wrong to indulge yourself with spending money and getting fat over the holidays.

I gained 10 pounds over the holidays and I blame Santa, cause I say to my self, well at least I am not as fat as him, so I kept eating and getting fatter.

Till ext time,

Amin