Think Mauritius

By now, it is clear that anyone who has just arrived in Canada will find the first five years to be the toughest. People who immigrate from Mauritius will have done so with their lifetime savings and have to settle in their new lifestyle with limited resources. Very often, they are then faced with a constant uphill struggle to save money to improve their situations. In this article, I will provide some hints as to how to succeed in doing this.

One expense you will find hard to avoid is insurance cover for your belongings. It protects your car or the contents of your home; it also protects you against personal litigations arising from accidents where you are at fault (for example, say, water leakage from your apartment damaging the one below it). Fortunately, insurance costs decrease with time, as long as you do not make any claim. So, while at the start of your policy, your premium payments may be high, they quickly decrease over following years.

The costs of car insurance policies are often related to the age of the driver, the model of the car, and the number of no-claim years. To save that extra bit of money, it is wise to drive a less powerful car. And, try not to have accidents, if possible.

Of course, everyone should use common sense when making mundane purchases.

I will begin with a golden rule. Whenever you are considering making a purchase (other than food, of course), ask yourself this question: “Do I need this product?” If you can honestly say yes, then buy it. If not, don’t.

Another golden rule is whenever possible, buy the products you need when they are on sale, but don’t buy everything that is on sale. For example, if you are thinking about buying a particular computer (and need it) and it happens to be on sale, buy it. However, if you already have a computer in perfect working condition, and find that another computer (even if it is a more powerful one) is on sale, try to resist buying it. Why? Why spend your money on something that you do not need? Now, you may be saying: “But it’s on sale, I won’t find it at that price again!�? Well, it will be a big mistake on your part to adopt this attitude. There is always some sort of sale going on in Canada. I’ll bet you any amount of money that a particular product on sale today, will be on sale again sometimes in the future.

To give you some ideas how these rules work, let me tell you how I proceed. Let us begin with the first rule. I once looked at Tag Hueur watch ($1500) and really liked it. But after asking myself if I needed it, I could not honestly say yes. It was the end of the story. Now, let us move to the second rule. I need a new pair of shoes every year for work. Since I don’t have a car, I walk a fair amount of kilometres everyday. On top of that, because I damaged the ligaments in my ankles in a motorcycle fall in Mauritius some years ago, I need to wear comfortable shoes, otherwise, every step I take is not without pain. Knowing that I will need a new pair of shoes every year, I always buy a new pair for the next year. Of course, I do this when the shoes are on sale.

What else can you do to save your money? Don’t throw away the flyers (junk mail) in your mailbox. Check them out. They will tell you which store is selling a particular product cheaper. They will also tell you what product will be on sale in the coming week. And sometimes they even contain coupons. A dollar saved is a dollar saved. You should also consider checking some online forums where people talk about various sales because it is impossible for you to know every product on sale in a particular week. One such forum is www.redflagdeals.com. Check it out, you will be happy you did.

What else should you be aware of? The best times to buy computers are probably between July and the beginning of September (back to school promotions) and on boxing day. Every year on boxing day (26th December) there are huge sales on about almost anything. But before you go crazy and spend all your money on your first Boxing Day, I strongly suggest that you check the prices of products you are thinking of buying. Some stores will try tricking you into thinking that their products are on sales, when they really are not.

Having said all this, you also have to remember that it is not always about what you need, it is sometimes about what you want. There will be times when you don’t need a particular product, but still want it badly. If you are a good saver, it’s okay to go crazy sometimes. Why am I saying this? Well, I am not perfect. Although, I am very disciplined most of the times, I sometimes cannot resist making a purchase. For example, I bought a MacBook, even though I had a perfectly working PC at home ☺