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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 25th, 2023

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  • I’ve previously used YNAB but all of these budgeting apps are fairly similar. I think YNAB does have two different ways to sync accounts vs some of the competitors where they use only one way to sync accounts which sometimes causes issues syncing or even with which accounts you can sync with.

    Besides the above I would like to point out that YNAB runs a bit differently than a basic budgeting app. With YNAB you do have a budget but it forces you to assign every cent and then you have to do as planned (with flexibility of course) but I find others that they only provide a dashboard somewhat like an overview.

    An example would be Mint. Had it for years, configured and it was synced with my accounts. I used this as a quick overview of how my accounts were looking vs an budgeting program to help get my finances sorted. Then I got YNAB and I’m not exactly sure why but paying off CCs and building a savings happened without having to force anything on my end.

    Now you are you, I am myself. Give something a shot with honest effort. If you’re putting your best foot forward and getting help if you’re ever stuck or have a question, and it’s not working out in ~3 months, change it.





  • UCP don’t give a shit about Albertan’s nor the province.

    As of date they have fucked the following (super short list):

    • Health Care - Cuts on top of cuts, also forcing doctors out or to certain areas after the local one left.
    • Education - Cuts once again and is now trying to mess with federal funding for post secondary.
    • Utilities - Removed caps on utilities.
    • Park Land - Released Park Land for O&G to drill on.
    • Support Programs - AISH got drastic cuts, just one of many examples.
    • Carbon Tax - Had we maintained the lower rate we initially had then we wouldn’t have been imposed the higher rate from Fed.

    War Room - WTF has this pile of shit been able to accomplish besides chewing through cash.

    The one thing that they have successfully achieved is bringing hatred and dividing the province’s people.



  • Ransack@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world-----
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    2 months ago

    No my guy, the hero doesn’t always win in the real world. This is where you get placed on PIP or start having performance issues, or get a promotion to a different team where there is a clash with your new manager.

    Given any opportunity I will always be for a union but good damn if the cards aren’t stacked against unions.



  • Lol two greedy companies who don’t have to actively do anything nor take accountability for any neglect on their part are of course happy to get more data and data points for nothing. Color me surprised.

    What I don’t understand is how people are completely complacent with this solution which is supposed to make housing more attainable.

    As a country we are not new to dealing with loans, credit, nor credit history. The system has been around for a long time.

    The problem is not people having too poor of a credit score or thin of a credit history to be able to obtain a mortgage from a bank. It’s the basic fact that if you’re Canadian you are going to be fucked financially in at least 3 different ways at any given time.

    To simplify I know companies will never pay employees what they are actually worth. It’s a nonsense game of carrot or crop. But if the cost of living wasn’t so high it makes reaching for a dream easier.

    Now back to this rent reporting program. Who is this program actually for? Its not for people with an established credit/loan history. For people that currently have bruised credit, adding rent payments to it isn’t going to help in any way. Going to take 7 years for whatever that bruised the score to fall off regardless of whatever it was.



  • What? No name products are from what I understand excess product made by the branded companies for certain grocery chains.

    So the problem here with loblaws isn’t that the manufacturers have increased their prices by 54% it’s loblaws who have brought the product in to sell and marked up the price.

    For a quick shitty example. Let’s say you’re selling OJ and you want $1 per bottle. Loblaws says okay we’ll sell it in our stores. Now loblaws has your OJ on the shelf but it’s priced at $1.54.

    Therefore if the store is already shameless and marking up products this much you can bet that these no name products would probably have equal to or potentially more profit in it.


  • Or hear me out here instead of selling out to companies from other countries that don’t give a single fuck about Canadians or companies that already operate here that once again give no fucks about the people that are employed by them we should take use and harness the resources that we have.

    While I’m neither pro nor con for oil, it’s one hell of a resource and we already have tons of people who are experienced in the field that could get put on for work.

    Now with that I would also like to also see the oil being kept up here in Canada instead of selling it to the states for pennies and then being brought right back up to be sold for dollars. Yes I am fully aware that this is an extremely simplified extrapolation of what is going on.

    One pipe dream if I may, is having our own public energy sector in Canada. Meaning in this case oil is drilled out by Canadians, with proper policies to take care of the land, where old wells and sites are actually cleaned up cared of. More directional drilling vs fracking. Employees are not abused to shit or have to work feeling that there is an axe at their neck based on global issues. And all of this goes to fellow Canadians so they are able to do as needed.

    The thing is we have larger issues in the country than just the over simplification listed above. So maybe, you are correct, just leave it in the ground.



  • By Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

    Posted April 7, 2024 9:00 am.

    Last Updated April 7, 2024 9:18 am.

    If you shop online you’re likely familiar with the experience — you agree to buy for a certain price, but by the time you check out, the cost has ballooned with fees and surcharges.

    Place a shipping order with Canada Post and you might be hit with a “fuel surcharge” of almost 25 per cent. Buy movie tickets, flowers, make travel plans — all could be subject to hidden fees that are subsequently added to the originally quoted cost.

    Critics call it drip pricing, a strategy that has been deemed unlawful. Consumers now have the power to fight back, with multiple class-action lawsuits filed in British Columbia targeting the practice.

    Vancouver lawyer Saro Turner, who is involved in some of the drip-pricing lawsuits, says more are likely on the way.

    “The average consumer is not a mathematician,” he said in an interview. “Companies that have a significant volume of commerce have to show the price in a meaningful way, not in a deceptive and misleading way.”

    Turner said the path to the lawsuits was paved by June 2022 changes to the federal Competition Act, that now explicitly labels undisclosed fees and surcharges that make advertised prices “unattainable” as a “harmful business practice.”

    The amendments mean Canadians can now launch class actions against companies that advertise unattainable prices, then tack on mandatory fees as consumers click through to buy products or services.

    Turner’s firm has drip-pricing cases pending against online florist Bloomex, travel site Omio, and Cineplex.

    “I think there probably wasn’t an awareness just about how pervasive (drip pricing) was,” he said. “People are upset about it.”

    In another lawsuit filed in Vancouver in Federal Court, customers accuse Canada Post of violating the Competition Act’s anti-drip-pricing provision with the fuel surcharge it adds to shipping charges.

    On its website, Canada Post offers three price options for regular, express or priority deliveries. For example, posting a three-kilogram package within Vancouver is listed as costing $14.11 for regular, $17.91 for express and $27.47 for priority shipping, before tax.

    But no matter which option is selected, Canada Post then adds a 24.5 per cent fuel surcharge.

    The before-tax prices increase to $17.57, $22.30 and $34.20.

    Canada’s Competition Bureau has already taken a number of firms and industries to task over drip pricing, for example, penalizing vehicle rental companies millions in 2017 and 2018.

    In November 2023, the bureau announced an $825,000 fine against ticket reseller Ticket Nation for drip pricing, finding that the company misleadingly advertised prices that were inflated up to 53 per cent by undisclosed fees.

    Ticketmaster was penalized $4 million in 2019, and reseller StubHub was fined $1.3 million for similar conduct in 2020.

    Last year, the Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell took Cineplex to the Competition Tribunal over online ticket sales that include a mandatory “online booking fee,” though Cineplex has denied wrongdoing.

    “Consumers expect to pay the advertised price. We’re taking action against Cineplex because misleading tactics like drip pricing only serve to deceive and harm consumers,” Boswell said in a news release at the time.

    “For years, we have urged businesses, including ticket vendors, to display the full price of their products upfront.”

    In the case filed against Bloomex in March, the class represented by Turner’s firm alleges the florist wrongfully adds a $1.99 surcharge to customers’ orders. The lawsuit says the fee is described as being “used to offset rising costs of product, handling, and delivery.”

    Advertising a lower price before adding the charge is “false and misleading” of Bloomex, the lawsuit says.

    The case was filed in Federal Court in Vancouver days after Bloomex was fined $894,000 by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for misleading consumers with such pricing, among other things.

    Another proposed class action, also filed last month in Vancouver, alleges Omio wrongfully advertises lower prices before adding a “service fee” to final prices.

    It cites an example of a plane ticket from Vancouver to Toronto advertised initially on Omio’s website for $281, before applying the service fee that boosts the cost to $300.75.

    Canada Post, Omio and Bloomex did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuits. The lead plaintiff in the Canada Post case declined to comment, and their lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

    Canada’s Competition Bureau declined an interview request.

    More changes to the Competition Act are winding their way through parliament, and Turner said they will allow consumers to seek damages from companies that abuse their “market dominance” and firms that make fake claims of environmental benefits of their products or services, known as “greenwashing.”

    He said public officials can’t necessarily prosecute every case due to limited resources, but the competition law changes allow private law firms and consumers to go after companies directly.

    “Where you’re a small consumer, you lose $1.50 or three bucks or whatever, some small amount up against a mega corporation, how do you enforce that?” he said. “Class actions come in and they incentivize lawyers … to gather together a bunch of people who have a small loss, jumble them into one group and start a lawsuit. Now, all of a sudden, the economics work.”

    “You’re the victim. You can get your buck fifty, whereas before you could not.”