Preamble: I am a straight shooter so this blog Everyday Tips – FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) has been created to answer questions or finding efficient solutions on everyday activities, financial constraints, getting ahead in life or anxiety of any kind. There is no problem big enough not to have number of solutions. The only limiting factor is we may not know the solution or answer at this time.
Since I was born and raised in India and moved to Canada, so some examples might provide reference to these countries but solutions are universal as the world is becoming one country as everything is available everywhere. Thanks to technology.
This page will be updated with the latest questions / solutions. I have purposely chosen the terminology Everyday Tips so that it becomes our lifestyle to do things efficiently and effectively. It is good for panic-free, stress-free and happy life. Some of the suggestions are for safety and also good for the environment.
Here you go:
Question 1: I don’t have budget or money or credit for buying a car, so I can’t work?
Answer: Its very easy to give up and find excuses not to do certain things. If you really want to do something there are ways and means. Winners don’t make excuses. In today’s world, there are ample opportunities for hard working people. Even if you have no technical skills or professional degree, you can still make a decent living. The best and easiest thing to learn is driving. If you could drive a car, you could survive nicely even in one of the best cities of the world.
Now a days, the most famous and fast growing concept is Car Sharing Options. You do not need initial down payment or even security deposit to get a car for personal or business use. I live in Surrey area of Metro Vancouver and there are at least two car sharing companies- MODO and EVO. Personally I use MODO and is perfect for using day to day and you pay for actual usage on km basis. There is no issue for parking, maintenance or anything.
Question 2: Where do I store my photos, original transcripts and certificates or any other important Documents?
Answer: We are in the age of digitalization and technological innovation. You can keep the tangible / physical copy at a place of your choice, no matter what you will forget one day and put the whole house upside down to find that.
Here is my solution.
Purchase a Cloud Storage account from any of the service providers online (name a few Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google).They charge a nominal monthly / annual fee and provide you enormous space for storage of documents. You just need to scan the documents and upload to the account you purchased from service provider. Apps are available for scanning documents like Adobe Scanner and many more. Scanning can also be done with simple camera of your smart phone.
I have a Cloud storage account with Microsoft and pay under C$3.00 per month to save my documents of all kinds. Storage is big enough to store anything and everything during my lifetime.
Question 3: Where do I keep my passport and travel documents?
Answer: Passport is one such document which is required in original to move anywhere on this planet. And, this can not be replaced in a short time. Therefore this should not be kept in a place to cause any last minute panic in case you have to visit family or friends across the border.
Rent a safety box from your regular bank to keep these things at a nominal charge per year. This will keep you worry free for your mobility.
I have rented a safety box with my Bank for a sum of C$60 per year. I am not worried about my mobility at all or last minute search of my house or apartment or room or storage facility of any kind or blame 101 people who might have misplaced or stole my documents.
Question 4: I don’t have budget or money to go on vacation, don’t bother me?
Answer: Going on vacation or weekend getaways is really popular now-a-days, for various reasons. Here are few:
- It takes you away from the daily chores / work / rush of daily life;
- If you are married, trust me you definitely need a vacation 😂😂
- If you have children, apart from the above reason, sometimes it is needed as a compulsion because their friends are going somewhere or what will you talk about after you return to school after summer or Christmas holidays
Action Plan if you have constraints regarding budgeting / funding your vacation:
Accommodation Expenses: This is the major portion of vacation budget.
If you own a house, just sign up for AIRBNB or similar company to host your house to travelers in your city. You can list your house on AIRBNB for the duration of the travel and earn your accommodation money for your vacation destination. Its your choice, you can take AIRBNB or Hotel within that amount.
If you don’t own a house and renting from the Landlord, then it could be little tricky but feasible. You can advise your Landlord to sign up for AIRBNB and you manage the process, share the portion of the income with your Landlord. This will be over and above your monthly rent to Landlord like icing on a cake. And of course, you have to manage the Check-in and Check-out of the AIRBNB guest. And its very simple, once you sign up on AIRBNB, they will walk you through it.
Daily Meals: First of all, this should not be a subject of funding as you eat food everyday whether you are home or outside on vacation. And, if you are in AIRBNB, you can select a location which has full kitchen. And it will be same routine as your home.
However, when on vacation, we like to eat special or outside and definitely different from our everyday life. I have a solution for that as well. Now a days, ride sharing Apps (like Uber and Lyft) and food delivery Apps(Skip The Dishes, Uber Eats, Door Dash, Grubhub, Zomato) are really famous to generate some extra income. At vacation destination, you have to set aside few hours everyday to work on ride sharing app or food delivery app. The only requirement is to have a car and driving license.
Ideally, if you work for three hours a day, you can generate enough income (after paying for gas), you can order a nice takeout from the same apps or eat at a nice restaurant. Sign up should be completed while you are planning for vacation as there is an approval process of these sign-ups.
Air Fare / Road Trip Expenses: This is another element of vacation funding. If you are planning to travel by Air, the solution is there are lots of credit cards where reward points are earned on usage of credit card. you should accumulate these points over a period of time. These points can be used to buy air tickets either partly or fully. If you are travelling by car, there are expenses of gas and meals etc. Here is my suggestion- Uber has inter-city ride option (In Canada there is another website called Poparide.com) where you can sign up and offer seat sale in your car for inter-city ride share. This will take care of your road trip expenses partly or fully.
You can follow the above action plan fully if you want to fund your vacation 100% from outside, with no effect on your monthly household budget. OR, you can use the action plan for part of the vacation depending on your choice.
Question 5: My TV Cable bill is too high?
Answer: This is very common question as the channels are increasing so is the monthly bills. That is why cable cord cutting is happening all over the world.
The answer is to evaluate Cable Cord VS. Streaming Channels: When we sign up for Cable TV, there are 100s of channels which are available by default. And, then we separately pay for speciality channels on per channel or package / cluster of channels. This adds up to a certain amount in the monthly bill. If it is affordable, then no problem. If not, there is a smarter way of doing things. With the popularity of streaming channels and apps, it is possible to get the same degree and level of entertainment.
Here are my suggestions:
- Netflix : Subscription to Netflix app, this is available at a nominal monthly charge at this point of time. And, we get movies and TV shows in all languages and from all countries.
- Prime Video: Prime Video has enormous stock of TV shows and Movies. And the best part is it comes free if you are a prime member of Amazon.com for online shopping. This provides you another channel for entertainment.
- Pay per channel: Any areas not covered by above channels, can be purchased through the pay per channel model. Like sports, news etc. which are not covered by the above two categories can be subscribed individually.
Total cost in the above scenario will still be lower than the monthly cable expenses. My goal is to point out if there is a resource / budget constraints, there is always an alternate choice.
Question 6: Do I need a printer at home for personal use? What’s paperless life?
Answer: I am a strong believer of paperless life. This helps the environment by reducing the cutting of trees and also reduction in ultimate disposal of old obsolete papers. With the advancement of technology and digitalization, the movement of paper documents has gone down drastically. And with the availability of Cloud Storage for permanently saving documents at minimal cost is another big step.
To have a papeless life, the following steps are recommended:
– Change option in your bank account / credit cards to online / paperless instead of paper statements;
– Change option for all your bills to online / paperless- cell phone, electric, heating, cable, taxation authorities(government correspondence);
Above steps will reduce your incoming mail drastically and you are helping save the environment at the same time.
On the other subject, in my view we don’t need to spend any money to buy printer for personal use. I have seen sales promotions where lots of big brand companies give printers free of charge with purchase of a computer. We should not take that either as there is a cost involved in replacing the print cartridges later. Moreover, printer occupies extra space on work desk, making the area little cluttered.
Having said that, however, we still need to print documents sometimes. My suggestion would be to outsource that job, means find a commercial place like internet cafe or other print shops.To give an example, in North America, there are places like public libraries, Staples outlets, they have printing facilities at nominal price.