# The ever sinking CDN dollar



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Just sent my grandchild in the US, some money for a b-day present. Today the official exchange was 1.4781. The $100 USD and the Paypal fee cost me $150.84.:concern:

Thanks Justin for your 'True-Dough"....with the world price of oil sinking..sinking..sinking and the sad state of the economy in Alberta and other provinces,
it's only a matter of time that the Trudeau gov't gets rid of the Loonie and uses the Twonie as the measuring stick for exchange purposes against the USD.:hopelessness:

Watch the price of imported food skyrocket!


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## Bowzer (Feb 25, 2015)

I make US$, so it's been a boon to me. I can't be the only one.


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## 1980z28 (Mar 4, 2010)

Had a cartridge for my TT repaired in the US before Christmas,300 US, cost to me was 141 CAD,,,,a lot of our truck drivers will not spend any money in the US,,,,



Years ago I can remember Americans at car auctions buying all the highend boats,trailers,luxury vehicles


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## Grover (Jun 3, 2013)

I have seen a few posts referencing the 'decline' and highlighting Justin in a negative light, but in all honesty, what would Harper have done in this situation to make it all better for you?
I think the problems go way beyond the current PM and his policies.



carverman said:


> Just sent my grandchild in the US, some money for a b-day present. Today the official exchange was 1.4781. The $100 USD and the Paypal fee cost me $150.84.:concern:
> 
> Thanks Justin for your 'True-Dough"....with the world price of oil sinking..sinking..sinking and the sad state of the economy in Alberta and other provinces,
> it's only a matter of time that the Trudeau gov't gets rid of the Loonie and uses the Twonie as the measuring stick for exchange purposes against the USD.:hopelessness:
> ...


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## vi123 (Oct 29, 2015)

Bowzer said:


> I make US$, so it's been a boon to me. I can't be the only one.


Me too


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Grover said:


> I have seen a few posts referencing the 'decline' and highlighting Justin in a negative light, but in all honesty, what would Harper have done in this situation to make it all better for you?
> I think the problems go way beyond the current PM and his policies.


Yes, the NDP in Alberta and the Liberals in Ottawa have only been in power a few months.

If politicians carry any degree of blame..........I would think the 44 years of Conservative rule in Alberta and 9 years in Ottawa would have more likely candidates.

Ask not what your new government can do for you, but ask rather what your old government did to you.


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## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

Bowzer said:


> I make US$, so it's been a boon to me. I can't be the only one.


Farmer here ... crop prices have been sinking at US exchanges, but the sinking dollar has shielded us from that decline. Prices for us have remained relatively steady over the past several months. I'm okay with that.



sags said:


> Yes, the NDP in Alberta and the Liberals in Ottawa have only been in power a few months.
> 
> If politicians carry any degree of blame..........I would think the 44 years of Conservative rule in Alberta and 9 years in Ottawa would have more likely candidates.


It boggles my mind when I hear people (or see Facebook posts) blaming Notley for the economic downturn in Alberta.


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## Charlie (May 20, 2011)

or maybe it's the $30 oil!


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

Forgive my ignorance, but shouldn't a lower currency be positive for the economy?

I mean it makes our exports super competitive in the world so we keep our market share and selling our stuff.

And if something is super expensive to import like cauliflower is now, then there is an opportunity for us to grow or make it right here instead. 

We need to stop shipping raw stuff out to china to get it refined or manufactured. For instance why can't someone take our lumber and make economical furniture out of it here instead of sending it to china?

And we just signed some more trade deals recently to do more of this insanity.

Pound the dollar and then create home grown enterprises to fill the gap if imports get expensive. Mexico did it and now our auto plants are there now.


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## Underworld (Aug 26, 2009)

Yea the dollar disparity sucks.

It's become apparent to me that I need US dollar income. I'm going be marketing heavily to US this year.
Plus it sucks for us going on Vacation down there - which we normally do.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

Grover said:


> what would Harper have done in this situation to make it all better for you?


I think he would have worked hard to get a few pipelines built to increase export profit margins and help pay Canada's bills. 

T2 seems anti progress to me. He wants to build up our debt to build some infrastructure projects when there are many billions of private money ready for investment were we not becoming American activist's lapdogs. (ask me what I really think haha)


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

Thinking I might turn my 1 week vacation back to Ontario this summer into 2 or 3 weeks. Certainly can't go to Europe or America this year.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

I will post this Bloomberg article here as well about our falling dollar.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...social-media-about-skyrocketing-grocery-bills


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

peterk said:


> Thinking I might turn my 1 week vacation back to Ontario this summer into 2 or 3 weeks. Certainly can't go to Europe or America this year.


Just was thinking about it...  maybe better to rent cottage in Northern Ontario


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

The Canadian dollar rally should continue, Yes the loonie is getting stronger in the deflation the USA dollar rally is just a stronger rally then the Canadian dollar rally in its purchasing power


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

When you deliberately destroy your manufacturing base and turn yourself into a semi 3d world economy that depends on selling your heritage in the form of natural resources, you put yourself at the mercy of world markets. There is nothing Trudeau, Harper or anyone else can do except make things worse. The bad decisions were made in the 70s and 80s when we decided work was for suckers and offshored all the union jobs.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I'm more or less with Rusty on this, though I'm a bit more optimistic that we can fix things.

We have to start by abandoning this "race to the bottom". It's always a race to the bottom in everything these days ... which country can weaken its currency more? Which country can have lower interest rates? Which country can do less manufacturing?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

The grocery prices impact is pretty easy to avoid, at least for many Canadians: buy food grown in Canada. I haven't seen any impact on my own grocery bills, personally - most of what I buy is grown here in Québec, apart from coffee, salt, spices, and some fruits like bananas and oranges. But i can get Québec-grown fresh apples and pears, and there are even hothouse strawberries available now, not to mention frozen summer vegetables and fruits -- everythng from shredded zucchini to blueberries and beyond. I'm eating Québec-grown onions, potatoes, chicken and pork, winter squash, bread made from Canadian wheat, mussels from PEI, etc. -- none of those prices have changed.

I used to eat almond butter on my toast in the mornings, but that got expensive more than a year ago due to the California drought and now even more so with the dollar, but the solution for me was simple: I switched to peanut butter. That alone is saving me $34/month, even though those peanuts aren't grown here.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Almonds are better for you then peanuts but $34 a month is a lot to save. 

Also out here in BC we have a lot of hothouse vegetables grown here and I can get frozen blueberries at a very good price year round locally at a farm.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

dogcom said:


> Almonds are better for you then peanuts but $34 a month is a lot to save.
> 
> Also out here in BC we have a lot of hothouse vegetables grown here and I can get frozen blueberries at a very good price year round locally at a farm.


Actually the nutrition profile for almonds vs. peanuts is almost identical; the main difference is that almonds have more vitamin E, but I get vitamin E from lots of other things in my diet.

Even here in Québec we get fresh local hothouse lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc., grown right here in Montréal on a commercial rooftop farm. I rarely buy anything grown in California (or other US states) anymore!


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

Brad: It's _SAVING you $34 a month???_ That'a A LOT of PNB or almond butter .....we wouldn't even SPEND $34 on PNB in maybe 4-5 years!...:biggrin:


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

jargey3000 said:


> Brad: It's _SAVING you $34 a month???_ That'a A LOT of PNB or almond butter .....we wouldn't even SPEND $34 on PNB in maybe 4-5 years!...:biggrin:


Yep, it's true. I was going through a $15 jar of almond butter every 10 days. That's $45/month. The same size jar of peanut butter costs $4, so that's $12/month, for a $33 savings, sorry I was off by one dollar. I eat toast for breakfast 7 days a week, so I go through almond butter or peanut butter pretty quickly.


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

I used to eat cashews as a once a day snack, until they hit like $14/lb or something. It was usually a $30/week tab on my groceries. I have now given up that 'luxury' and eat peanut butter instead. 

I've got lots of little tricks like that up my sleeve. I swapped all my bulbs to LEDs last fall hoping to trim my power bill by 30%. 

Right now I would love to buy a large fuel tank and hoard a bunch of petrol.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

tygrus: those LED lightbulbs - do they still cost abot $10 each?did you factor that into your savings. i bought up a lifetime supply of the "old" kind of bulbs (incandescent??) when some store here was going out of business -pack of 4 /$1
sidenote: we live in a neighborhood with a lot of younger families in new homes. I'm sure they all went for led lights, to be "greener". Trouble is, these style houses all seem to have exterior pot & spot lights all over them. the kids leave them on ALL the time. i walk the dogs at night & I'm amazed the hundreds of lighst burning away, unnecessarily, just in our little neighborhood alone! go figure.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

Bowzer said:


> I make US$, so it's been a boon to me. I can't be the only one.


I love it. I receive a U.S. Social Security pension of $1330 (U.S.) per month due to my late American husband's death, and for each of the past few months, I've gained by several hundred dollars on the exchange rate. If the Cdn. dollar stays as low as it is now, I'll be over $500 ahead this month.


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## indexxx (Oct 31, 2011)

Just cashed over some USD today- over $1.40 on the dollar. Jeez- it was not very long ago the Canadian dollar was above par- up around $1.10-$1.15 wasn't it? What a spectacular crash.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

It has been an epic crash for sure, and I believe I heard on BNN that although the CAD was down around the same levels before, this was the fastest decline from high to low marks in history.

I remember the last time, as I collected a Google Adsense check for finally earning $100 from ads on a website. I forget how much Canadian I received but I don't think I have received anything since.

The account is almost at $100 again and the CAD is low again. I don't know if I should be thrilled to get the extra money or sad to have to wait so long between.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

jargey3000 said:


> tygrus: those LED lightbulbs - do they still cost abot $10 each?did you factor that into your savings. i bought up a lifetime supply of the "old" kind of bulbs (incandescent??) when some store here was going out of business -pack of 4 /$1


There are lots of studies showing that those incandescents cost you more money in the long term because they use so much more electricity. The cost of one LED (which typically has a lifetime of 20 years) plus the cost of its electricity use over those 20 years is a lot smaller than the cost of 20 incandescents (which typically have a lifetime of 1-2 years) plus all their electricity use over 20 years. The people who stockpiled on old incandescents are just setting themselves up to lose money, especially as electricity prices increase.

If you don't believe it, read this comparison, which shows that the total cost of incandescent over 23 years is $201 versus $38 for an LED. It depends of course on how long you leave the lights on each day and the price of your electricity. LEDs are widely available for less than $10 nowadays, and the price continues to decline. The main thing is to not waste money on putting LEDs in closets and other places where lights are only left on for a few hours per year, unless you're one of those people who forgets to turn off closet lights and leaves them burning days on end (I happen to live with someone who does that!)

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/the-...bs-whats-the-best-deal-now-and-in-the-future/

Edited to add link.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

...23 years eh?... ok i'll ditch the old bulbs for the leds. Then, when I'm...let's see....87...I'll be laughing all the way to the bank ....in my wheelchair!...:biggrin:


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

jargey3000 said:


> ...23 years eh?... ok i'll ditch the old bulbs for the leds. Then, when I'm...let's see....87...I'll be laughing all the way to the bank ....in my wheelchair!...:biggrin:


That's actually when you'll need the savings the most, because your electricity bill will be lower. But I hope you realize that you'll see those savings every single year. The LEDs pay for themselves in 2-4 years, depending on electricity prices, and then from then on it's all profit.

In the late 1980s and early 90s I replaced all the incandescent bulbs in my apartment with CFLs, and my electric bill dropped by more than 20 percent. I work at home, so there's often at least a few lights on especially on cloudy days. 

The return on investment for LEDs is typically around 8% if you're using them to replace incandescents. That's better than any other guaranteed-return investment on the market these days (e.g., GICs). If you're using them to replace CFLs the ROI is far lower because CFLs are already very efficient. I only buy LEDs when my CFLs burn out; most of them have lasted me 10 years or more, except for some of the newer ultra-cheap ones that only seem to last 3-4 years. If you already have CFLs it makes no sense to replace them with LEDs until the CFLs burn out. But if you're using incandescents, replacing them with LEDs is not only a free lunch, it's a lunch you're paid to eat (in the famous words of energy efficiency expert Amory Lovins).


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## lost in space (Aug 31, 2015)

brad said:


> There are lots of studies showing that those incandescents cost you more money in the long term because they use so much more electricity. The cost of one LED (which typically has a lifetime of 20 years) plus the cost of its electricity use over those 20 years is a lot smaller than the cost of 20 incandescents (which typically have a lifetime of 1-2 years) plus all their electricity use over 20 years. The people who stockpiled on old incandescents are just setting themselves up to lose money, especially as electricity prices increase.
> 
> http://www.thesimpledollar.com/the-...bs-whats-the-best-deal-now-and-in-the-future/
> 
> Edited to add link.


If you read the comments you discover what I did, quality is very inconsistent and manufacturers overstate the brightness. I bought what were supposed to be replacement 60 watt LED bulbs but they put out so little light I had to replace them. It's almost impossible to find an LED which has the same brightness as a 60 watt much less a 100 watt bulb


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