The activation fees are absurd. On my $20 Vanilla card, the $7.95 fee was nearly 40% of the card’s value. That’s objectively ridiculous. Then add in the restrictions and the cards smell even more like poo.
I often say that money is one of the last taboos in Canada. Unsurprisingly, a survey we recently conducted at...
EQ Bank would have paid me $1.85 in cash back for my total one week spend. That still doesn't beat the $2.55 I got from Neo for spending less overall, but more on groceries and gas.
After completing my birthday reward journey, I collected over $100 worth of free goodies. The highest value items were from Denny’s ($14.59) and Freshii ($13.49). The lowest value item was the cookie from Subway ($1.35).
A first-time bankruptcy stays on your credit report for 6 to 7 years, but you can start rebuilding your credit much sooner than that. The Canadians I spoke to got secured loans or credit cards with low limits and rebuilt within a few years.
Thomas used the Capital One Guaranteed Secured Mastercard with a $300 limit while still in active bankruptcy. T. Morrison opened a GIC-secured credit card through Meridian immediately after discharge. And Robert Jenkins got the Capital One after discharge.
B lenders accept credit scores as low as 500. But you’ll likely need to make at least a 20% down payment, and your housing costs plus debt payments should not be more than 50% of your income.
Shelby turned $45,000 of debt into a $250 monthly payment she could actually afford. Christopher reduced a $20,100 balance down to about $7,000. Chris finally escaped the cycle of moving money around while interest kept growing.
