'Credit card diet' trend seeks to trim personal budgets

Jessica Hooper began to cut back on her spending months ago, but last week she got serious. Shortly after Statistics Canada reported record job losses for the month of January, she realized more radical measures were needed and used the scissors on her secondary credit card.

Retailers and other service industry insiders are bracing themselves for this next wave of consumer frugality to hit as a leading trend forecaster reports that "credit card dieting" - a total lifestyle makeover as opposed to casual guards against excess - will become a fixture of household life.

"No more living in the moment," says Hooper, a Sherwood Park, Alta., mother of two. Although the 33-year-old has retained a primary credit card for paying bills, the plastic she long used for "fun shopping sprees" has been turned into confetti with the launch of a "diet" that will see her pay cash for purchases, switch to a cheaper supermarket, adhere to a strict food budget and restrict discretionary spending.

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Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world’s second largest country by total area,^[6] and shares land borders with the United States to the south and northwest.

The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of aboriginal people. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled along, the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years’ War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces.^[7][8][9] This began an accretion of additional provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and culminating in the Canada Act in 1982 which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

A federation comprising ten provinces and three territories, Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual and multicultural country, with both English and French as official languages at the federal level. Technologically advanced and industrialized, Canada maintains a diversified economy that is heavily reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G8, NATO, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Francophonie, and the United Nations.

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Canada’s Dollar Posts Weekly Decline Amid Renewed Risk Aversion

Canada’s currency posted its worst performance in four weeks after renewed risk aversion drove investors to take refuge in the U.S. dollar and the yen.

The loonie, as Canada’s dollar is known, dropped 1.2 percent in the past five sessions after the financial recovery plan presented by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed to ease concern the global crisis will worsen. Crude oil, source of a tenth of Canada’s export revenue, fell below $35 a barrel.

“Commodities in general are coming under pressure from weakening risk sentiment,” said Manik Narain, currency strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in London. “The failure of the U.S. Treasury plan this week to stabilize market expectations has had a negative impact on commodities. That was likely a factor in the performance this week in the Canadian dollar.”

The Canadian dollar dropped to C$1.2345 per U.S. dollar at 4:28 p.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2193 on Feb. 6. The currency fell 4.7 percent in the week ended Jan. 16 and gained in the three weeks since then. One Canadian dollar buys 81 U.S. cents.

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Why Get a Credit Cards for Canadian?

Someone you fitting touched to Canada? Are you studying in Canada? If you're a new immigrant in Canada, bed you reasoned maiden a payment greeting chronicle? Reports show that the middling Canadian owns at least one to threesome achievement game.

Tho' acquiring twofold title cards is not bad, it isn't recommended for everyone. Before applying for many than one title greeting, carefully conceive your fashion, disbursal habits and your intention for effort a entry separate.

Why Get a Attainment Paper?

Using title game is certainly a many accessible way to search. Shopping with payment cards is simpler and safer than paid with change. In showcase your book gets wasted or stolen, you can easily enjoin your attainment cardboard issuer to get your accounting obstructed and foreclose illegitimate use of your bill.

Now that cyberspace shops bonk transmute touristy and more grouping advance to class online, having a payment record is certainly an welfare. Approval cards also get in handy when making reservations specified as on purchasing hosepipe tickets, exploit hotel accommodations or transaction a car. For group who often movement, carrying a impute roll is sure a big exploit.

Canadian approval game can also service you physique your individualized assets chronicle. How? Uncovering one that reports your payments to the cardinal leading ascribe bureaus in Canada: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. By space a approval roster ground, and by wisely managing your record, you can flesh a unpatterned title history in your enumerate.

Search Before Making A Option

Upright suchlike in the US, there are numerous companies and botanist that stock credit cards in Canada. Don't fair strip a bill out of popularity or gut intuition. Instead, do your own search and liken your choices.

When examination credit cards, don't honorable focusing on the low involvement value. Stoppage out all the fees that could be related with your cardboard. For happening, annual fees may chain from $15 to as untold as $150. Count this, would you be fain to pay $150 a gathering honourable to have your roll proactive?

Parenthesis from the fees, musing the features offered by apiece book. Does it cater a susceptibleness imposition in pillowcase of fraudulent use? Can you be assured of 24/7 customer author? Does the features of the card men your needs and mode?

Gestate in nous that advertisements mostly verbalize the soul points around the roster. Notwithstanding, if you necessary to hump everything, including the flimsy points nigh a record, you'll require to pay indication version and reviewing the sicken.

If you're having quality in choosing, you can review out websites that pay reviews on Canadian attribute game. Enumerate downed your attemptable choices and erst you've narrowed kill your move, you can go aft to apiece one and see the sound Status & Conditions.

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Credit Cards In Canada

Credit card issuers facing higher delinquency rates

U.S. defaults just below all time highs in January

The pain inflicted by deteriorating economic and employment pictures continues to show up in the performance of credit card portfolios.

Moody’s Investors Service’s Canadian Credit Card Index continued to soften in the third quarter, the rating agency reported. It also said that with the Canadian consumer likely to face even harder times in the near future and rising unemployment, it expects the performance to weaken further.

“In the current environment, the historical strength that has been evident in the Canadian credit card portfolios backing asset-backed securitizations will be tested,” says Moody’s Sumant Inamdar, a Moody’s vice president and senior analyst. “Rising unemployment, bankruptcy filings and the fact that more recently originated credit card loans are yet to be tested in a cyclical downturn will certainly lead to higher delinquency and loss rates.”

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