Halloween is quickly approaching, which for many can be quite a costly night. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be! Here are some Halloween Costume ideas that are cheap and creative for 2012. These costumes are mostly for adults, but many of these can be turned into kids costumes.

Replacement Ref Costume

1) Replacement Ref – The replacement refs for the NFL got everyone talking lately. You can do all sorts of stuff with this costume but all you really need is a referee shirt, a pair of really dark Stevie Wonder type glasses and you are good to go! Here is an example of a similar costume for sale on Kijiji right now for $20!

2) Psy – If you haven’t seen the music video or heard the song Gangnam Style by Psy yet then you must be living under a rock. This video has exploded to become one of (if not) the most watched videos ever on YouTube. To complete the look, grab a wig and pick your favorite clothing look from the video. You can probably find many of the looks at places like Goodwill or Value Village.

3) Prince Harry – This one will take some creativity and may get a bit more costly but given his popularity in the news lately if you pull it off well this costume will for sure be a hit at your Halloween Party. Continue Reading »

A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a Car2Go Toronto VIP Event by Jamie Leigh to learn a bit more about their new car sharing service in Toronto. I was quite excited to hear about the company when they first launched because unlike their competitors you can user their cars for one-way trips. Currently with Autoshare & Zipcar you have to drop the car off back where you started. The reason I wanted to attend this event was there were a few things that I still did not understand about Car2Go. Fortunately, one of the perks of attending this event was I got to try out their service for free for 3 days!

I decided to write this review because I really enjoyed using their cars and thought I could use this review as a way to show people how to save money on transportation while explaining how Car2Go works.

How Car2Go works?

To use the Car2Go service you first must sign up to become a member. When I signed up they had a promotion where you received a free membership and 30 minutes of usage for free. This has since changed to a 1-time registration fee of $35 with no minutes included. Once you register it will take 3-5 business days for your membership card to be mailed to you and then you can start using the cars. Continue Reading »

Last Thursday I stumbled across a new restaurant in Toronto, Barton Snacks. It all started after attending a party at the Drake Hotel for Sailor Jerry and Stella Artois. After a long night of drinking my girlfriend and I decided it was time to leave and go look for somewhere to eat. We walked for about a block and found a place called “Barton Snacks”. Trying to decide if we were going to take the first steps in, another couple came outside so we asked them how the food was. Their response, “Great food, get the cobb dogg, good people”. We decided to give it a shot and entered.

Barton Snacks is located at 1120 Queen St. West (about a block east of the Drake Hotel). The shop was created by Katherine Lehto and is her second establishment to open within the last few months. The original Barton Snacks opened in June this year at 15 Barton Ave and, from what I’ve read online, appears to be more focussed on the Ice Cream business. This one has been in operation for about a month now and serves up all kinds of late night munchies from tacos to hot dogs. The most expensive item on the menu is the Jerk Pork Sandwich at $7.

The guy behind the counter (sorry, forgot his name) was super friendly on our first visit and we shared stories about travelling around the world for food. He is responsible for coming up with the recipes and other than Katherine they have one other person helping put the food together. On the recommendation of the people outside, we decided to have the Cobb Dog (a hot dog with a cobb salad on top – $4.50) and the Jerk Pork Sandwich (served on coco bread with coleslaw – $7).

Here is a blurry shot of the menu with Katherine at the counter:

Barton Snacks Menu

We had to travel a bit to get home and eat our food, but here are some shots of what we ordered: Continue Reading »

A couple weeks ago, myself and 2 friends (Jo & Chris) decided to take a trip down to New York City for the weekend to explore the sights, nightlife & (most importantly) the food. The trip came about after we noticed that Porter Airlines was having a seat sale and realized it would only cost around $275 round-trip to make the journey. We had long been thinking about doing some kind of road trip but decided on New York because we all love good food and a nice nightlife, and there is no city that does it better than New York City! After weeks of planning we were ready to head on down to the city that never sleeps!

DAY 1

10:00 am – After a 10-15 minute walk from my condo, I met up with Chris and Jo at Billy Bishop Airport (the home of Porter Airlines). They wanted to check out the lounge so we got there a bit earlier to take advantage of the free cappuccinos and snacks. I filled by bag up with 3 waters, some snacks for the hotel room and had a cappuccino and some almonds before we boarded (all FREE – one of the things I love most about this airport).

Just before we boarded the plane I snapped this pic

Continue Reading »

If you are planning a trip to the US anytime and like to have the use of your cellphone while there, you better read this! If you haven’t already experienced a ridiculously large cell phone bill after heading south of the border in the past then you have been very lucky! Nowadays everyone has a smartphone and I know many people that have returned to Canada after a 3-4 day trip to discover a $300+ cell phone bill. The problem is the rates that companies like Rogers, Telus and Bell charge for Canadian customers roaming in the United States are INSANE! According to The Neilsen Company, smartphone users currently average 606.1MB of data per month. For example, if you were to try to find travel data pack (see options in the image below) that would cover this kind of usage for a 1 week vacation, you would be looking to spend $88 for a pack that would only get you 100MB of data, 40 minutes of voice and 100 text messages. Go over any of these limits and you will be paying around $6 per MB for data, $0.75 per text message and $1.45 per minute for voice! Fortunately, you have some options that are much cheaper! Continue Reading »