I don’t say no to free money

Then again, who does, right?

If someone came up to you and said: Hey, here’s $20 for free! Enjoy!

You’d take it, right?*

*Unless you are super paranoid that someone is trying to trick you into some sort of scam or use it as a way to say you stole that $20 or whatever.

So why would you refuse free money in all its forms?

 100% EMPLOYER RETIREMENT MATCH

When your employer offers you a 100% match (even a 50% match!), YOU TAKE IT!

It’s FREE MONEY!

 

How it works is you put in $1, and your employer gives you $1 or $0.50 to match it, up to a certain percentage of your salary.

It’s a 100% return on investment, even if your investments go down in value, you still have double what you normally would have had, had you invested outside of the plan.

The only caveat is you don’t get a tax refund… because it’s free moneyyyyy… and you might have to be working for the company for 6 years before you’re what they call “fully vested”, which means you get to KEEP that employer match.

Otherwise, if you leave before the vesting date, you will get to only keep what you contributed, not what the employer contributed for you.

No biggie. It’s just a incentive to get you to stay with them as a long-term employee.

Check out this story by Fabulously Fru-Girl on this.

 PRICE SCANNING ACCURACY AT THE GROCERY STORE

In the U.S., there’s no branch for scanning accuracy, but I know the store HEB Central Market in the U.S. tend to give you the mis-scanned item for free if it’s under $10, and at least your money back on the subsequent items.

In Canada, we have a Price Accuracy Scanning Code of Practice policy.

You can read the Government of Canada page here, or you can just read my crib notes below:

If something scans incorrectly from its posted price tag, you are entitled to the FIRST item for free if its value is at, or under $10, if not, you will only get the difference back. For any subsequent item purchased, you will get the difference back.

• It varies from province to province; in Quebec every retailer follows it including clothing retailers
• You have to see the sign posted at the cash “Scanning Code of Practice”
• You have to be careful about the fine details if the item is in a bin that has one price for a bunch of things, rather than being priced individually or referring to a price tag on the shelf
• If the retailer does not obey the rules, you can call the Government of Canada’s branch for this, and file a complaint. It will cost you $10 for a registered letter to be mailed, but you can ask for that money back once they give in to you.

Does this work?

BF and I have successfully used the Scanning Code of Practice to get free food at grocery stores, anything from organic eggs to potatoes to honey.

You’d be surprised how inaccurate their prices are, especially in chain grocery stores.

I even got a jacket for free and all filing fees reimbursed once because the retailer argued and I ended up filing a complaint and winning.

We have even gotten $20 for a difference of $0.01 back, because we filed a complaint because they tried to say: “It’s just a penny!”. We said it wasn’t the penny, it was the principle of the matter that they should have given us that item for free since it was under $10.

 SO START SAYING YES TO FREE MONEY!

It’s pretty easy. Start contributing to your employer’s retirement-matching plans, check your grocery receipts (especially in Canada), and refuse to pay more than you should.

I always vote with my money — if a store refuses to give me back my money, or tries to play some shady game with me with the prices, I just stop patronizing their store.