Cheerios at the beach

Rebekah and her new beach towel. Makes you think of breakfast, don't you think?

I got a call the other day at work. It was my daughter Rebekah.

"Dad it came, I can't believe it," she said.

"What came?"

"It's beautiful Dad, you should see it and it's got cereal all over it."

At this point I'm thinking, "What have you spilled now? Gawd, why didn't I send you to summer camp?"

"My towel Dad, the towel I ordered from Cheerios," Rebekah said.

Ah, the towel that was going to save me or kill me while I was off work a few weeks ago. I'd almost forgot about the minute-by-minute updates Rebekah was giving me in her excitement when she ordered it for free. Did you hear that, she ordered it for free?!?

Why is it the women in my life always describe purchases by the amount of money they didn't have to spend to acquire them?

"Look at this Dad, it was $19.99 so I saved $10," is a common phrase Rebekah uses with me. Her Mom, my wife often does the same. They probably do this because they know I'm a cheap bastard. I don't want for much, I don't need much and as a result I don't buy much. I'm a capitalist's worst nightmare!

So when I saw how nice this Cheerios towel was I had to give Rebekah credit for filling out the form and getting it ordered. She was warned delivery could take six to eight weeks but it came in under two weeks giving Rebekah lots of time to use it this summer. Best of all, it came with a coupon, $1 off a box of Cheerios. Rebekah can have the towel, give me, the cheap bastard, the coupon!

Cheerios, the cereal never tasted so good.

A beautiful beach towel could save me or kill me...

A beautiful beach towel, that's the focus of my daughter's summer.

She's 13-years-old and doesn't do summer camp. Actually she doesn't do much of anything but when she's doing nothing she has lots of time for stuff like filling out the Internet form for a free Cheerios beach towel. And guess what? It will arrive in six to eight weeks!

I don't know whether to be sad or happy for my daughter. But then I remember when I was her age and too cool to do anything but be bored. And let me tell you, I did bored well! I had the bored walk, the bored talk, the bored stance down to a pat. Bored never looked so good as far as I was concerned. Of course I was 13 and thought I knew everything so I could be excused for my ignorance. My daughter Rebekah though, she's too cool to believe anything I say so she sits and remains cool ... and bored.

She ordered this Cheerios towel after she'd eaten her cereal at 11 a.m. Nothing like getting  up early for breakfast, right? While she was laying on the couch being bored she noticed the ad for the free towel. She asked if she could order it and when I heard the word 'free' I was sold. So she ordered it. And I haven't stopped hearing about it ever since.

These are the thoughts of a father who's been off work for a week and spent it with his bored children. We've gone to the library, we've gone to the park, we've gone to get Slushies, we've gone on walks, we've gone swimming, we've gone to Cedar Park but all I hear about is the Cheerios towel. This towel better be all it's cracked up to be because I'm SICK of hearing about it from my more than bored daughter.

I'm heading back to work on Monday and guess what? I've never looked forward so much to work. I love my children but we need space, time, and that Cheerios towel to finally arrive. My tour of duty is coming to an end but my wife Heather's is coming up in August. I wish her luck . . . and that the towel arrives.

RBC does have a loyalty rate

Heather and I had it all planned out as we headed to our dreaded mortgage meeting. She's had a lousy week so she was the bad cop. I'm rarely in a bad mood so I was the good cop. Our hope was that together we'd get what we wanted and if not, leave frustrated.

I have to be honest, our last mortgage meeting five years ago did not go well. We had to raise a fuss just to get our lender to match our old rate of 5.23 per cent. We weren't going to go through that again which was why we were more determined than ever walking into today's meeting. I'd gone to other banks, spoke to some people and had some numbers to throw at RBC if it came to that. If somebody had asked us where we were going I would have answered in my best William Wallace imitation, 'I'm going to peck a fight.'

So you could imagine my surprise when our lender, Kelly Cooper, opened up our file and told us she could do better than our current rate. Without missing a beat she gave us the best posted fixed rate RBC had today, 4.14 per cent. That was exactly the number the other banks had been offering to lure our business away from RBC. And this was without us saying a single word. I looked at Heather, she looked at me and we both started to relax.

During the subsequent conversation Kelly mentioned "good customers" and "loyalty" more than once which  got me thinking, "did she read my last blog?" Maybe she did, I don't know. What I do know though was that Heather didn't have to pull her bad cop routine to garner us a lower rate. We were getting that by just being silent. I couldn't believe it.

I'd heard from a few friends RBC wasn't the best bank for your average customer. A reader of this blog had mentioned the same thing in a comment. The bank seemed to be geared more to business, less to your average homeowner. But today's meeting proved to me RBC does want to help the little guy, at least this little guy.

Heather and I now have the lowest fixed rate we've ever had and that's going to help us pay off our mortgage earlier. I can't wait having that extra $1,200 a month for other things, like maybe myself!

I was convinced that today's meeting was going to turn out bad. I was wrong and let me tell you being wrong isn't always a bad thing. Today it was awesome.

Does RBC offer a loyalty mortgage rate?

This is a big year for Heather and I financially -- it's mortgage renewal time.

In October our current 5-year mortgage is up meaning we can renew or move our business elsewhere. We're in that 120 day period where we can renew if we stay with RBC and tomorrow we've got an appointment to see if the bank will make us an offer we can't refuse. Somehow I doubt we'll hear that offer.

I had an appointment with BMO the other week to see what that bank could offer us. I came out impressed as the rate they offered was 1.5 per cent lower than our current rate. That struck me funny as a recent message RBC left on our phone had an ominous tone, talking about the hikes in interest rates and about how it was important to lock in now. A hike in interest rates . . . is that bank code for we're going to screw you royally?

A colleague of mine recently told me she's never stayed at a bank for longer than one mortgage renewal period. She's always been able to get a better rate at another bank. If the same holds true for me I have but one question -- What happened to loyalty?

If a new customer can walk into RBC and get offered a rate of 4.1 per cent why can't a customer who has been with the bank for more than 10 years get offered the same rate? What about a 'loyal customer' rate? I can already hear the laughter emanating from the mortgage lenders as they read this blog.

Maybe I'm wrong. Tomorrow Heather and I could walk out of RBC with the lowest rate we've ever paid. Or not.

What's your experience with banks? Any suggestions? I'd like to know. I'll let you know how we do at RBC tomorrow.

The RESP sacrifice will be worth it

I wrote the other day about my daughter entering Grade 8 next year. It's hard to believe she'll be entering her last year of grade school in the fall but to look at her you would already think Rebekah was in high school. Boys can look like boys well into their 30s but girls, they tend to look years older as soon as they turn 12.

High school is no longer a five year cycle. If you fail it could be five, six even seven years but that's not going to happen with Rebekah. She's pulling off grades that my parents never saw on my report cards. She must take after her mother.

So in a blink of an eye I will looking at my eldest daughter graduating high school. It shouldn't come as such a surprise. I went to high school with friends who now have daughters graduating university (congratulations Shona) so in some respect I'm a little tardy to the party! I also have colleagues at work whose sons and daughters are heading off to college and university. So the rising cost of education has come up as a topic of conversation.

Here's the million dollar question (gawd, I hope it's not that high!) -- what's it going to cost me?

My wife and I have been saving as much as we can for our kids' educations. Rebekah was lucky because we actually started saving for her education before she was born. We had money back in those days so we threw some of it away in a savings account. Later we switched it over to a Registered Education Savings Plan when Rebekah was born. The other two kids weren't as lucky but we've still managed to squirrel away some cash for them as well. Will it be enough? I doubt it. But it's something that's important so it has to be done.

Since the Recession of 2007-2008 there's been a lot of turmoil in the world. Here in Durham Region well paying jobs are being awarded to those with educations. Long gone are the days when you could leave high school, walk into General Motors and be set for life.

Everybody who has lost jobs around here has gone back to school for retraining. Education has become, if it wasn't already, the most important thing you could do for yourself.

Rebekah's four years away from the rest of her life. Whatever it costs will be worth it.