Shopping

Eaton Centre

Toni takes the wheel today:

I never thought I would be writing about shopping. Plunking myself down in a different country for the long haul has put me in a perpetual hunter-gathering mode. Not only are we figuring out where to purchase food, household items and clothing, but we had to select services and providers for: banking, currency trading, cross-border accounting, cross-border legal services, medical services, and supplemental health insurance.

Groceries: I am obsessed with buying the highest quality for the least amount of money, something I honed in NYC. For most items, Grocery Gateway is the way to go…this is my online service with a good website and fast and reliable delivery. Price and quality are great and makes it worth paying the $12 delivery charge. This will be invaluable when the Canadian winter sets in. Within the overwhelming St. Lawrence Market I have found my favourite individual vendors for fresh baked bread, fresh baked desserts, raw nuts in bulk, imported cheeses, and blueberries. It’s worth a street car ride to shop for spices and health foods in The Kensington Market neighbourhood. For prepared, frozen foods like cooked, deveined shrimp the M&M Meat Market at just a block away is great. Between M&M and the St. Lawrence Market is the Metro grocery store which is a super market and is open 24 hours. The Metro is nice to know as a back up just in case Grocery Gateway is out of stock on something. I created an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of where to get what and when, like I said, I’m obsessed.

Alcohol: The local LCBO store for wine and spirits; Beer…the beer store. Yes, beer is sold in a separate store. To explain this there will be a future blog post.

House: I love Costco.ca, but if I want to see something in person or need smaller things Canadian Tire is the place. It’s kind of like Target. The Bay is the equivalent of Macy’s and we got the bedding and towels there.

Clothes: Eaton Centre has all the familiar “Mall” stores and is connected with a skywalk to The Bay. Both have their lower levels connected to The P.A.T.H. and the subway system. Like Grocery Gateway, underground shopping and transportation will be essential to survive the Canadian winter.

Cross Border: Expertise is necessary so that we know what country to pay taxes to, and to confirm the validity of our wills. Luckily my second cousin is a cross-border accountant whose office is 2 blocks away from our apartment. He recommended a currency trader in his building who we now use when we have to turn USD into CAD to pay rent, the telephone bill, stamps, and cash. For everything else we are using our American credit card which converts our CAD purchases to USD plus gives us cash rewards further saving money. Until USD and CAD are at par or if USD becomes stronger than CAD we won’t convert much of our funds into CAD. Working directly with a trader cuts the conversion fee by a third compared to letting the bank the trade, a lesson learned the hard way.

Health: Although our health insurance will be through the Ontario government starting August 1st, we still had to find a family doctor (general practitioner) and a dentist. My sister helped us find those close to our house. Government insurance does not cover prescriptions, dental, vision, and ambulance services so currently we are researching and getting quotes or if it is even worthwhile to get that coverage. We may just pay those out of pocket. Bill will post more on this later.

Finding the merchants, remembering where they are and what they have, and trusting so many new companies with private information has been a daunting learning experience stretching my flexibility to the max. I’m happy we have found what we needed so fast, but to say the least my brain and body are a little worn out. The subtle culture and business differences (more about that in future blog posts) can be both interesting and draining. Bill has had to remind me on more than one occasion it could have been a lot harder if English was not the primary language and our apartment was not almost fully furnished. I’m looking forward to having a little more routine and relaxation with shopping going forward now that the foundation work is almost over.