Money for nothing

One of my interests is making money by doing as little as possible, like everyone I guess.

I have succeeded once on a cashback for balance transfers that was a ridiculously generous 5% in the UK and I just kept taking the money out and putting it back again. I managed 3 times before the offer expired and made a few hundred pounds. I recently found this website where the guy is a bit more hardcore and less risk averse than me.

The problem in Canada is getting the guaranteed rate of return. Any ideas on that?

Another quite risky approach is to buy currencies that pay high interest with ones that have low interest. For example buy british pounds with yen and do this in a levered account at say 20 or 30:1. There is a long forum entry on a guy who doubled his account by using a fairly idiot proof method though these days the future is a bit unsettled. The risk is that the currency you buy becomes lower in value despite paying 5% pa...

As the price of gold and other metals rockets so people's catalytic converters become the targets of theft. Less illegal is to strip gold from computers, but you need time and a free source of many, (scores), old computers. There is a place near Eastman where you can go gold panning, always fancied it but I hear Val d'Or is the place...

Not paying for things is another way of achieving the same, for example using a business to avoid paying tax on things or by requesting free commercial samples, though this can enter the grey zone if you do not follow advice or know what you are doing. Living next to the US where sales tax is very low and electronics are better and cheaper I see potential, your entitlement is $400 for 48h outside Canada and $750 after 7 days. Is there such a thing as a service for having goods mailed to a border town so you can pick up easily? Surely these limits will go up as it seems to have been stuck here for years.

Having kids can provide some money for example each one in daycare is eligible for $1000 a year from the fed. it only took me 3 years to figure this out.

Currently I am using Costco with the Amex card. It is a peculiar place... too tight to use video cameras to stop theft despite selling them. I seem to end up spending a fortune there regardless and am suitably disgusted at their lack of italian pasta and tinned tomatoes etc, but then again I was delighted to find kg packs of REAL parmesan reggiano. Not some powdered muck from Ontario...swings and roundabouts. I will let you know how much money I get back but judging on the year so far not much is the answer. It is cheap for nappies though so somehow I came out on top.

Hypermiling..well if you can't afford gas then maybe sell the car. I recently started to try it though, stopping is about the worse thing you can due for fuel efficiency and seeing as montreal uses stop signs and clockwork traffic lights as the only traffic control system this is bad as you will have doubtless watched the dumb significant minority accelerating towards red lights or stop signs only to jerk stop and speed off again. I did question the wisdom in switching my engine off and free-wheeling through about 5 stop signs late one night and wondered whether the police would buy my saving the environment argument. Indeed stopping is pretty hard with no power brakes..It did seem to make a difference but we won't get rich.

Feel free to post more money making/saving tips