It's All About the (PC) Points!

I've been a card-carrying PC Plus points program member for, oh, probably about two years.  For those who don't know, the PC points card is accepted / used by all stores that fall under the PC umbrella, like Loblaws, Maxi and Provigo in Quebec, or No Frills and Real Canadian Super Store in Ontario. I'm sure there are others in your area, too!

Anyway, this is a super points program, and more than just getting to spend the points on groceries (or any other items sold by participating stores), I actively enjoy collecting the points! Seriously, I wake up eagerly every Thursday morning so that I can load my offers and see if there is anything good for stuff I need. I really never paid attention to it, though, until maybe this time last year. That was when Maxi opened up nearby and I started paying attention to, and loading, my offers. I then got and used a PC Financial Master Card, and the points really started to add up. By Christmas, I had $180 worth of points, and I used those to do my holiday grocery shopping.

If you have no idea what the PC Plus points are or how they work, first, you need to surf over to their website (http://www.pcplus.ca) and create your account. You will need to get a card from your store, or download the app on your smart phone and use the digital card. Every Thursday morning, login and load your offers. The more you use your card when shopping, the more offers you will receive that are tailored to your shopping habits. For example, I often buy V8 vegetable juice. Hence, I frequently get offers (i.e. points for purchasing) said product. When you start to pay attention, load your offers, shop the sales and price match (Maxi) whenever possible, you really see the benefits.

Here's one little anecdote, showing how luck and frugal shopping can have a nice little bonus. Last week, Maxi had ground beef on sale. Sadly, I did not have a beef offer, but needed to shop the sale since I refuse to pay $5 or even $6 a pound. However, they were out of the product, so I got a rain check for ground beef at $2.88 a pound (yes, that's a HUGE sale these days).That was Wednesday. Thursday,. I got new offers and, low and behold, I got an offer for buying beef. Today I did groceries and redeemed my rain check, which had been misprinted as "$2.88 per kilo"! WOW! OF course, they had to honour it. so I scored $37.00 worth of meat for under $12. And, ultra bonus, I got $3.90 in pc plus points to boot, as the cashier rang up the original price before applying my discount.

Now, you won't always get that lucky, but still, the points really offset the cost of shopping.

Ok, some things to know:

• 1000 points = $1
• You can only start using your points when you get $20 worth (20,000 points)
• Your purchase must be at least $20 in order to use your points
• Your points are used in $10 increments after the first $20 for each purchase made using points
• You cannot use your points for booze, smokes, lottery tickets, or, oddly, milk. 

Ok, you're all set, so go get your point card, and go get shopping!