September 8. 2009 - Costs

Let me change the subject for a moment. Yesterday, Labor day in both Canada and the U.S. we found a store where I could buy a stove size Coleman propane bottle. The one I have I bought at the K.O.A. in Texas last spring for $4.50 which was probably $.50 more then I would have paid at Wal Mart. The little grocery store had the bottles, retailing for $7.98. Even discounted for the Canadian dollar, that’s a heap of change. If we were back at home the sales tax would be almost 79 cents. But, here in Canada, the sales tax was 96 cents. We have been commenting to each other about the Canadian taxes and how steep they are. We first noticed it while on the Canadian side in Niagara Falls. Every purchase had a national tax, a provincial tax and a city tax. Maybe they don’t have an income tax and it is replaced with a national sales tax. Regardless, the taxes are high.

Our first gasoline cost was 99.9 per liter or roughly $3.80 a gallon. As we headed east towards Gaspe, we watched the price steadily climb to $1.04.9 per liter which became the norm. I don’t know how much of that is taxes. The good news today was the price dropped to $1.03.4. The bad news is that we didn’t need gas. Hoping it would continue to decline in price we drove merrily onward only to see it rise again to $1.05.9 or the equivalent of $4.00 a gallon.

The little bit of food shopping we have done, doesn’t really give you a good basis for comparison, but it appears food costs run a bit lower then at home.