Well, so much for getting a super cheap, 60$/month parking pass! As it turns out, the pass takes a week to process, so I would have had to pay for a full February pass and daily parking for the first week, and there is a three month minimum contract, with a really arcane cancellation policy. That said, I calculated how much it would cost me to pay for daily parking vs. the bus and it’s only a 15$ difference. Moreover, I just checked my Petro-Points balance and discovered that I have enough for a couple hundred dollars worth of free gas (and this after redeeming some in December for Miranda), so I don’t need to worry about gas for the toad this spring (and I’ll have plenty of time to rebuild my balance for the next time Miranda needs a fill). I am therefore going to suck up the 15$ difference and enjoy my extra 40 minutes a day!

Petro-Points are worthy of a sidebar. For several years now, I’ve used a Citibank MasterCard linked to the Petro-Points reward programme. All my purchases earn me points which I can then redeem for gas or other goodies. I didn’t drive much for about a year, so every month or so I would redeem points for a 25$ amazon.ca gift card! These days, I save my points for gas (gee, I wonder why), and even though I can’t possibly spend enough to fully cover my gas expenditures (well I could, but then I’d rack up debt which would negate the point of the exercise!), I do spend enough to take a huge bite out of the gas budget. This is truly ‘free’ money seeing as I pay off my MasterCard in full every single month. I belong to quite a few rewards programmes and Petro-Points is by far the most rewarding. I also like that I can double up on points by getting gas at Esso to get both Petro-Points and Aero-Points or at Shell to get the Petro-Points and Airmiles. I don’t buy into the ‘2 cents off per litre’ hype from Petro-Canada, though, seeing as their gas tends to be more expensive. I only get it with gift cards! I highly recommend the Citibank Petro-Points MasterCard to anyone who is disciplined enough to pay off their card in full each month (since the card has a hefty 19.5% interest rate!). No, this paragraph was not sponsored by Citibank. 😀

Random RVing thought of the day, as I lit the stove: “There is something delightfully primitive and elemental about needing fire to cook.”