I mean this in no way as a slight. I’m really, truly, interested in something we saw in Washington state while we were up there this summer.
“Canadian money at Par”: So, 1 dollar US is 1 loony Canadian, with no fees or penalties, and what I saw was WAVES of Canadians coming south of the border to buy Gas and Milk.
I understand travelling a little to get a good deal, but it was NUTS. The Costco we went to had a 45 minute wait to get gas. There was a 2 or 3 hour wait to get over the Border (90 minutes each way), and everywhere there were signs limiting people to 8 gallons or so if Milk.
Is the difference SO great in price that it’s worth burning most of a day to go get Gas and Milk? Or is it seen as a getaway with the added benefit of some cheap stuff in the deal?
Safe bet that the sign is a hold-over from a time when the U.S. dollar traded considerably higher than the Canadian. That said, many items can be had in the U.S. for astonishingly lower prices. (Here’s a little insight into that.)
I have never been a cross-border shopper but I know plenty of people who find it worthwhile to head down to Blaine of a week-end - 45 minutes to get down there, buy clothes and electronics, then stock up on grocery items that are much much cheaper before heading back.
It seems like too much of a pain in the ass to me to bother, but it’s easy to understand when you see the difference in prices.
Here’s GasBuddy’s chart of US versus Canadian gas prices. You can choose different locations, and display the prices in US dollars per US gallon or Canadian cents per litre.
The average difference between Canadian and US prices has been around a dollar per gallon. If you live close to the border, or are planning a long trip that can go through the States, buying fuel in the States can make a significant difference. My sister and her husband live a ten-minute drive from a border crossing, and they go across to fill up fairly frequently. If you’re more than an hour or so from the border, or live near an especially-crowded crossing, it’s less advantageous… I think very few people in Toronto would go to Niagara and cross the border just to get gas and milk.
People do organize larger-scale cross-border shopping trips though, and during these they would certainly take the chance to fill up. And there are a lot of people from Toronto who drive or take a bus to Buffalo airport to get cheaper US domestic flights.
No, it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Even in my family, there are folks who are just so thrilled at finding a ‘bargain’, they’ll waste $30 in gas to save $40 on clothes. I don’t get it myself…
There are things that we’ll hunt for while we’re in the States when we’re there, but we don’t live close enough to indulge in regular cross-border shopping. If we lived closer, though, I would do it, too.
It just seems like there’s a huge ‘time tax’ in making the trip. Now, granted, I saw the bulk of this behavior at Costco and a Dairy, so that may explain some of it.
Do y’all throw some money at a friend making the trip? I can’t imagine how big a family you’d need to run up against an 8 gallon limit for milk.
The SO has mentioned a few times that most of the cars in the parking lot at the Blaine Cost Cutter seem to have Canadian plates. We went there recently (The Market is nicer, IOO, so we tend to go there) and I noticed the five cars parked next to where we parked. Ours was the only one without a BC plate.
A friend of mine makes quarterly trips to Buffalo for groceries. He uses spreadsheets and tracks costs here and there and according to his calculations he saves about $400 a trip. It costs him about $200 for the weekend away. It wouldn’t be worth it to me but I suspect the game is as much fun as the savings for him.
You may notice, traveling down I-5 from the Canadian border at Blaine, that every shopping mall along the way from the border almost to Seattle, has a Canadian flag flying right next to the US flag. Yessir, we really like those Canucks.
One never sees the reverse of this situation on the Canadian side of the border.
I haven’t done cross-border shopping, but my MiL, who lives in Niagara, has, and she says groceries are much cheaper across the border. Especially things like meat and dairy. Next time she goes she’s going to buy me a lot of butter. It’s about $5 a pound here.
Actually, I’ve been thinking of cross-border shopping the other way. Ikea is in Renton, like 120 miles south of here. There’s also one in Richmond, about 30 miles or so from here.
The last couple times I drove to Canada, the Canadian border patrol pulled me aside, did a criminal background check and asked questions such as “have you ever had a job?”. I would suppose the U.S. customs is generally more friendly if Canadians are driving over just to bargain shop.
Did you use your passport, GreenElf? We travel from Canada to the US by car frequently, and our stop at the border is usually quick and painless (we do use our passports).
