(no subject)

[Freedom Mobile] also now has a $5/mo plan with 100MB of data, two hours of talk and unlimited text.

holy shit???

I got used to ignoring Freedom back in the day, but they've expanded their network coverage over the past ~few years and aren't effectively city-only anymore

(that's 120 minutes of *outgoing* calls, BTW: incoming is unlimited)

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Oh, that reminds me:

Hey, remember the IRS Free File program?

Yeah, it was *looking* pretty useless at first, but upon careful inspection there turns out to be exactly one Free File participant that accepts self-employed non-residents: OLT (OnLine Taxes). It's a pain in the ass to wrangle into a Canadian shape, but it *can* be so wrangled, and it costs approximately 215 CAD less than doing my dad's taxes through even the relatively cheap expat service.

I suspect that I may need to do one year through ExpatFile after each substantial change in our tax situation, but for years where I can compare OLT's output to the previous year's return to check if I put stuff in the right places, it's a boon.

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I ended up waiting to post this until I actually tried the Freedom Mobile plan.

Signing up was difficult, but if you do it in-person (*not* online) and make sure to specify you want prepaid and *not* postpaid, you should have an easier and cheaper time than I did.

The free roaming in the United States (and also Mexico) seems potentially handy, though I don't have any active plans to go there.

I think it's still worth it even after the hassle and extra signup fees, but only if you have housemates on other providers: these days you're allowed to *sign up* if you live outside the city, and they won't charge you *extra* for it, but it turns out you'll still be spending most of your time on their partnered Rogers network and I think we're all very aware by now of how dangerous that is. As long as Dad stays on Bell or Telus networks, I'm willing to take the risk to save ~$125/year, but I'd never want to put *all* our SIM-card eggs in the Freedom basket.

(though if you have non-Rogers-based home Internet, that might be okay)