Explaining My Absence, a Relaunch and why you Should Always Re-Negotiate Your Cell Bill a Minimum of Every Six Months

This newsletter isn't going anywhere. It's going to get better.

Hey everyone, it’s been a minute.

Actually, it’s been six months since I last updated this newsletter and you — the subscribers — deserve an explanation.

When I launched this newsletter while I was in Florida during the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first road trip of the 2023-24 season, I intended to fill up this space regularly.

But something happened along the way…

The site that hosts my Maple Leafs content, experienced a massive boom in traffic in November. To say I’ve been delighted with how things have gone is a massive understatement. I have you — the readers and Maple Leafs fans — to thank for that.

In February, the site reached 1,000,000 visits in a month. When we started this journey in July of 2022, we had 5,000 visits. Keeping up with the demand has been a challenge. We added a third person to the site in September. Evan Doerfler, a fourth-year TMU student reached out to me about joining me for his summer internship. He took care of most of what had to be done and his self-starting approach is what everyone should strive for. We also increased the responsibilities of Nick Barden, who joined me along for the ride in July of 2023. You’ll see his byline more and more and he’s also taken ownership of some social media initiatives.

But as we begin this season, I’m striving to bring you folks content like I’ve never provided before. What I do and the way I do it is unique in my business. I cover all of the travel and expenses (and writers) out of pocket. But now that we’ve got the machine going here I’m desperate to get back to this newsletter because I truly am passionate about bringing you behind the scenes of how I operate.

Begining next week I’m vowing to make sure there is new content here delivered at least once a week. Thank you to all of you supporters for your patience, support and understanding.

Just Got the Best Cell Phone Plan I’ve Ever Had

It was Thanksiving of 2022 when my prayers were finally answered. As someone who travels frequently between Canada and the United States, I couldn’t ever find a cell phone plan that didn’t cost a fortune with roaming to the United States included. As a Bell internet/TV customer at the time, I was given an offer of $70 for 50GB of data which included use and roaming in the United States. So I switched my plan from Telus over to this Bell account.

No longer would I have to pay $12 a day for each day I was in the US. I finally got what I wanted. Or so I thought.

Just a few months later, Bell notified they were upping my bill $5 a month due to increased costs. I gave it a couple more months before there was yet another increase. I shopped around and departed for Rogers on a $60 plan for 150GB of Canada US and Mexico. Not that I’d ever need Mexico, but Bell called me within minutes of switching and matched the plan along with free Crave Basic (no Mexico though).

So here I was on a pretty good plan. But, again, the Bell price increased occurred. Only this time, they didn’t actually notify me of the price increase on my bill as they were legally required to do. They just started charging more. I had to call them to get the charges removed (which they agreed to do), A month later, the charge was back. Again there was no notification or fix. I was about to start shopping around when I got a phone call from Telus’ win-back department. If you used to be a Telus customer they will call you periodically. (NOTE, there are a lot of bullshit scams out there claiming to be Bell or Rogers offering you plans, if they don’t know you name and/or the name of the cell provide isn’t listed on the caller ID, do not answer them or give any information).

They offered me an amazing plan.

I brought my own device over and I’m paying $45 + tax a month for the same US/Canada roaming. It’s on 5G+ data and not restricted in any capacity (some plans will limit speeds to 250MBPS instead of the full 2GBPS capability). I have a whopping 200GB of full speed data roaming in Canada and the United States. I don’t even use 200GB in a given month at home. They also waived the connection fees associated with the account.

There is actually a lot of talk about this particular plan on RedFlagDeals.com right now. It might be hard to get, but just talking to some friends over brunch on Sunday I couldn’t believe how bad their cell plans are. You need to always re-evaluate every six months. They are getting better and better.

Feels good to be back, folks.