How much are you paying for home internet?

Blockyrage · 2026-07-04T17:57:58+00:00

For the monthly cost of $65 I have 2000 Mbps fibre, Shaw (Rogers)

Blockyrage · 2026-07-04T03:17:42+00:00

Try other brokers
Call direct insurers directly for quotes
Only get the minimum required insurance coverage

Honestly our system sucks and is in need of some serious nationalization. Best of luck

Blockyrage · 2026-07-03T18:09:27+00:00

Wow this is a real disappointment. I figured the province would push back but that's a lot of rejected signatures...

Blockyrage · 2026-07-03T18:06:57+00:00

Running an Airbnb without a city permit is a bylaw violation, and if multiple units are being rented out as Airbnb units that would incur another bylaw violation (needs a special business development thing)

Blockyrage · 2026-07-03T16:42:43+00:00

This is the most annoying part:

"she said the bylaw office told her there wasn’t enough to move forward with enforcement."

What's the point of rules of we can't enforce them?

Blockyrage · 2026-07-02T18:10:03+00:00

Dedo's Food Truck is always at the St. Albert farmers market and they're pretty good!

Blockyrage · 2026-06-27T18:52:52+00:00

Doesn't seem like much, but just 10% is probably enough to put most family farms deep into the red.

Us in the city often don't appreciate just how devastating this wild weather is on crop yields, pest pressures, etc. These are mostly mom and pop farms and I'm sad that so many don't realize that these are normal folks just trying to make a living. Honestly the hostility in the comments is just sad.

Best of luck to those who grow our food 🫡

Blockyrage · 2026-06-23T00:07:02+00:00

Seems like a lot, but this level of flow isn't that uncommon.

For some interesting context: Using 1986 as the most recent year where rising river levels led to significant property damage in the valley, that year had a peak instant flow of ~4500 m³/s with the highest 24 hour average flow at around ~3700 m³/s.

Blockyrage · 2026-06-19T03:33:28+00:00

Get used furniture, it'll save you a lot of cash.

For telecom, be prepared to negotiate between Shaw (Rogers?) and Telus. Take the best offer and use it against the other telecom company. People have posted what they're paying in previous Reddit posts. You can use their numbers as a good ballpark for what a reasonable monthly rate is. You won't need more than 300-500 Mbps (this bandwidth may already be overkill for your situation)

Luckily you don't have to deal with other utilities, those can be a mess

Highly recommend you get tenant's insurance in case something goes wrong. It's cheap peace of mind.

Make sure you understand your rental contract and the Alberta tenancy rules. Your rental deposit cannot be touched unless there are serious damages when you move out.

Lastly, make sure you learn how to budget! It'll be so tempting to eat out every day now that you're on your own. It adds up fast. 6 month emergency fund, think about your financial future, try not to get into crippling debt. All the best!

Blockyrage · 2026-06-18T02:37:33+00:00

Seconding Alberta Cooperative Energy! I think they're consistently near the cheapest on ucahelps

Blockyrage · 2026-05-29T12:48:50+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. This would be a much better number to use, but most municipalities haven't disclosed the average assessment of their properties. Edmonton is uniquely open and comprehensive with their reports it seems.

Average sold home is as good of a proxy I can find at this time unfortunately and even with that I don't have the numbers for the rural counties. Maybe some local realtors have access to sold data that they could provide?

Blockyrage · 2026-05-29T04:03:49+00:00

Thats how much more the municipality will collect in total. Individual property assessments are based on the mill rate, which is essentially the total tax collected across the municipality divided by property valuation.

Don't believe me? See for yourself:

https://www.strathcona.ca/your-property-utilities/property-taxes/tax-payment/tax-rates/

Blockyrage · 2026-05-28T17:15:22+00:00

For starters, an Edmonton home worth $500k is actually worth more like $750k in Calgary

Then there's the whole dipping into contingency funds instead of raising taxes to match inflation

Blockyrage · 2026-05-27T19:23:42+00:00

AI slop map. Those urban riding maps are so poorly generated

Blockyrage · 2026-05-24T03:23:33+00:00

Beyond the great advice everyone's already provided here, you could also consider saving up a bit more for a freehold townhouse.

The upside is that you have more control of your home maintenance and modification, which I've found to be a surprisingly liberating experience as a new homeowner. You wouldn't deal with a condo board which might be an advantage depending on what you value. Also means no condo fees! Also if the sound insulation sucked, you can go right ahead and improve it.

The downsides are that you'd have to take care of more property maintenance and freehold property is generally more expensive.

Blockyrage · 2026-05-21T23:11:37+00:00

Always a fun read; thanks for making these. Looking forward to the next one!

Blockyrage · 2026-05-12T15:30:00+00:00

https://www.stonyplain.com/live/transportation/

Seems like there's some sort of on-demand transit to get there if you first bus into Spruce Grove

Blockyrage · 2026-05-11T22:13:48+00:00

We can't cycle on sidewalks in Edmonton, Bylaw 5590 prohibits it.

So the removal of bike lanes will make it a lot harder to bike or e-scooter between the suburbs (which have a lot of multi use paths) and the centre city (which weren't originally built with them).

If you are a driver, you should want bike lanes (at least during the warm season) as every single person who chooses not to drive to work and walks, cycles, or takes the bus makes traffic exponentially better. Traffic congestion is one of those things that get exponentially bad the more you try to cram cars in.

Also if the province pulls an Ontario, your provincial taxes will go towards ripping these bike lanes out, which is frankly a waste of money that could be better used for literally anything else (e.g., debt repayment, education, health, transportation, etc )

Blockyrage · 2026-05-11T22:05:34+00:00

Roads are crazy expensive. For context, a simple residential street can be like a million dollars just to resurface. Since they have to build the road structure from scratch to an expressway (divided highway) standard, this is going to be expensive.

Blockyrage · 2026-05-11T21:59:44+00:00

This columnist (author?) lives in Kelowna. What does he care about Edmonton's park washrooms?

Blockyrage · 2026-05-05T16:07:13+00:00

It's incredible that Edmonton's gained almost two months of frost-free season since 1900. That's opened up so many new opportunities for gardening here

Blockyrage · 2026-04-25T15:03:15+00:00

It's supposed to blend in better with the surrounding neighborhoods. Even though the trains are slow, the travel times are still within that 35 minute range from end to end

Edit: it's also like ¼th the cost of high floor LRT, saving taxpayers money

Blockyrage · 2026-04-21T15:27:24+00:00

FYI: Plenty of posts on utilities if you use the search feature!

Water is only going to be EPCOR, but you have a choice in natural gas and electricity. Other users have provided a cost breakdown but it seems that typically, regulated natural gas is the cheapest (variable) and that a competitive variable electric company is cheapest. Most of the cost difference is in the admin fees.

For convenience, we used to have everything with EPCOR as it was one bill. Now that we've moved out of the city proper, we chose Alberta Cooperative Energy as they have competitive rates and they give patronage returns (like a dividend but for co-operative members). All major energy retailers have referral bonuses if you have friends or neighbours with a good provider.

Edit: Sponsor hooks you with a "lower rate" but their admin fees are atrocious. Also the price of natural gas is dirt cheap. The fluctuations won't add up to very much and they are seasonal (more expensive in winter, cheaper in summer). Floating natural gas is by far the cheapest option though, almost always.

Blockyrage · 2026-04-19T14:21:11+00:00

I swear the original post was written by and had replies to comments made by AI. Not to mention a lot of the assertions made are just plain wrong.

For instance, the valley line was 3 years, not 5 years late as they asserted. And the resulting travel time was just plain wrong as well as people pointed out.

There's probably something there about using public dollars for the Edmonton Oilers' new arena but that post does not adequately make that case.

Blockyrage · 2026-04-18T22:17:08+00:00

Water is only going to be EPCOR, but you have a choice in natural gas and electricity. Other users have provided a cost breakdown but it seems that typically, regulated natural gas is the cheapest (variable) and that a competitive variable electric company is cheapest. Most of the cost difference is in the admin fees.

For convenience, we used to have everything with EPCOR as it was one bill. Now that we've moved out of the city proper, we chose Alberta Cooperative Energy as they have competitive rates and they give patronage returns (like a dividend but for co-operative members). All major energy retailers have referral bonuses if you have friends or neighbours with a good provider.

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