Thursday, January 19, 2012

Coupon Squirreling

Have you ever taken a walk along Bay Street to check out the buildings of the various banks? There's a lot of history there. The most prominent building in my mind is Commerce Court North (CCN).

History lesson!
Commerce Court North was built in the 1930s in an art deco style as the headquarters of the Canadian Bank of Commerce (now, CIBC). The driving factor of the major financial players in essence goes, image builds consumer confidence and increased consumer confidence means more clients and more clients mean bigger bottom line. I mean, would you invest/bank your money with a financial institution that was operating out of a trailer? I didn't think so. So as the history goes, each bank was trying to out do the other one by building the bigger, more impressive building (some things in finance still haven't changed). If memory serves me correctly, CCN was built in response to BMO's impressive neoclassical style structure out in Montreal.

It is notable that the building was the tallest building in the British Empire/Commonwealth for three decades. At the time, it was "one of the most opulent corporate headquarters in Canada" (Wikipedia).

When it came down to the Canadian Bank of Commerce to erect their headquarters, they wanted to project the strength of the bank as a sound financial institution which gave confidence for their customers to bank/invest with. One of the motifs you'll see along the entrance way (and I'll consider getting a photo for this in a later post) on King Street is the Squirrel. The epitome of thrift and savings!

I like to collect coupons from people and places I frequent and squirrel them away. This coupon clipping fanatic actually isn't new. When the neighbourhood paper arrived (my brother also used to deliver this paper), I'd grab the stack of flyers and go through each one, reviewing sales, news and potential coupons. Then I'd make the list for my mom and tell her about the deals for meat or produce (or the junk food that I wanted her to get--can't blame a kid for trying!).

Since most of my resolutions/goals pertain to me improving myself and making me more efficient and better rounded overall: become better at taking photos... figure out what I want to do with myself... get on the trainer regularly... finding better ways to do things etc... I decided it was time to organize myself and get those coupons together; enter the poly expandable folder--exclusively FOR COUPONS! I don't have a lot of coupons in there, but I welcome any of my readers to suggest or send me coupons to use. And who knows, I'll probably link up some good coupons on here if I get any!

Oh, and if you get the chance to head out that way, go into CCN and check out the main foyer... look up.

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