Hi MoneyNerds,

In this issue, our business director explains a clever little mind trick that saved her $800+ a year (and completely changed how she watches TV).

Our mortgage expert puts TD Bank’s new mortgage-underwriting AI agents under the microscope (and ends up less worried than he expected).

We also answer summer’s most pressing question: Should you use credit card points to buy Ed Sheeran tickets?

Let’s dive in.

P.S. The inaugural quarterly Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB) went out on July 3. Did you get it? Has it eased the pain of high food costs? Tell us in the poll below! 🛒

by Beth Buczynski, business director at NerdWallet Canada

Recently, I realized we were spending over $80 a month for streaming services. That's $1,073.16 a year.

And I was still scrolling for 10 minutes trying to find something good to watch every night.

I’m not usually one for internet trends, but out of desperation, my spouse and I decided to test the ‘one in, one out’ method.

We cancelled almost every single streaming app subscription we had.

Then, we decided to pay for only one app at a time, one month at a time — and it changed our whole outlook on at-home entertainment.

» Want to try it? Here’s my step-by-step guide, including a handy calculator to see how much you could save by streamlining your subscriptions.

After a year of round-robining, we cut our streaming spend from $89/month to $20/month on average — a savings of about $833 a year.

The financial win was satisfying, but weirdly, that wasn’t even the best part:

We don't feel deprived. We can still watch anything we want — we just have to be thoughtful about it and prioritize. That constraint turned out to be a feature. Shows accumulated on each platform until we had a genuinely satisfying queue waiting for us, which made the switch feel like getting a new TV service every month.

The FOMO is manageable. Yes, we're sometimes behind friends watching in real time. But avoiding spoilers is easier than it sounds — and there's something genuinely pleasant about building anticipating for something we KNOW is gonna be good.

We can indulge in ad-free tiers. Because we're only paying for one service at a time, we splurge for the ad-free version without guilt. Goodbye, 160-second mid-episode ad breaks.

How do you keep ‘app creep’ from taking over your budget? Would you ever try the ‘one in, one out’ method? Tell us by replying directly to this email or writing me at [email protected].

TD claims that its new agentic AI can reduce mortgage underwriting from 15 hours to three minutes — which, frankly, sounds awesome.

The mortgage approval process can take days (or longer) for even the most qualified applicants.

But any use of AI comes with risks, and they’re worrying.

AI evangelists tout the technology’s ability to create a more efficient and profitable world, but it’s still an experimental tool that’s prone to errors and hallucinations. About half of Google AI Overviews in late 2025 and 2026 contained facts not supported by their cited sources, according to an analysis conducted by AI startup Oumi. That doesn’t bode well.

It’s also fair to wonder whether spawning AI mortgage agents will strip the process of its humanity. A quick turnaround is great, but at what cost? Will it ignore the subtleties that make each borrower unique?

We spoke with several experts — including the associate vice president of TD’s AI research centre — to find out.

Ultimately, mortgage expert Clay Jarvis gave TD’s AI underwriting feature a passing grade. But “not all lenders have the same resources, or the same Big Six responsibility to appease regulators and shareholders,” he writes.

» Keep reading to find out what Clay will be watching as more banks unleash AI behind the scenes.

Featured product: The Scotiabank Gold American Express® Card earns 6x points on every $1 you spend at spend at Sobeys, Safeway, Freshco, and Foodland (and 5x points per dollar at other eligible grocery stores).

Apply today and you could snag a special offer that includes up to 50,000 bonus Scene+ points!

Rush. Ed Sheeran. Shaboozey.

What do these musical acts have in common? They’re all on tour in Canada this year.

Cue budget panic.

If you’re wondering how you’ll ever make the math work, here’s a tip: Several major rewards programs will let you use credit card points to buy tickets to concerts, sports and live events. The harder question is whether you should.

Most ticket redemptions fall into two buckets:

A few notable examples:

🤓 In our Nerdy opinion: Statement-credit redemptions are often among the lowest-value ways to use flexible points. But if points make a $200 concert ticket feel like you’re only spending $50, the #YOLO may still be worth it.