Worried about the U.S. government shutdown affecting your cross border shopping trip and preventing you from crossing the border?

Well, we're happy to report that you can rest easy knowing that U.S. border crossings won't be affected by the shutdown. U.S. border agents are considered an essential service, so they are still on the job and it's business at usual at the border.

If you’re planning a cross border shopping trip, you may want to try to make it coincide with a long weekend to save on duties and taxes.

According to this article, Canadian border guards have been instructed not to conduct duty checks on Canadians returning home from the U.S. on long weekend in an attempt to reduce border wait times.

If this report is accurate, it offers a great opportunity for Canadians to save even more during their U.S. shopping trips by avoiding Canadian duties, federal sales tax and provincial sales tax that might otherwise be payable.

If you travel to the United States, you know how expensive using your cell phone south of the border can be.

We've all heard horror stories about Canadians who have come back from the U.S. only to discover they have racked up hundereds, even thousands of dollars in roaming and long distance charges in their cell phone. Some of us have even experienced these outrageous charges first hand.

While Canadian cell phone carriers do offer U.S. roaming and long distance packages to avoid these horror stories, these packages are far from ideal, as they are still very expensive, only include a limited number of minutes and don't provide flexibility to meet your talking patterns.

We recently came across a great alternative for Canadians who want to use their cell phones in the U.S. that offers unlimited roaming and long distance  in the U.S. and to Canada from the U.S.

Click here to get all the details