Things you can buy with your ICBC rebate this summer

If you are suddenly a few dollars richer, it might be because you received one of the highly coveted rebates from ICBC, with some BC drivers seeing about $110 in their bank accounts or in a cheque in the mail in recent days.

The first rebates were sent out in May, but if you didn’t get yours, money might still be coming, ICBC says all of them should be processed by the end of July.

Why is ICBC giving out money?

Mitch Hutchinson/Shutterstock

“Following our strong financial performance this past year, we’re pleased to provide you with your ICBC 2024 rebate,” a letter from the Crown corporation reads in part. “You’re receiving this one-time rebate because you had an active eligible Basic Insurance policy in February 2024.”

If you pay by credit card, you’ll receive the rebate as a refund on your credit card. If you have an automatic payment plan, your June payment will be reduced. If you pay by debit cash or cheque, you’ll receive it by mail unless you’ve set up direct deposit.

This means you might be able to buy some Vancouver-specific luxury items with that cash, so we thought we’d help by rounding up what we are spending our rebate cheques on!

A tiny portion of our rent

Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock

Unfortunately, $100 doesn’t go far when it comes to paying rent in Canada’s priciest city, but we are definitely able to make at least a dent in that. According to the latest figures on the average one-bedroom rent prices in the city, which suggest it costs about $2,600 right now, we can cover about a day and a half of rent.

About 16 oat milk lattes

Ilikeyellow/Shutterstock

With the added fee for non-dairy options and the tip, the average latte has become much pricier in recent years. If you want to use your entire cheque on a pick-me-up, it will only really get you about 16 of them.

A tank of gas

RenineR/Shutterstock

Depending on the size of your vehicle, you might even get to fill up twice! Bad news, however, for those with a big diesel pickup truck as $110 bucks likely won’t get you that far.

16 bags of grapes

saveonfoods.com

With the price of groceries these days, we aren’t all that surprised that we can’t buy a lot of food for $110, but only 16 bags of grapes is almost a wild reflection of how things are going. Plus, that’s a deal! The regular price of grapes at this local grocery store is typically closer to $12 a bag, so eat up!

Buy 27 avocados

Honestly, if we had $110 to burn, it wouldn’t go far with the price of avocados at our local grocery store right now. At $4 each, seriously, you could only get about 27 of them, and with our luck, they would all have gone bad by the time we got them home.

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Grind and ride five times

Grousemountain.com

You can hike up the Grouse Grind for free, but you cannot walk down it. It’s one-way only due to safety concerns, as the trail is too steep and narrow. Typically, that will mean you have to pay to ride the gondola, called the SuperSkyride Aerial Tramway, for about $20. You could walk out on the longer and windy BCMC trail instead.

What are you doing with your ICBC rebate? Let us know in the comments!