From groceries to booze, payday loans to plane tickets — here's what the budget means for your wallet

With inflation still near its highest level in decades, the federal budget unveiled in Ottawa Tuesday offered a lot of talk about making life more affordable for Canadians — but few details about how it's all going to work.

One of the biggest items leaked prior to the budget's release is something the government is calling a "grocery rebate" meant to mitigate the cost of grocery prices that are still rising at an annual rate of more than 10 per cent.

It's an extended version of the existing GST rebate cheque program, which gives cash payouts to refund GST payments incurred by low-income Canadians. 

The government says the rejigged program will put an extra $467 into the pockets of the average family with two kids, and $234 for a single person. Government estimates suggest they think roughly 11 million people will qualify for the program, which is to be doled out via a quarterly cheque or direct deposit.

Strictly speaking, the government isn't requiring that the money be spent on groceries. But the program's branding suggests Ottawa hopes it will deliver $2.5 billion in relief where many Canadians need it most — in the checkout aisle.

That's good news for people like Krystle Kisman, a single mother from Burlington, Ont., for whom putting food on the table has been a major source of stress of late.

"I remember I used to spend $200 every two weeks and I would get double what I'm getting now," she told CBC News this week. "It's tough. A lot of times I use my child tax credit towards our food for the month."

The grocery program is targeted at people like Kisman, who have had to face impossible choices between paying rent and paying for food. 

There's very little else in the budget in the way of direct payments to Canadians to blunt the impact of inflation. But the document is also sprinkled with programs and policy ideas aimed at helping consumers keep a little more of the money they already have.

In recent weeks, the beer and alcohol industry has been sounding the alarm about a looming hike to the federal tax on beer, wine and spirits. The so-called excise tax is pegged to inflation, which means it was on track to increase by more than six per cent this weekend — a jump that would have taken the toll to 73 cents on a litre of wine and more than 37 cents for a litre of beer.

Those excise fees are paid by brewers, wine and spirit makers, but the costs filter down for consumers as they add to the cost of doing business, and pushing up retail prices.

The government announced in the budget that it will slash that increase to two per cent for this year, well below the inflation rate.

The budget also aims to rein in some of the more exorbitant costs that some Canadians pay to borrow money. While rates on conventional personal and business loans from major lenders tend to hover between the low single digits for a mortgage to slightly over 10 per cent for other forms of unsecured debt, that's not true for all types of loans. 

That's why the budget targets what the government calls "predatory lending" by changing loopholes that currently allow some lenders to charge rates as high as 47 per cent per year.