Dave's Being Frugal thread #1 - Trimming your phone cost

[Gunnar419]

DaveInAZ thanks for the lead to the Hertz sales site. GREAT prices. Unfortunately, the nearest Hertz stores are hours away from me, but this still gives me a lot to look at and a new option to consider between private party sales and car dealers. Prices are WAY better than the nearest dealers.

I have a thread going in the Auto Loan forum, so I'll now quit being OT here and leave your frugality thread to its real topic.

[luxeprw9]

Finally, a thread I can get into!

I am somewhat frugal, but not to an extreme.  I am fortunate that I'm single with no dependents and I have a high paying job (relative to my location).  I am currently 9 months post CH13 BK and I am trying to rebuild my financial life.  I do understand that credit is important, hence why I am on this forum, but I also believe cash is king!  I am working on paying off my student loans (only $9,800 left to go!  Woo Hoo!).  It's my only debt besides my auto loan, which I am not concerned about paying extra to just yet.  I have no credit card debt.  After my student loan payoff in October of this year, I plan to throw every single penny at my emergency fund.  The minimum amount I want to save is 6 months of living expenses, but the future goal is 12 months.  In the next few months, I plan to move back home to Tucson (Hello DaveInAz!) so I want to make sure I have enough of a cushion as I may be out of work in my transition.  

Anyway, I say all of that to say, I will be done paying off my iPhone soon and that will lower my monthly cell bill.  I wish I would have never gone the route of leasing a darn phone.  But once you know better, you do better.  The phone I have now is sufficent I will never need to upgrade until Apple makes it impossible to use the current phone.

For your next topic, cable - that's easy!  I haven't had cable in over 15 years!  I'm not a big watcher of TV, so HULU works just fine for me.

My biggest expense is food!  I'm addicted to Whole Foods!  But I try to cut in other areas in order to continue to shop there.  I also like Sprouts, so that helps balance things out a bit. 

Thanks for this thread, as I hope to get some money saving ideas from everyone.  I am on a quest to save $100k in the next 3 years and I need all the money tips I can get!

[Anonymous]

Love me some frugal threads for sure.  Being frugal let me quit my job 20+ years before anyone else I know.

In the past 3 years I:

• Paid off my mortgage
• Added a small second rental property (between the two it covers 100% of my property taxes, insurance and maintenance on my home annually)
• Got rid of my TVs entirely -- no cable since I can't feed the stream to anything
• Chopped my cell phone bill almost entire (Google FI costs me $20 a month but I have 9 months of free service froms sharing my Fi affiliate link on social networks)
• No auto loan since I don't drive -- I picked my home location ot be super convenient to 3 different trains, 27 buses included express runs, and I can walk to the grocery store.  Uber for everything else and I don't spend anywhere near what a car payment + insurance + gas would cost me.
• Reduce my utility bills (electric, gas, water) to approximately 70% less than my neighbors pay on average

My next step this year is to re-insulate my home as much as possible to cut my heating bill in winter way down and my air conditioning in summer, too.  I bet I can cut those bills by 50% with some significant insulation work.

The cell phone bills my friends pay are nuts.  $2000 a year for one guy!  I have no idea how that's even possible but I've seen his bills and that's about what he pays.  I figure this year I will pay about $60 total for my smart phone and I get free WiFi almost everywhere through Google.

[Anonymous]

Our utility costs here at the Backwoods house are large so we did several things to reduce them 1) Convert to heat pump when old unit was dieing 2) installed clock set back thermostat  so it won't heat or cool while we are out 3) when we replaced the hotwater heater we went tankless, we less lower cost and neverending suply of hotwater. Also takes up less room 

[DaveInAZ]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Our utility costs here at the Backwoods house are large so we did several things to reduce them 1) Convert to heat pump when old unit was dieing 2) installed clock set back thermostat  so it won't heat or cool while we are out 3) when we replaced the hotwater heater we went tankless, we less lower cost and neverending suply of hotwater. Also takes up less room 

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Good tip on the tankless water heater, I will look into that. My gas water heater is 18 years old. After two divorces I've been happily single for several years, and it seems stupid to have 40 gallons of water always heated for just me.

On a side note on "tankless water heaters", I visited American friends living in Nicaragua a few years ago, and the only heated water they had was for the shower. They called it the "suicide shower", as the heater was a 220 volt electric element that heated the water as it passed thru. I passed on turning it on, the tap water isn't that cold in the tropics, and standing under water heated by 220 volts didn't sound very wise to me.

[Cherekas]

Thanks for the information Dave! You are certainly right about the cell phones. I am seriously considering either Cricket or Metro for my family and I. Paying Tmobile for unlimited service at $200 a month is sickening every time I think about, so I was certainly looking into changing my service soon.

As for cable, thanks to my husband discovering Andriod tv boxes, we no longer have cable service as well and the kids love netflix, so that works well.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to look into Hertz or other car rentals for the future when this car dies.

I work 2 jobs. One is every other weekend, 8 hr shift. Small sacrifice for direct deposit into savings.

Bought an Android unlocked for half the price of an apple. Went to T-Mobile. Unlimited data for $70. Single line. Think I could save more if I research Google. Assessing average amount of data used.

No cable. Antenna, Netflix, HBO Now. $25. Amazon Prime shared with my Mom! Can watch videos and music though.

Internet is high, at $70. I'm a gamer. Play backwards compatible games, can share new between the systems. If there's 2 Xboxes, buy 1 new game, list one as the home system, the other in house can then share the network. $30 per person for a new title.

Consignment shopping. I will hit Nordstrom rack, but consignment in an affluent area yields some big names at 40% or greater sales. Still proud of my Jimmy Choos for $75. Retail $250. Soles had no wear. They were 3 seasons old. Just look for timeless pieces.

Edit:. I have to dress to impress in my full-time job due to the clientele we serve.  Best skill I've learned is how to create a thousand dollar outfit on fifty bucks.

Learning stocks now. Playing around with Robinhood.