The Monday Money Wrap-Up

The Monday Money Wrap-Up

by | Feb 18, 2013 | Monday Money

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed an influx of new readers and I want to introduce you to a regular feature I created last fall called Monday Money.

Monday Money was started to share with you some of the steps that my wife and I took recently to reduce our living expenses and to prepare ourselves to be more flexible for any career or income changes.

I was planning both as I decided to start the search for a different job, which ended last week with a new position that I’m starting today.

In order to confidently know what a decent salary we could live with, we needed to know what our living expenses were.

(The past ten years, my income has been some combination of commission and salary, so it would fluctuate from month to month.)

We discovered that certain expenses had been growing a little bit each month at a rate that it wasn’t noticeable when I paid bills online.

We found a way to trim over $3,000 a year with minimal changes.  Plus a few other ways to save too.

Here’s the review:

  1. First off, I was paying Google extra money for some premium features, that I could live without. So, I made some changes and saved the 1st $50.
  2. Next I did some changes with our auto insurance which results in an $1100 savings.
  3. How about saving over $1000 on home internet, cable tv and phone service? And sticking with Comcast? Yep, we did it.
  4. Cellphone service was another money pit. First I had to go back to my old Droid and make sure it would do what I needed.
  5. Then we switched to a prepaid service that saves us over $900 a year and still uses the Verizon network.
  6. Are you buying your coffee at 4 or 5 bucks per latte?  Or paying nearly 2 dollars for your favorite carbonated caffeine?
  7. Carpet cleaning, exercise, and giving yourself permission to save sometimes was next.
  8. My wife has become an advocate for buying used.  Twice she organized and hosted a local Thrift Style Fashion Show.
  9. There’s the dreaded idea of budgeting, made a little less intimidating.
  10. Talk about your buying style and how to save.
  11. Talk about waste and what to do about it.
  12. I even shared some of entertainment changes last week.
  13. And we had to throw some humor in too.
  14. But the reality is we were all hit with a smaller paycheck this year, so this is serious business.

I am not planning on continuing this series every Monday, but I will add more Monday Money tips from time to time. Meanwhile, there are plenty of others who have wisdom to share on this subject.

 

The Monday Money Wrap-Up

10 More Monday Money Tips

by | Jan 14, 2013 | Monday Money, Really? The Personal ScLoHo

I subscribe to a few email blogs and I used to share a lot of the articles from Dumb Little Man.

Here’s an abbreviated version of an article they shared recently:

There are no secrets to this strategy. It’s just common sense. Here are my 10 favorite ways to live beneath your means:

  1. Whenever possible, buy store brands.

  2. Avoid prepared foods.

  3. Shop at “you-bag-it” supermarkets.

  4. Brown bag your lunch.

  5. Don’t buy clothes or shoes with designer labels.

  6. Use coupons, but be smart about it.

  7. Buy used books instead of new.

  8. Keep your car as long as you can.

  9. Severely restrict your credit card spending.

  10. Reward yourself for your efforts.

Now some of those need a bit of explanation, so check out the original story.

The Monday Money Wrap-Up

Saving Money by Doing It Yourself

by | Apr 8, 2013 | Monday Money

Time to add an update to the Monday Money series I started last year.

Over the weekend, I replaced a kitchen faucet.

Big whoop, some of you are saying.

That’s kids stuff.

Except when you thought of yourself as being mechanically challenged.

First let me tell you about the savings.

If I would have had a professional plumber do the job, it would have cost between $300 and $500 including their mark-up on the fixture and supplies along with labor.

My cost was $102.72 for parts including the faucet and supplies and no out of pocket labor costs.

I did spend another 20 bucks for tools because I was missing a wrench.

The biggest challenge was removing the old faucet which involved a pipe cutter, hacksaw, pliers and a hammer.  That plus working in a very tiny space were the biggest challenges.

This wasn’t a planned repair.  But I was aware of a leak and when I saw the potential damage of waiting until next weekend, I had to move quick.  I had a time deadline.  It was 1pm and we were going to be leaving by 4:30pm.

Off I went to the store, picked out a replacement faucet, similar to what we had, except about 30 years newer.

I warned my wife that I may need to shut off all the water to the house, due to a lack of proper shut off valves under the sink and went to work.  4:15pm, everything was done and it was time for me to clean up.

Besides the $200 plus savings of doing it myself, there is also the savings of preventing future damage to our home due to leaky water pipes which can create mold, mildew, rot, decrease the value of your home and create hazardous living conditions.

I am not naturally handy.  But I am curious.  I would be a good detective, and it was that part of my personality that lead me to figure this out myself.

Are you willing to try Do It Yourself projects to save some money?g133-10cc-sq-c1 (1)

Cutting Phone Bills Again = $45 a month for 2 phones

by | Jan 9, 2016 | Monday Money, Really? The Personal ScLoHo

About 6 weeks ago, I cut our family phone bill by upgrading and switching companies.  Since I have been mentioning this to some friends and family, I thought it would be worth sharing with you too.

I receive NOTHING from writing and sharing this in any compensation.   But when you discover something that works and could help others, sometimes you feel compelled to share.

If you want to skip ahead and go where I went, go here.  Here’s the story…ScLoHo Monday Money

In October 2012, I started a series I called Monday Money which was a series of stories that began with how my wife and I were saving $2500 a year with a few changes.  A big change was dropping our Verizon 2 year contract and going with a prepaid monthly plan.

I was able to go from spending over $167 a month down to $91 a month back in 2012.

Jump ahead to November 2015 and we were paying just under $100 a month for service on one old smart phone and one old dumb phone.  I wasn’t thrilled with the phone I was using but I was also stubbornly not going to spend a bunch of money and go back to what I was paying before.

Enter my son-in-law Brandon.  Thanksgiving weekend he shared on Facebook:

I have sinned. I bought a fancy piece of electronic hardware on “black friday”.

For the first time ever I will have a smart phone… It is replacing my dumb phone that was on a prepaid plan that had only 250 minutes but only cost me $15 per month.

I can hear you now, “How could he be so wasteful with his hard earned money? What a foolish sucka consumer he is!!” Well that would be the case, if I had not just bought a smartphone from republic wireless, which will give me unlimited minutes and wifi data for just over $10 per month. Take that cell phone companies!

This prompted me to talk with him and my daughter Rachael and I learned that Rachael had been using Republic Wireless for a year without any issues.   I did my own investigation and a couple days later ordered new phones for myself and Kathy.

I bought the Moto X (like my daughter has) and bought the Moto E for Kathy (same as what Brandon was buying for himself.

Two new smart phones for $428 plus tax & shipping was free. The plans I signed us up for for the first month were a total of $65 (an immediate $30 savings).

Before our next phone bill was due, I lowered the amount of data and our next bill was only $45, less than half what it was before the switch.

Republic Wireless also has an automatic refund plan on unused data.  So I really didn’t pay $65 and $45 for the first two months.  Instead I paid $65 and $14 due to the credit refund for the unused data from the first month!

The Republic Wireless plans are so inexpensive because the default is for the phone to use the wifi instead of cell data.  My first month I signed us up for a total of 3 gigs of data, the 2nd month I cut that in half.

Certainly there are some draw backs right?

Here’s some of the pros and cons my wife and I have discovered:

Con: Her phone, the Moto E has a design flaw or needs a software fix to take care of voice quality.  Their is a microphone on the back of the phone that I ended up covering up with a small piece of electrical tape which solved the problem.  Weird, I know but that leads me to…

Pro: The Republic Wireless Support.  There is an online community forum that has some of the best support available.  That’s how I finally decided to stick the tape of her phone, as it was suggested by others until a software update is available.

Con/Pro: There are very few retail stores.  Everything is online.  I am fine with that.  Beats waiting in line at a store. Besides I have become more of an Amazon Shopper in the past few years.

Pro: My phone the Moto X (2nd Gen) is still on sale as I write this. Retail price is $399, on sale for $249.

Con: My wife’s phone the Moto E (2nd Gen). I would not recommend due to the design or software issue I mentioned.  The mid-priced Moto-G at $199 might be a better choice but do your own research.

A side note is that before the tape fix for Kathy’s phone, I added an app that force her phone to always use cell service and not wi-fi when making phone calls.  I still have that app running on her phone.

That’s our experience and perhaps you could benefit too by switching to Republic Wireless?

Do your own research and weigh the pros and cons for you and your family.

 

Here’s some additional info: http://republic-wireless.wikia.com/wiki/The_Complete_List_of_Caveats

And: http://republic-wireless.wikia.com/wiki/The_Complete_List_of_Kudos

The New Place

The New Place

by | Jun 5, 2014 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo

It’s been one crazy year for my wife and I.

It began last summer when we started looking into apartment or condo living downtown. But after a few months we decided there wasn’t anyplace that met our desires within the prices we wanted to pay.

It actually began before last summer, probably a year before.

Kathy and I were the only ones living in our three bedroom home and we were only using 1/2 the house.  I was tired of taking care of the ongoing maintenance issues that come with a 50 year old home and Kathy was getting tired of the ongoing routine stuff that you do to keep a house neat and clean, since we really didn’t need all of our 2500 square foot home.

All the kids were gone and the extra bedrooms were only used by the occasional guest.  Actually last summer, we had my brother in law Mike living with us for several weeks after he broke his jaw and needed a place to live while he was recovering.

But once Mike left, we were itching to move.  After checking out our downtown living options, we regrouped  to focus on what we wanted in a place to live.

We wanted to downsize.  We wanted to have less stuff. We wanted to have less responsibilities.  And we also wanted to continue the reduction in monthly living expenses that we began awhile ago.  See my Monday Money series for some of the steps we took.

Kathy also had some specific things that I didn’t have on my list and the difference is probably because of our genders.

She wanted a parking spot that was not out in the weather.  You know, like a garage.  Okay, an attached 2 car garage, where you don’t have to go outside to get in your car.  Given the winter we just experienced I agreed, I wanted that too.

She also wanted a washer and dryer in our residence.

Now the reason I say these were gender differences is that one place we looked at downtown has an underground secure parking garage and onsite laundry.  If it was just me, I could have lived with it and enjoyed it, but I understood her safety concerns as a woman and I do not want my wife to feel unsafe.

A few months ago we decided that 2014 was going to be our year to make the move and right after Christmas, the search began.  We found a place half a mile away from our home that seemed to fit the bill.  Kathy got the pre-approval process started and we made an offer.  He countered and we countered back.  We were too far apart on price and decided to keep looking for a new home.

After visiting several other houses, we decided that our favorite was the first one we looked at and made him another offer.  After working out a few minor details, our offer was accepted but…

But we had to sell our house first.  So we had some work done to our home and it seemed like every week we were doing something new to update our home a bit.  We had to call in  professionals to take care of a couple of items, but it was mostly Kathy and myself.  Mostly Kathy and a little myself, I should say.

And did our house get some interest!  There were over 40 showings of our home over 7 weeks until we got an offer.  We countered and they accepted and then the mortgage process began.

What a pain that can be.  But in the end it all worked out.

Downsizing also meant getting rid of stuff.  I guess we got rid of half of our stuff.  Furniture was given away. Lots of stuff was tossed.  I gave away most of my book and music collections as I have access to those items elsewhere.

At the end of May, we finally had the back to back closings.  At 10:30 we sold our house and 11:30 we bought our new home. Someone told me we were homeless for an hour.  I suppose but it isn’t funny to the truly homeless.

We had 5 days to get our move on and get out of the old house.  We were blessed with excellent weather, wonderful friends and family who pitched in and saved our backs last Saturday.

A few more days of bringing over a few leftover items to the new place and Monday Kathy visited the old home for the last time and I did the same on Tuesday.

We are redesigning our lives in the new place.  Instead of having 3 bedrooms we have our bedroom, a retreat room, and my office.  The retreat room and my office have sleeping accommodations if needed for an overnight guest, but not for a long term occupant.  We downsized our home by more than 40% and are prepared to stay here for the next 20+ years if possible.