Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found?

[mickeyd]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Hey Dex thanks for the watering-down-the milk and coasting-down-the-hill-in-neutral idea. I plan on adopting these as part of my everyday activities. Could save up to $1/month. :

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

The wireless/cellular technology is called "3G" and its been rolled out in several areas around the US. It generally offers about 300-500Kb/s for a mobile phone user that isnt moving very fast, about 64-128Kb/s for someone in a car, and over 2MB/s for fixed (home) applications.

Its roll out is slowed by better/cheaper alternatives available, but is widely deployed in many other countries.

The wireless service available to me here that I mentioned is 3G based.

By the way, Winco is where I do most of my shopping. The source of their low prices is easy to find: they're one of the few large non-union shopping chains. Regularly picketed here by the unions. Employees are made "employee owners" by use of a stock option program. However, like walmart, they achieve low prices by reducing costs and employee costs are a big one.

An interesting point to this: my wifes uncle works as a cashier in a major grocery store. No formal education, he's been there about 10 years. My wife went to college for years and maintains a medical degree and license as a respiratory care specialist. She's been working at the hospital for 13 years. They get paid roughly the same $ annually, and he has better medical care. Dont get me started about why a grocery store clerk has better health care options than someone who works in a hospital.

So either we need a union for healthcare workers to push the wages up (and there go our healthcare costs), or somethings amiss in the grocery store arena.

Our winco doesnt even accept checks or debit cards; cash and food stamps only. But they carry a lot of local produce, which I prefer to a pile of stuff trucked up from argentina and mexico. The people working and shopping there arent as pretty as the people at the regular stores, but I like the huge price difference a lot more than the "shopping experience"....

 

[John Galt]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Back in the mid 90s, we lived in the Las Colinas
area of Dallas, the high end of the high rent
district. The local grocery store had a grand
piano with live music right inside the front door.
This was back when I didn't give a rip what things
cost. If I wanted it I bought it. To show you folks how things have changed, just today I hired a local
handyman to install a screen door in our garage.
My wife scrounged the door from a pile of junk our
neighbors were throwing out and the guy fit it to the doorway with leftover odds and ends of lumber
from other jobs. Quite a contrast with my former life.

John Galt

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Oh yeah!?!

You should see my screen door.

I needed something to keep the flying critters out of the house, but dog and cat friendly. Something that also helped the blasting sun hitting the back door in the late afternoon in the summer time.

Saw this cool thing online that was basically a "screen drape" with an overlapping seam up the middle, couple of bits of velcro. Fifty bucks.

Then it occurred to me "hey...I've got some of that "sun shade" fabric in the garage...and a bunch of matching black thumb tacks...and some velcro! Twenty minutes later after cutting two swath's of the shade fabric, tacking it up and velcroing the edges, I had a dog/cat friendly screen door that keeps out the sun AND most of the bugs.

 

[dex]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

TH
It is interesting what you say about your uncle's salary equalling you wife's. I'm in Finance and accounting and see everyone' salary - Television. I look at what I earn and others in my industry. Really a college education isn't needed. The knowlege and risk level is low. Then you have doctors and ems workers who have people's life in their hands. They require a high level of education and the risk of hurting people but get paid relatively low.
My Catholic upbringing makes me feel guilty for what I earn. I find that I'm successful in my area not because I'm good at it but that so many others are so bad at it!

"An interesting point to this: my wifes uncle works as a cashier in a major grocery store. No formal education, he's been there about 10 years. My wife went to college for years and maintains a medical degree and license as a respiratory care specialist. She's been working at the hospital for 13 years. They get paid roughly the same $ annually, and he has better medical care. Dont get me started about why a grocery store clerk has better health care options than someone who works in a hospital."

 

[dex]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Re: Check writing.

I use E*Trade bank for all my banking needs. I only need to write about 2 checks a year - IRS and Real Estate taxes. All other payments are made through the bank via electronic transfer or the bank issuing a check all for free.

Also E*trade bank has a function to put your expenses in by catagory and then sort them to find out how much you spend.

I use excel to track and project my expenses. I bought Quicken and found it too much work versus the simplicy of excel.

 

[yelnad]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

my wifes uncle works as a cashier in a major grocery store. No formal education, he's been there about 10 years. My wife went to college for years and maintains a medical degree and license as a respiratory care specialist. She's been working at the hospital for 13 years. They get paid roughly the same $ annually, and he has better medical care.

Welcome to my life. I have a masters and almost have a doctoral degree (not quite ABD) and I make a whopping $34k a year. But you guessed it: I work in education. The upside is that I have really good benefits and I get a 75% tuition discount at the most expensive state school in the nation (or pretty close to it). At today's tuition rates, that's going to save me $7500 a year per kid.

 

[gayl]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

MileKing & malakito, just wondering: If you add your cable (or DSL), landline, and cell together -- what do you pay? I just am interested in knowing if I can save a little more here as each dollar saved becomes a dollar spent on traveling. Here's mine:

• Comcast cable = 45
• SBC landline w/o long distance = 16
• ATT cell = 45

GDER, thanks for the info on E*Trade Bank, that certainly beats free online banking at the cu!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Current plan:

Comcast cable : $40
Comcast cable modem : $42 ($15 off with cable tv)
Phone: $5 (low income rate)
Surewest Cell: $29

New plan by ~ 9/04:

Directv: $29/mo six months, $39 after
Digitalpath wireless ISP: $19
Phone: $5
Surewest Cell: probably dropped

By the way, I dont grudge the supermarket folks making a good wage. I just cant find parity in similar wages between someone who runs food over a scanner and some of my wifes efforts. She saved two peoples lives last night and one was hit by a train. Its a little bit of a different job. One of my neighbors is an EMT field supervisor...same problem...makes about the same, and he's the guy who has to scrape people off the street and out of their cars and bring them to my wife at the hospital.
:-/

 

[dex]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

GDER
Re: E*Trade - I opened this account awhile ago. The difference from the new deal is that I only have to maintain a $1K balance.

yelnad
There is definatly something wrong in this world when people with so much education earn so little. A person just out of college with an accounting degree will start in my department for about $38K - I'm in Atl. This is not difficult work and has a lot of benefits. What is the worst they could do wrong - code a bill wrong?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

What is the worst they could do wrong - code a bill wrong?

My wife works at the local hospital and occasionally has to deal with some of the medical examiners. She's friends with one and gives him the business all the time.

Her favorite line "How hard can your job be anyway? Whats the worst thing that can happen? You royally screw something up and the dead guy revives?"

 

[yelnad]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

There is definatly something wrong in this world when people with so much education earn so little. A person just out of college with an accounting degree will start in my department for about $38K - I'm in Atl. This is not difficult work and has a lot of benefits. What is the worst they could do wrong - code a bill wrong?

I hear you. The amazing thing is that I'm an Academic Advisor for BUSINESS students. 99% of my advisees, most of whom couldn't graduate without my help and many of whom leave with degrees in accounting, make more money than I do when they leave here. Actually, they make more per month in internships WHILE they're still here.

 

[malakito]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

gayl,

• No cable = $0/month.
• No DSL = $0/month.
• Qwest landline = ~$28/month.

I have no cellphone, but my wife has one for her business. It's a Nokia phone with ATT Free2Go prepaid wireless service. We bought $100 worth of minutes at the beginning of May, but I'm not sure how much we've used of that.

malakito.

 

[Bob_Smith]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Better than free, I just opened accounts for my wife and I at etrade bank.  For $1k deposit each, we received $75 bonus each.  Signed up for bill pay & paid 2 bills for another $25 each.  If you use direct deposit, you can get another $25/month upto $75/each. Soo, with a little effort we will have a free bonus of $350(taxable interest) for using etrade banking.

Thanks GDER. My wife, daughter, and I are opening accounts this afternoon.

 

[haha]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

I hear you. The amazing thing is that I'm an Academic Advisor for BUSINESS students. 99% of my advisees, most of whom couldn't graduate without my help and many of whom leave with degrees in accounting, make more money than I do when they leave here. Actually, they make more per month in internships WHILE they're still here.

Yelnad,
There must be something left out here. You obviuosly have highly marketable skills and credentials. Do you value your lifestyle, benefits, perqs, etc highly enough that you don't wish to move to a corporate employer?

Mikey

 

[yelnad]

Re: Such a deal-What $ saving ideas have you found

Oh, there are lots of perks. Almost free tuition, excellent insurance benefits, the cultural advantages of living near a university town, a boss who values family and pretty much lets us do our own thing here, the opportunity to work part time when I have kids, the flexibility to finish my D.Ed., an 8-5 workday with no additional evening or weekend committment ever, mandatory time off over the Christmas holidays, 5 additional weeks of vacation a year right from the start. And most of all, I enjoy working with college students and helping them figure out their goals and the best way to attain them. I also get a chance to teach for additional pay. I didn't persue higher education to get ahead in the work world. I did it because I enjoy it, although I know that sounds cliche. Also, my husband has a great job(s) which also allows flexiblity and we're able to maintain a pretty decent lifestyle.

Many of my advisees may make more money than me when they leave here, but I can wake up every day knowing that I'm dog gone happy with life.