Less expensive than ever!

[FIYes]

Cell phone plans are an area that others have mentioned, but as a light user the most that I have paid for a year of cell phone service in recent years is $79 for the year. Now I splurged on a pricey (for me) phone a couple of years ago, but my cell phone service is dirt cheap. I recently added 3 years of service to my phone for free using tracfone rewards. I don’t expect to pay anything for domestic cell phone service until 2025. Now when I get to travel internationally again I will pick up a prepaid sim to use overseas.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

If you go back far enough, the odometers were completely analog. Little toothed gears with the appropriate ratios.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_27464513_automobile-analogue-speedometer-and-odometer.html

I know how they work (at least the ones in the picture you referenced). I just wouldn't call something with, say, a Geneva drive "analog." Perhaps I am a purist, but "analog" means something like "in analogy to." The minute hand of a clock is an analogy to the passage of an hour. Digits, even though they be driven continuously by an input, but then convert that input into discrete steps, are, well, I suppose one could say "digital."

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

But things have changed a lot since the late 90's...

Ack! That is when 2/3's of my cars were built!

 

[teetee]

You mean 4 users, I think (3 in addition to yourself). I use a Visible phone as my hotspot, for all my home and mobile internet needs. Great value for $25/month including all taxes and fees.

And it is $25 per line per month with four family members. I was excited thinking it was total $25 for four lines. The disappointment came quick.

Hello Mobile has $25 unlimited for individual.

 

[Car-Guy]

I think the price (broker commission) of making a stock trade has dropped the most percentage wise. Hard to beat free.... Unless they start paying us to make trades.

I thought when they drop to 9.95 some years ago that was cheap. Then 4.95. And now free... Not many things/services have dropped that much.


(Pattern/day traders love it

 

[Winemaker]

^^^ I think the commission now is just baked into the trade. Instead of paying $4.95/trade, you pay 4.9 cents extra a share, no matter how many shares. When everybody does it, nobody notices it.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I NO NOT Pay for the following Services:

Amazon Prime
Hulu
Netflix
Britbox
Acorn TV

My Cable including Internet (Super High Speed is $75) is $120 a month all in. So that makes my Cable Bill ~$45 including Taxes. Phone is $60 for 2 lines All in with T-Mobile Old Farts Plan. We are grandfathered into the original price.

You HAVE to include a good internet service in your costs.

 

[Car-Guy]

^^^ I think the commission now is just baked into the trade. Instead of paying $4.95/trade, you pay 4.9 cents extra a share, no matter how many shares. When everybody does it, nobody notices it.

So as an example, if I buy 10,000 shares of company X, are you saying $490 is baked into the purchase price I paid for the 10,000 shares? That would work out to 4.9 cents a share....

 

[Time2]

You may not be on an ACA plan, but many forum members here are (check the number of threads on the topic), and none that I have read about are on food stamps. Since your audience for this thread is presumably forum members here, I think many have benefited from affordable health care costs with the ACA. Those with MAGIs below 400% of poverty level may receive tax credits. Before the ACA many of us could not obtain health insurances as seniors at any price.

Now many more people at higher income levels qualify, up to almost $300K MAGI, assuming $25K premium costs for a senior couple. From what I have read, this would be over 98.5% of households now qualifying. "The American Rescue Plan bolsters the availability of premium tax credits (PTCs) for millions of lower- and middle-income people and families. First, individuals whose income is above 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) are eligible for PTCs for the first time. There is no upper income limit on PTCs, meaning that all middle- and upper-income individuals who purchase their own coverage can access PTCs if their premiums exceed 8.5 percent of their overall household income." https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20210316.222833/full/

My BCBS health ins. went up 75% in the first 3 yrs after the ACA regulations went into effect.

 

[Winemaker]

So as an example, if I buy 10,000 shares of company X, are you saying $490 is baked into the purchase price I paid for the 10,000 shares? That would work out to 4.9 cents a share....

I used 4.9 cents as a WAG, but it's really probably like .049 cents. There have been a lot of media stories in the past where, stocks were going through 2 or 3 clearinghouses/brokerages, before it left the sellers account and into buyers account, each tacking a miniscule amount on to the price. They say it is to guarantee liquidity, and fluidity, but who knows. You and I do know they're not doing it for free, even though they say they are.

 

[Car-Guy]

I used 4.9 cents as a WAG, but it's really probably like .049 cents. There have been a lot of media stories in the past where, stocks were going through 2 or 3 clearinghouses/brokerages, before it left the sellers account and into buyers account, each tacking a miniscule amount on to the price. They say it is to guarantee liquidity, and fluidity, but who knows. You and I do know they're not doing it for free, even though they say they are.

I just looked at the details in my transaction history (Schwab account) and they don't show any commission or fees for buying shares BUT they do show a very small fee when selling... Real example, I sold 1000 shares of XOM yesterday and the charged me .31 cents (total) in fees/commissions on the sale.... (Of course if they are baking in commissions as you suggest, I'm not seeing that)

I think they are making their money on other products and services and not stock trades... (IMO, free trades are similar to a loss leader in a store) I'm sure they are making money on my cash that's just sitting in my account when its not invested too.


Not an expert on this topic but that's what it looks like to me....

 

[Markola]

You mean 4 users, I think (3 in addition to yourself). I use a Visible phone as my hotspot, for all my home and mobile internet needs. Great value for $25/month including all taxes and fees.

Yes, you’re right. I forgot that we looped in my niece in Atlanta who was already on the service solo at $30/month. After we formed the 4 person group, each phone is $25/month.

 

[Winemaker]

I used 4.9 cents as a WAG, but it's really probably like .049 cents. There have been a lot of media stories in the past where, stocks were going through 2 or 3 clearinghouses/brokerages, before it left the sellers account and into buyers account, each tacking a miniscule amount on to the price. They say it is to guarantee liquidity, and fluidity, but who knows. You and I do know they're not doing it for free, even though they say they are.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...still-profiting-from-dumb-money-idUSKBN1WN1UD

This is one such article from October 2019.

The fee you are speaking of is a SEC fee, and gets added to every sale.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

My BCBS health ins. went up 75% in the first 3 yrs after the ACA regulations went into effect.

Per my initial post, I stated that our healthcare costs became less expensive with the ACA. Overall, Investopedia says that, with factoring in subsidies, there's some evidence that personal healthcare outlays overall may have gone down slightly in 2014. In years prior to the ACA healthcare outlays had been increasing 10% a year.

However, a seventy-five percent would be unusual based on most health care costs studies surrounding the ACA, unless you had a plan with skimpy coverage or significant caps prior to the ACA. Did your coverage become more comprehensive or annual / lifetime caps increase? Did you premiums decrease with the 2021 ACA legislation?

Source: Did Obamacare Make Premiums Go Up? (investopedia.com)

 

[Boose]

When I went to replace underpants I had for years, I have been trying different brands but none seem to be as well made as the ones I used to have, and their useful life doesn't seem nearly as long.

As a female, I've had good luck sticking to Jockey brand microfiber undies, although I've recently become aware of how microfiber sheds into the waterways. That aside, I usually get 5+ years out of a pair by washing on cold and drying on a rack. If you get on their mailing list you'll receive discount coupons.

 

[almost there]

If you do not see inflation. You will. Just not to you yet.
6%-8% min. Probably much higher. Wait, you will see....
Then...

 

[dixter]

Next up for me, taking an online course in maximizing travel points to extend our travel budget.

your going to be in for a surprise unless your online course actually tells you how it really is at this time using travel points... when covid hit no one was traveling but many people still used their credit cards to gather up points thinking of grand vacations once every one could travel.... well what actually happened is all of those points piled up in those travel by points... and there is a huge glut of travel points... the airlines are going broke so they actually need money more than just giving out free flights.... so here is an example of what AA is doing by pumping the amount of airline miles needed to fly.... lets take an example and we go from Dallas to Belize... according to the AA flight awards chart they will charge you 12500 miles for that trip... so now we go to the AA site and try to book that flight... hey... they charged 120,000 airline points plus $100 each person... and they won't let you choose a free seat anymore and those seats cost up to $75 each person... wow...what happened to frequent flyer miles.... it takes some effort to get the 120K miles and now the trip is going to cost you $350 as an add on.... SW just did the same thing... it now costs much more in frequent miles on all airlines... United has the same deal to Belize as AA..... they are trying there best to flush the glut of airline miles and at the same time make a little bit of money.... sorry to tell you the bad news....

 

[dixter]

for Texans besides the normal inflation coming wait till next year and see how the property taxes are going to go sky high.... also Home Insurance getting ready to go way up too...
this is going to be a rough couple of years coming... everythings getting ready to cost more

 

[REWahoo]

for Texans besides the normal inflation coming wait till next year and see how the property taxes are going to go sky high....

+1

Got our new tax appraisal this week, 15% increase.

 

[isisdave]

I told my son that my first sale in the IT business was a 4K memory board for an NCR Century mainframe computer.

Programing was tight in those days!

We used to say we wrote on both sides of the bits ...

 

[dixter]

oh.. the old days... kids coming to work right out of school and we would have to teach them how to use the punch cards... they allways looked at you strange when you showed them the carnage from the punch cards and said.. that there is the bit bucket... full of little bits...

 

[dixter]

+1

Got our new tax appraisal this week, 15% increase.

Friend of mine showed me in the Galveston Paper where the CAD (county appraisal district ) have appraised at over 30% some area's.... the paper article was written by a CAD appraiser and explained that in Texas 55% of property taxes are from school taxes and that due to fed regulations schools in Tx are required to teach all kids..no matter where they came from... and for some reason there seem to be a huge influx of students coming into Tx and they get counted via head count... the article said each student cost $12,200/yr to teach and the state of Tx has to make up the cost somehow... so property taxes will go up in the very near future...

my insurance company told me that if the stock market is up... insurance cost will hold... if the stock market drops they will make it up with premium increases.... so it sounds like they just take the premium money and put it into investments... if they do good...we are OK... if not then we pay...

 

[Michael Moore]

My computers always seem to cost about the same money over the last 30 years, but then I've always bought something higher end for CAD/graphics. I even purchased x87 math coprocessors back in the day.

Of course, OS/software have tended to bloat to match the hardware improvements making it a wash at times on whether things are actually better. Putting Linux on an "obsolete" PC can make it a pretty snappy general purpose machine.

I very much appreciate the new monitors! My main monitor is a 32" 4K Dell, and at $900 it was less expensive (dollar to dollar ignoring inflation) than some of the early 17" "graphics" CRTs I bought in the past.

 

[dixter]

and they have more colors than green or amber

 

[Car-Guy]

for Texans besides the normal inflation coming wait till next year and see how the property taxes are going to go sky high....

Wonder why? Could it be to pay for all the new infrastructure that will required to support the mass migrations to the state?

I can actually see the homes of a couple of my neighbors now.... Wasn't that way when I move out here from the big city.

+1

Got our new tax appraisal this week, 15% increase.

New (or updated) reason not to move to Texas to be added to your list.