Cutting costs. Cutting subscriptions.

[meleana]

We didn't chop anything. In fact our food bill is double because we just moved and we did not have a stash like we had at our former home. (we were preppers). With all these shortages been paying whatever just to have stuff. We never kept much over the counter meds as we ended up throwing them out because thankfully we rarely needed them. But with this pandemic I had to restock the medicine cabinet.



In fact, we had to buy a small chest freezer (I really wanted a big stand up like I used to have so it was a "cut" I guess you could say).


We are eating all our meals and I am still buying and drinking alcohol. What else is there? It's the end of the world so might as well enjoy something.



Because we just moved we had been spending a lot of money to get things in order here. We needed a radon mitigation system put in. I had a ceiling fan put in our master bedroom. We desperately needed a new mattress. Our TV broke just before we moved so we had to buy a new TV and had Best Buy install it on the wall with a sound bar. We needed to buy shelves and a cabinet for the garage and basement. A de-humidifier for the basement. We bought a bidet attachment for the toilet bowl so as to use less toilet paper.


The builder did not give us mirrors in the bathrooms so we had to buy mirror medicine cabinets. We also bought a small Duraflame electric stove heater for the living room to make things cozy in the New England winter. Also had to purchase numerous other little incidentals, like fire extinguishers and a fire escape ladder. Oh, did I mention the Polywood Adirondack rockers and covers for our front porch?



We are waiting for an estimate from a handyman for a few other things we need done- a gutter, painting the entry doors and lattice for the bottom of our porch. Any other big expense projects will wait until next year- like a whole house generator possibly and epoxy for our garage and basement floors and painting or staining the steps in both those areas.



You get the picture.


But- our gas bill is way, way down for sure. We are thinking of taking a few drives to get a change of scenery.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We are used to eating out twice a week, movies, going to happy hour or our jazz club or piano bar. Now we cannot do any of that and get takeout occasionally. So definitely saving money.

 

[ivinsfan]

Dumped my SirXM radio was on a 5 dollar a month special renewing to regular price... took several days on and off to get a real person,. The jerks always make you call to cancel. First question why do you want to cancel? Me why do you think, I'm driving 30 miles a week.

Offered me 3 "additional" months at 2 bucks TOTAL..but it wasn't really 3 months since I had 6 weeks left on my signup. Six weeks for 2 bucks and then auto renew. Thought about it for 10 seconds remembering how difficult they make it to cancel...I think the guy was stunned when I said not interested.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I have been signing up just for one streaming subscription service at a time instead of paying for Netflix every month when some months we weren't even watching it. Last month it was a free CBS all access and I binge watched Picard. This month I signed up for Netflix again and am binge watching Ozark.

I have boxes of books from library used book sales on emergency prepping, crafts, urban homesteading, solar cooking, self sufficiency, recipes and related topics. I've been using the time at home to try to knock off some of the projects from the books, which are both hobbies and money savers for me. Projects this week were working on a kitchen scrap garden, setting up an indoor herb garden under grow lights, making my own hand sanitizer and making hand made masks that we can wash and reuse.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

BTW - CBS All access is still offering one month free with the promo code GIFT before 4/23.

 

[harley]

Dumped my SirXM radio was on a 5 dollar a month special renewing to regular price... took several days on and off to get a real person,. The jerks always make you call to cancel. First question why do you want to cancel? Me why do you think, I'm driving 30 miles a week.

Offered me 3 "additional" months at 2 bucks TOTAL..but it wasn't really 3 months since I had 6 weeks left on my signup. Six weeks for 2 bucks and then auto renew. Thought about it for 10 seconds remembering how difficult they make it to cancel...I think the guy was stunned when I said not interested.

We had Sirius on our VW Beetle during the 6 month free period after we bought the car. I called and cancelled at the end of it, and you're right, it's a PITA process. Then we went to FL for 6 months, leaving the car in the garage on a trickle charger. When we got back last year, the Sirius was still working. I checked online and it appears that when you cancel they send out a signal that your radio picks up. But if you don't turn the radio on for some long period of time (like 6 months) the cancel signal times out and your radio still picks up the programming. It's an interesting freebie, although we rarely listen to radio in the convertible Beetle.