One of the interesting that we share as a community is the belief in LBYM. Although in no way do I consider myself a cheapskate, I can’t help but appreciate various ways to save money. Some of my favorite things include:
1) Paying for everything on my Capital One credit card that pays me 2% on all purchases.
2) Waiting for sales on the items that I want to purchase.
3) Comparing prices of services when contracts come to expiration.
4) Taking advantage of opportunistic travel deals.
I would love to hear some of your favorite ideas that you use to keep expenses down while enjoying a maximum consumer benefit. Is this a topic of interest or am I a fry short of a Happy Meal?
Do you really value travel? If so, go right ahead. But if not, international travel is the biggest way to throw money down a black hole that I know of. Today, with Google Streetview, the internet, and an increasingly international population, and having spent more of my life outside the country than not, I know that I would not get much value from yet another (and another, and another) international trip.
Along those lines, I try to identify what has a lot of value to me and what doesn't. This helps me to keep my spending down, because I feel satisfied, and don't feel the need to spend as much just to fill the gap.
As for cutting back, I admit that I find cutting back on regular monthly expenses is especially rewarding, because of the way they add up to a lot by the end of the year.
So, for example:
1) I cancelled my landline
2) I switched cell phone carriers from Verizon to CricketWireless, which gave me a free LG smartphone and a $30/month plan with unlimited talk and text, and 1 GB data (which is all I need). That's half the monthly cost of Verizon.
3) I cancelled cable TV and just get TV with a $5 homemade indoor antenna. I have Amazon Prime, and Frank lets me use his Netflix, but I almost never use either one for streaming video.
Monthly savings on these three were $36, $32, and $110, for a total of $178/month or $2136/year.
For now I feel perfectly free to blow that $2136/year on whatever I want. But in the long run, I feel like having lower regular monthly expenses positions me better for cutting back in the event of another 2008-2009 style market crash.