Decrease my monthly expenses

I need to try this!!

I feel like I’ve taken many positive steps to achieve this goal. As it stands, I think my monthly expenses are frugal, without being unreasonable.

I finally got rid of the cell phone entirely last month – I rarely use it anyways. I cut out all processed foods over the summer, which brought my grocery bill down and also cut out all take-out food (the latter, in particular, saved me a lot of money). I switched from coffee to green tea, which is healthier for me, and cheaper. I’ve developed a strong home yoga practice, so no longer pay for weekly yoga classes (I go back to class to see my teacher every few months). I bought a bicycle in the spring and rode it all summer, allowing me to forgo the monthly subway pass (saving me $110 per month). I only need to buy a pass five months out of the year, now.

I’m sure I’ll continue to find other ways to cut expenses, but for now, I’m satisfied with what I’ve accomplished this year.

This is one of my resolutions for the New Year. So far, I’ve taken one step toward decreasing my expenses: I switched my cell phone to pre-paid so it now costs only $12 per month.

We’ve had digital cable and internet since we moved to this area. We watch very very little tv – the last thing was all of American Idol which we got hooked on, but since that ended in May we haven’t watched any programming. Our internet connection through the cable company has been utter crap for many months now – constantly dropping (temperature, wind, whatever!). So after some investigation, we switched to Clearwire this weekend for our internet connectivity and we are dropping the cable tomorrow, as well as the tivo service. If after three months we find we are missing TV, we’ll check out the Dish Network or DirectTV. We are keeping Netflix, because we do watch several movies every month. This will be a savings of approximately $100/month.

I know that I’m saving $125/month for sure. I’m sure I’m saving a bit more as I’ve effectively stopped buying unnecessary music gear (is there really such a thing?).

Shaving $100/mo of my cell phone bill is almost embarrassing (as I was overspending by that much). But the $25 off the internet/phone bill feels good. Plus, I’ll get the speed I desire. And I resisted them throwing in basic cable for another $20.

$49.95/mo internet (3meg down, 256k up)
$19.99/mo 500 VOIP minutes (includes AK and HI)
$3.75/mo cable modem rental
$29.95 installation fee

So, about $74/month. I’m saving $25/mo and getting much better internet speed than Qwest.

Right now I pay Qwest:
$53 – DSL
$40 – phone w/ v-mail and caller ID
$9 – long distance
$102 – TOTAL

It’s supposed to be their faster DSL service, but a test today with Qwest showed my speeds at 160kbps down; 288kbps up.

I’m thinking of getting rid of the home phone. Which for some reason is hard to do. I’ve always had a land line. Sometimes you lose your cell phone or I have a visitor at the house.
My other options:

Millenium Cable DSL
$49.95/mo – 3mg down, 256 up
$29.95 activation
$3.75/mo – cable modem rental

Speakeasy
$55.95/mo – onelink plan (fast)
$99 installation fee

1. Anyone regeretted getting rid of their land line?
2. Anyone have an opinion on Millenium vs. Speakeasy?

I want to evaluate and alter my big monthly expenses. After doing my taxes I realize that I’m wasting a good amount of money through inefficient monthly expenses. I suspect the biggies are:

• cell phone through Sprint
• home phone/DSL through Qwest
• money spent on dining out
• money spent on music equipment and repair

• 1,000 anytime minutes
• 500 text messages
• unlimited “Vision” internet service
• free nights/weekends (begin at 7pm)

Cingular would have been about $80 for the same package—plus Sprint gave me a new Treo (mine is pretty busted up). And a little service refund to tell me they love me.

I had a crazy plan before this as I used to travel a lot and used about 2,000 minutes a month—so this is easily cutting my bill in half.