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Five Ways to Save Money On Cable

Finance, Life

Cable is a luxury.   There are very few people out there who can actually and legitimately consider cable television to be a necessity of life.  For the rest of us, it’s just something that’s nice to have.   Unfortunately, it’s expensive.  In my area, prices come as high as $90 plus tax, and that’s not including any of the fancy channels that could feed my True Blood addiction.  If you start adding on channels, you can get up to $250 per month.

That’s a lot of cash.

Cutting back on cable TV is one of the easiest ways to get your spending under control.  Here are 5 ways to make it happen.

1.  Ditch it

Do you really need cable at all?  How much of your life do you waste in front of the TV?  This wouldn’t work well in my house.  We enjoy too many shows, and a lack of TV aggravates my insomnia.   When I wake up at 2AM, I need something mindless to distract me while I fall back asleep.

2.  Netflix Instant

I love my Netflix.   With Instant, as long as you aren’t too hooked on watching the latest show as it comes out, you can catch most of the show you enjoy.   There are thousands of TV series to choose from.   I make a habit of choosing a couple of shows at a time, and watching the entire series before moving on.  This does have the drawback of leaving you a couple of seasons behind for some shows, like In Plain Sight.  Grr.

3.  Go basic

If you do need TV, do you need the extended cable-only channels?  Can you get by with basic cable, and just get the shows that would be otherwise broadcast?   That’s what we did.  This, combined with #2, make TV cheap and easy.

4.  All internet

Did you know that you can use a Roku box to get Netflix Instant, Hulu Plus, Crackle, and more?  I have more channels available there than I’ve ever had on cable.   Starting at $50, it’s a steal.

5.  Drop the fancy channels

HBO, Skinimax, and Showtime are pure unnecessary luxuries.  Save yourself some money and buy each series on DVD as they come out.   If you buy one a month, you’ll still come out ahead.

I’m not about to tell you that cable is evil or that TV is rotting your brain.  I enjoy my rot, and you should be able to do so, too.   Try not to waste extra money doing it.

How do you save money on TV?

NCAA Football Rankings – Does the NCAA cause gambling addiction?

News

NCAAPlacing a winning bet on a college football game can be an exhilarating feeling. If you are a sports fan, you probably have been tempted to use your knowledge to win some easy money or perhaps have won money in the past. However, does betting on college football games lead a person down the path to a gambling addiction?

Gambling May Be a Genetic Issue

To a certain extent, gambling may be a behavior that is hardwired into some people. This is because those that tend to gamble frequently have an addictive personality to begin with. In a scenario such as this one, it would be hard to blame the NCAA or any other group for the actions of a gambler.

Emotional Betting Can Hurt Many Gamblers

Some people have good luck when they first start betting. Winning $100 on a $1 bet on the very first try may trick a naive gambler that he or she can make that type of money on any bet. However, a professional will tell you that the math simply does not add up.

Success or failure on one or two bets is not a large enough sample size nor long enough of a track record for anyone to declare that they are good enough to win consistently. Unfortunately, it may create a situation where a gambler makes bets based on emotion and causes them to risk more money than they can afford to lose.

Once the losses start to pile up, it can be harder and harder to pull away from the table in an attempt to win that money back. While a smart gambler will walk away and try to learn from their mistakes, most will become desperate and place wagers on anything that they think will help them recoup their cash.

Gambling Should Always Be Seen as Entertainment

Anyone who has placed a wager in the past generally understands that the house always has the advantage. Therefore, it is a good idea to only gamble with money that you can afford to lose and not be upset when the bet turns into a losing proposition. While a bettor may win occasionally, this is almost always done for public relations purposes. In other words, the person making the bet got lucky and shouldn’t expect to repeat such a performance in the future.

Does the NCAA create problem gamblers? While it may be easy to put the finger at them, it is ultimately the responsibility of the person making the bet to make sure that he or she is not throwing money away. All the NCAA can do is to promote awareness regarding problem gambling and point people toward resources to get them help. However, they cannot be responsible for the actions of an adult with complete control over his or her money.

Do 1 Thing

Life, Relationships

I’m lazy.

Really, I am.  When I get home from work, I want nothing more than to plop down on the couch, dial up a movie and ignore the world for a few hours.  I need some downtime to relax.

While I am keeping the couch from flying away, my wife gets home, makes dinner, does the dishes, changes the cat litter and  maybe vacuums the floor.  Once dinner is cooking, she usually throws in a load of laundry.  Three kids is a great way to guarantee a lot of laundry needs to get washed.

I have just two things to say about that:

  1. It makes me feel really lazy.
  2. I love you, honey!

I’ve never considered it a problem because I work my butt off on the weekend.  My wife isn’t happy with the arrangement because I tend to do next to nothing during the week.   I think it’s a good balance.  I’m productive on the weekend, she’s productive during the week.  Unfortunately, my habitual laziness has caused a bit of tension.  We’ve had a few “discussions” about that balance.  It’s obviously not working.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying something new.   When I get home from work I’ve been doing just 1 thing.  I do one thing per day.  One day, I fold laundry, another day I do the dishes.  Some days, I pick a room to organize.  It’s never very much, but it’s always something that needs to be done and, possibly most important, it looks like I’m doing more so my wife feels less abandoned to the housework.   I’m not actually doing more, but it gets spread out over the week, so it looks like more.  Slowly, surely, all of the work is getting done.

It’s not a perfect solution, but it seems to be working.  More is getting done, my wife feels like I’m helping out more and I get more time on the weekends to pursue whatever I feel like pursuing.   It’s a win for each of us.

How do you balance relaxation and a shared workload?

Thug-cenomics

Finance

Recently, a friend of mine told me about a friend of his who was attacked by a flash mob.  This was a negative flash mob, not the fun kind.

She was walking down the street with her phone in her hand when around a dozen thugs surrounded her, knocked her down, and stole her phone before running off.

With me being the person I am with the hobbies and side-hustles I have, certain things came to mind.

  1. This is why standard capacity magazines should never be outlawed.   Sometimes, a six-shot revolver just isn’t enough.
  2. Before anyone complains about #1, when you are beaten to the ground by a pack of violent thugs, the length of your life is up to them, not you.  They are the problem.
  3. Walking down the street while talking on your cell phone is not the best way to stay aware of your surroundings.   Would she have been able to get away if she had been paying more attention to the thugs on the corner than her conversation?  I have no idea, but it’s certain that talking on a cell phone is a distraction.
  4. Walking down the street with an expensive gadget in your hand is asking for trouble.
  5. What were these thugs thinking?  Even a $500 cell phone turns into a $50 mp3 player the moment the victim gets to a real phone to call the cell phone company.   That’s a generous $50 payout.   With 12 people, that’s means everyone gets $4.10 as their share.   The federal poverty level is just under $12,000 per year, which means they would have to do this 8 times a day, just to get to barely enough money to survive.

    In Minnesota, this is, at a minimum, 3rd degree assault, which carries a possible 5 year sentence and $10,000 fine. That’s 8 public attempts to throw away 5 years of their lives, every day.   How can they consider this a good risk.

    It was pointed out to me that this thuggery is probably made possible by direct government sponsorship, in the form of welfare checks, so this is probably just a way to pass the time.   Somebody should tell those brutes that welfare checks stop when you’re in prison.

So I’m considering launching a basic economics class for thugs and street rats.  I want to teach them how to do a risk assessment by comparing the level of loot to the possible outcomes of getting caught.

Possible test questions include:

  • I could stab that guy for the $10 in his wallet, but if I get caught, I’m facing 40 years in prison.  Should I do it?
  • My flash mob makes $50 per phone we steal from defenseless women.   Would my buddies rat me out to avoid 5 years of hard time, and do I consider that worth $4?
  • Meth makes the faces of my customers dissolve from the inside before killing them.   Is it possible to build a sustainable business based on slowly killing my customers?  What marketing skills do I need to develop to replace the natural attrition of poisoning my customers?
  • Meth labs explode.  Is it better to hire my own junkies, or should I outsource that risk and take a smaller profit margin?
  • This is a shall issue carry permit state.  There are nearly 100,000 carry permit holders here.  That’s 1.87% of the total population and 2.6% of the adult population.   Statistically, how many people can my friends and I jump before getting justifiably shot?  Is that number times the $4 profit considered a good return on investment?  What would the ROI have to be to make this a worthwhile career choice?

Anybody know any violent thugs willing to beta test my new class offering?

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Selling Your Car

Finance

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Pa...

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money.  Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value.  Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

  1. Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
  2. Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well.  Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
  3. Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.”  It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

  • Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses.  Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
  • Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept.  Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time.  Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
  • Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car.  That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car.  “Officer, Sumdood took my car.  He was wearing jeans.”  That won’t get your car back.
  • Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer.   A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars.  It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

 

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Babies Are Expensive

Finance, Parenting

From the comments here.  The discussion is on how much it costs to have a baby.  Edited for clarity.

 

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Actual birthing costs vary. We’ve had three kids over ten years and birthing costs have varied from $250 out of pocket to $8500.   Our highest and lowest price births were 20 months apart. The highest price birth involved induced labor with an epidural. For the lowest out-of-pocket price, I added my wife to my policy before the birth, so she was double-covered. If one of your policies is less than ideal and there are multiple policies available, I recommend doing this. It saved us thousands.  All told, If things go well, you could slide for as little as $1500 total.

For the highest price birth, we threw ourselves on the mercy of the finance department. They have a charity fund to pay the bills of the less fortunate. We qualified…barely.  If you have a medical bill you can’t afford, ask if there is a grant or donation you can apply for.  Always ask if there is some way the bill could be lowered.

Breast-feeding beats the heck out of formula, financially, but breast-feeding doesn’t always work. Ignore the boob-nazis who insist you are slowly killing your kid by using formula. I’ve got 3 kids, and each had different feeding issues.

Baby formula runs $19 for a big container at Sam’s Club, or a large percentage of your soul at most other big box stores.  Formula alone will pay for your membership in under a month. For a big eater, that’s $20-30 per week. For a normal eater, 2-3 weeks. For planning purposes, assume $100/month in formula costs for the first six months, when food starts coming into play heavily. After that, the formula expense goes down, but not away for at least 6 more months.

Diapers are painful. Not just the smell–though that hurts, too, sometimes–but the expense. I currently have 2 in diapers; one is potty-training. Our monthly costs for diapers, now, are about $75. It was easily twice that when they were younger. Figure at least $100 per month in diapers.  Unless your baby has irritation problems, go with cheap diapers. Leak-guard is a joke.   If you are relying on leak-guard to keep the contents inside the diaper, you aren’t changing your baby often enough.

I couldn’t begin to guess at how much you’ll spend on baby clothes.  I have never bought clothes for our kids. Whatever didn’t come free from friends and family walked into the house of it’s own volition, following my wife home from the store.

Toys are an almost purely voluntary expense. You’ll get as much as the kids needs free, as presents. You’ll go overboard and give the kids 10 times that, without realizing it. Don’t. For the first four to five months, its fingers and toes will be entertaining enough. After that, if there are more than about ten toys, it’s too many; the kid will never get attached to any of them. Keep it small. It’s better for the kids and the budget.  Little kids prefer boxes to toys, anyway.   Give the kid a shoebox instead of a Leapfrog.  Really.

Portraits suck, too. If you have to get them done professionally, get a membership that covers sitting fees, and use coupons. I recommend JC Penney’s. Using judicious coupons and the membership, we get portraits for under $20.

Baby food is probably cheaper to make in a food processor, but you can’t beat the convenience of the little jars. If you watch sales, you can stock up affordably. Mix every meal with some rice or oatmeal mush to stretch it, without making it unhealthy. Depending on your kids, and how much you listen to the “experts”, this is a nonexistent expense before six months. Our kids started eating baby food in their second months, at least a little bit.

Babies are expensive. Don’t doubt that for a second, but ignore the polled averages when it comes to expense.  Hand-me-downs, thrift stores, and good sales cut the expense a lot.

How do you save money and value with a baby in the house?