365 Ways to Live Cheap (25 page)
314. O
NLY
B
UY THE
S
PECIFIC
I
TEM
(S) Y
OU
’R
E
S
HOPPING
F
OR
If you go into an electronics store specifically to buy a particular cable for your home entertainment system, don’t walk out of the store with anything but that cable. If you go into a bookstore looking for a particular Stephen King novel, don’t walk out the door with anything in your hands other than a Stephen King novel. When you enter a store with one or two purchases in mind and walk out with anything more than that, you’re falling for the trap of impulse buying, which subtly eats your money and leaves you with nothing but stuff you really didn’t need and a big fat bill. If you spy something that you want while in a store, take note of it, but don’t buy it. Instead, use tip #7 and see if you even remember the item at all in thirty days. You more likely won’t remember anything other than the money you saved that stayed in your pocket.
315. D
ON
’T B
UY
A
NY
I
TEM IN THE
C
HECKOUT
A
ISLE
Stores love to load their checkout aisle with impulse buys. Candy that’s attractive to both children and adults, magazines aimed at tickling your fancy by shocking and surprising you enough to pick them up and add them to your cart, small overpriced versions of very common purchases such as batteries that you might see and exclaim, “Oh, I forgot, I needed those,” and so on. The easiest rule of thumb for protecting your wallet is to not buy anything at all in the checkout. Make it a hard-and-fast rule. Once you head for the checkout, nothing else goes in your cart unless it’s on your list. If you see something in the checkout that you remember that you needed (like those aforementioned batteries), don’t just grab those. Either head back to the battery area and look at a more well-rounded selection of options or simply add batteries to your list for your next shopping trip.
316. S
HOP ON
Y
OUR
S
TATE
’S T
AX
-F
REE
H
OLIDAYS
Many states offer tax-free holidays, where you can buy certain items such as clothing or books without paying sales tax on those items. Not only that, many stores have sales on those days, because they know that people will tend to go out and shop on those days more than on other days. If you have any purchases that you know you need to make, such as clothing purchases, find out if your state has an upcoming tax holiday and hold off on your purchase until then. When the day approaches, find out about sales on the items you’re looking at and find the best opportunity to get the items you’re looking for with both the benefit of a sale and without the cost of sales tax.
317. S
HOP
O
NLINE FOR
B
ETTER
P
RICE
C
OMPARISONS
Whenever you’re looking to buy any nonperishable item, particularly one that costs more than a few dollars, always do price comparisons online before buying. Utilize the websites of your preferred stores as well as the websites of online retailers and seek out the best price for the item you want. The more expensive the item, the more valuable this comparison shopping can be. You can often save 10 to 15 percent off the purchase price of an item (or even more) with just a few moments of comparison shopping. For just a few minutes’ worth of footwork, that can be a very solid return.
318. D
ON
’T S
TORE
Y
OUR
C
REDIT
C
ARD WITH AN
O
NLINE
S
HOPPING
S
ITE
If you get into the routine of buying items online, it’s very easy to store your credit card number there, making it incredibly simple to buy things with a click and ship them to your home, no fuss, no muss. The convenience, though, is a clever trap. The quicker you can go from selecting an item to having bought it, the less time you have to actually think about what you’re buying and the more likely you are to just go ahead with a completely impulsive and unnecessary purchase. The easiest thing you can do is simply not store your credit card number on a retail website, so that you have to re-enter your number each time you make a purchase. Doing this effectively works like the ten-second rule (tip #6). It makes you pause for a bit and think about what you’re actually buying, and that’s often enough to make you realize that you’re making an impulsive decision. You’ll put your credit card away and happily realize that you just made the frugal choice.
319. D
ON
’T B
UY
“J
UST
O
NE
M
ORE
T
HING
”
TO
G
ET
F
REE
S
HIPPING
Online shopping sites commonly offer free shipping if you spend beyond a certain dollar value, and when you’re close to that amount it’s often tempting to just find one more item to buy to push yourself over that threshold. Don’t. Buying an item just to fill up a slot in your cart means that you’re spending more money overall just to get an item you don’t really want. Instead, just pick the low-end shipping (since that’s what free shipping is) and be glad that you didn’t waste $8 on some item you didn’t really want just to get “free” shipping. In the end, free shipping isn’t really free at all if it makes you spend more money to buy more stuff you don’t need.
320. I
F
P
RICES
A
RE
E
QUAL
, B
UY
A
T
Y
OUR
L
OCAL
S
TORE
If you do a price comparison between online stores and local retail shops and find the prices to be the same, buy at your local retail shop. Why? There’s extra value at your local retailer. Salespeople who can answer questions and help with setup, and the store is a place to easily return a faulty product, for starters. In terms of customer service, you get much more value from your local brick-and-mortar retailer than you do from an online service because you can actually communicate face to face with the retailer, tap their knowledge, and take advantage of their return policy and other services they might offer. Buying local puts more value with your product than buying online, so when all else is equal, buy local.
C
HEAP
T
ACTIC
$
FOR
U
TILITIES AND
B
ILLS
321 Eliminate Any Monthly Services You Don’t Use
322 Take a Hard Look at Club Membership Fees and Gym Fees
323 Take a Hard Look at Entertainment-Oriented Monthly Bills
324 Clean Up Your Remaining Bills
325 If You Go over Your Cell Phone Minutes, Upgrade Your Plan
326 If You Rack Up “Out of Calling Area” Charges, Upgrade Your Plan
328 Ask for Introductory Deals, Even if You’re a Regular Customer
330 Ask about Termination Fees
331 If You Receive Large, Irregular Bills, Save for Them Automatically
332 Know What Every Fee Is on Every Bill
333 Always Ask for Fees to Be Waived
334 Pay Your Bills on a Weekly Cycle, Not a Monthly One
335 If You Know You’re Going to Be Late on a Bill, Call Them
336 Learn How to Use Online Bill Pay
337 Schedule Regular Bills to Be Paid Automatically
321. E
LIMINATE
A
NY
M
ONTHLY
S
ERVICES
Y
OU
D
ON
’T U
SE
Take a look at all of your monthly bills. Are any of those bills going to cover services that you don’t use or that you use only once in a while? Ask yourself some hard questions about your services. Do you rarely watch television? If so, why are you paying a cable bill? If you don’t use your landline telephone at all, scratch that service. Similarly, if you don’t use a cell phone, scratch that. Perhaps you can replace a bill with a cheaper alternative; for example, if you’ve got both an Internet bill and a landline bill, ditch the land line and use a V
OIP
(voice-over-Internet protocol) phone service like Skype or Vonage at a cheaper rate.
322. T
AKE A
H
ARD
L
OOK
A
T
C
LUB
M
EMBERSHIP
F
EES AND
G
YM
F
EES
Are you a member of the local country club or gym? Do you use that service, or is it something that you keep open because you might use it someday? If it’s just a “someday” service, take the initiative and cancel the membership, because it’s just eating at your money without providing you any benefit in return. If you do change your mind and decide to utilize the service, you can always sign up for the service again, but most likely you’ll walk away happy knowing that you’re spending significantly less each month on something you didn’t really use.
323. T
AKE A
H
ARD
L
OOK
A
T
E
NTERTAINMENT
-O
RIENTED
M
ONTHLY
B
ILLS
Are you subscribed to a D
VD
rental club? Do you pay for premium movie channels? Are you involved in a book-of-the-month club in the mail? Regular bills for entertainment purposes are great places to look for areas where you can reduce spending. Ask yourself how much you honestly use these services and whether or not the monthly bill you pay is really worth it. Explore alternatives for the same thing. Perhaps you can rent a few videos locally each month for less money, or maybe a trip to the library once a month might sate your reading desire as well as or better than a book-of-the-month club. If you’re paying a bill every month just to entertain yourself, ask yourself if there’s not a better option available that isn’t a constant drain on your budget.
324. C
LEAN
U
P
Y
OUR
R
EMAINING
B
ILLS
After you’ve eliminated some of your regular bills, look for options to clean up your remaining bills. Go through those bills and look for optional services that you rarely or never use. Don’t text message? Eliminate buying text messages for your phone. Don’t use Internet access? Eliminate that service. Don’t watch channels outside of basic cable? Downgrade your cable or satellite package. Paying an arm and a leg for child care? Look for another provider, or see whether or not you can change your schedule to reduce the number of days you’re paying for. Pay for a session at the salon every few weeks? Cut it back to once every other month and get a less maintenance-heavy cut. Simple moves like these cut down your bills, giving you more breathing room each month. Just downgrading some services can move you from treading water to making progress against your debts.
325. I
F
Y
OU
G
O
O
VER
Y
OUR
C
ELL
P
HONE
M
INUTES
, U
PGRADE
Y
OUR
P
LAN
If you’re ever over on your cell phone minutes during a “normal” month (not one with a particularly exceptional event that won’t be repeated), call your cell phone provider and upgrade your plan to include more minutes. An overage during a normal month is often a sign that future overages will occur in the coming months as you’re beginning to use your cell phone more than you used to. Don’t get eaten alive by overage fees. Get a plan that covers your actual cell phone usage and don’t sweat it.
326. I
F
Y
OU
R
ACK
U
P
“O
UT OF
C
ALLING
A
REA
” C
HARGES
, U
PGRADE
Y
OUR
P
LAN
If you begin to rack up regular “out of calling area” charges on your cell phone bill (more than once or twice a year), then it’s time to upgrade your cell plan from a small region to a larger one—or perhaps to a nationwide plan. It only takes a few calls outside your calling area each year to eat up the entire difference in the cost of the plans, so if you find yourself beginning to make out-of-area calls on a regular basis, look at another plan. It will save you money over the long haul.
327. A
VOID
L
ONG
-T
ERM
C
ONTRACTS
Many services you sign up for, particularly cell phones, gyms, cable, and satellite radio and television, require that you sign a contract to use the service for some specified length of time. While it might seem like a better deal to sign a long-term contract because of a slightly lower rate, don’t. Keep your contract short. This gives you the freedom to cut your relationship with them much earlier if you’re not happy with the service or you’re not using it regularly enough to justify the expense. Plus, with shorter contracts, you have more freedom to jump to other providers and enjoy very lucrative introductory offers. Long-term contracts are only a good deal if you’re very happy with the service that a particular company offers and you know you’ll be happy with that company more than with other companies for a long time to come.
328. A
SK FOR
I
NTRODUCTORY
D
EALS
, E
VEN
I
F
Y
OU
’R
E A
R
EGULAR
C
USTOMER
