How to make the equivalent of $4800/hr

Now that your expectations are high I'll let you down softly.  This post is not about getting rich quick or gleaning the salary of a high-paid CEO, but about how you might save a bundle on medical bills with a simple phone call.  As many of you know, we had kiddo #4 a little over a month ago (hence the absence of posts) and the bills have started to roll in.  This go-round was an experiment to see if my calculations that moved us over to a high-deductible plan were in fact correct and would actually save us money.

I'll put together more thoughts on that later, the focus of this post is how a 9 minute phone call saved us 20% on the hospital bill, or roughly $725.  Geico eat your heart out...

The nicely organized bill we received showed the massive discounts negotiated by our insurance provider as well as the payments they'd made and ended with a comparatively small balance and a website where we could pay.  A few years ago when we had the twins I remembered having to call most of the providers to pay over the phone and thought this is nice, guess the medical industry has finally caught up with the rest of the technological world.  Upon logging in, however, I noticed there was only the option to pay the amount in full, and no discounts or payment options like I was offered over the phone previously.  The last go round we saved an average of 13% by paying in full (on a credit card that offered cash back and was paid off of course!) so I begrudgingly dialed the 1800 number and prepared myself for the worst.

To my surprise, 9 minutes later our original bill minus 20% was paid and I hung up the phone feeling like I had only lost part of an arm and leg.  I'm also happy to report that no Cuban negotiation tactics were used as I've been told in the past that they make people (ie my spouse) uncomfortable, I simply asked if there was any discount for paying in full and 20% is what was offered.  Just goes to show there's no harm in asking and like Geico always claims, you just might be surprised at how much you can save in a few minutes!


Finally, the ROI calculation for the 9 minutes spent on the phone:
$725/.15hr = 4833.33 $/hr

Now if I could just find something that pays consistently at that rate..

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To finance or not to finance

That is the question, at least since we started the search for our next vehicle.  I'm not a huge fan of paying interest but alas it is one of the necessities of life unless you're like the people who bought our last house and had an uncle front them the money.  That said, I've been approaching the car decision from a couple of angles.  First and foremost being realistic about how much time I'll have to fix stuff in the coming months/years (as well as considering where my time might be better spent even if I have it) as well as my tendency to be preoccupied with things (squeaks, rattles and other potentially broken stuff) which leaves me distracted from what's important and what God wants for me.  The second you can probably guess if you've read anything else here: traditional number crunching.

As I mentioned here, we have a student loan that's been hanging around at a pesky 4.25% interest rate and were quoted a much lower 1.85% for an auto loan.  Now obviously we'd be trading tax deductible interest for interest that is not, but the almost 60% delta between the two rates makes a pretty good case regardless.  Thankfully we live in an electronic age full of handy (and hand-held if you're old school) calculators so it's pretty easy to crunch the numbers.

First up, I used Onlineloancalculator.org's auto loan calculator to determine the cost of a $15k loan on a used van vs. paying cash (an option still pending a liquidation sale of a few vehicles):

Next up was determining how much interest we'd save applying that same lump sum to Mr. Student Loan using Regions lump sum calculator:

I'm still evaluating and trying to shoot holes on the numbers and logic, butthere seems to be a pretty compelling case (even with tax and calculator accuracy assumptions) that a car loan is definitely worth pursuing and any cash resulting from vehicle sales will make a big impact in student loan savings (almost $2k) and will allow us to meet our goal of paying the previous generation's education debt prior to the current generation's entry into the collegiate world in 2018!

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40,000mi Prius Update

Figured it was time for a long overdue update on our little white driving appliance.  Since making the trade for our Sequoia April fools 2014 we've logged over 40,000mi, including a 3800mi road trip to the east coast and a whole summer of baseball on the road this year bringing our total fuel savings to over $5000.  Maintenance thus far has been minimal, oil changes, a set of tires (a little over $200 thanks to being a super common size) and a battery (regular not the hybrid one) summing to probably <$500 over almost 2 years.

She has started burning some oil but only ~1qt between 5k mile oil changes which is common on higher mileage Priuses (or Prii??) and doesn't stop 'em from running north of 300k miles so no big deal there.  As far as "upgrades" are concerned, we still get a ton of use out of the cargo box and a set of craigslist roof racks has allowed us to haul everything from bikes to lumber and a screen door without the need for a pickup truck.

All in all, although we do occasionally miss the Sequoia, we've been very happy with the Prius and it has certainly cured any pride issues resulting from vehicle ownership.  From a payoff standpoint, the Sequoia was worth about $7k when we traded it so we're not far from the Prius completely paying itself off in gas savings which should be attainable by it's 2yr anniversary in April assuming it doesn't end up on the chopping block to fund a minivan. It's not cool but it sure is awesome...

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Something old or something new??

Continuing the dialog on our next big car purchase, I'll present a couple of options that cover both ends of the spectrum currently being evaluated.  My typical vehicle preference is cheap, mostly depreciated and potentially reliable through some wrenching and parts procurement (with coupons!) from Rock Auto or Advance.  Exterior cosmetics and interior condition are typically not anywhere on the list of care-abouts as noted by the tattered headliner and scratches that run the length of our XC90, not to mention its new Mini Cooper induced cosmetic "updgrades."

I've owned cars with no headliner at all, multi-colored paint jobs, giant dents/rust holes and just about any other visual defect that would lead to a bargain price on the ol 'list.  Having kids has steered me towards things a little newer and over $1000 but cosmetics are something I still don't really care about and tend to be degraded when a vehicle's main task is transporting 3yr olds anyways but as with many things in life, a marriage is a balance of contentment from multiple inputs that must carry equal(ish) weight.

Enough philosophizing, on to today's car options.

Option 1. A cash-friendly 2005 Honda Odyssey for $5500.  Original owner, 115k miles, mostly depreciated and up to date on maintenance: Timing belt just done (gives me ~5years to mentally prepare for a weekend laying in the driveway), new a/c, new tires.

Issues: duct tape repaired bumper, intermittent problems with power sliding door, water in cargo area after heavy rain (easily repairable according to youtube video quoted in the listing), one of the 3 colors at the bottom of my better half's preference list

Thoughts: I have a hatred of Hondas stemming from a POS 84 Civic I traded a PC for in college but this seems like a steal and the mid-2000s Odysseys are higher on the preference list than Siennas of the same generation.  Issues listed are minor and I could probably do a better job of color matching the duct tape to improve cosmetics.  Although at the bottom of the color preference list, silver should look better between semi-annual washes than darker colors.  Little leery of the water leak since I've been chasing one in our XC90 for several months that's about to drive me mad but the youtube video really is convincing...


Option 2. A 2015 Toyota Sienna that makes the wife happy and tugs at my "hey this is a good deal" strings.  25k miles (at least 10yrs of trouble free use left in her), $22k (over $10k off its original sticker price!), removable 8th seat for when the grandparents visit, the right color and a TIMING CHAIN requiring no maintenance.

Issues: None other than the 165 extra benjamins it costs

With the options presented, the question now becomes how do we decide between 2 options for something we don't really want that lie at two very different ends of the spectrum?  The same way we decided what route to take last time we bought something neither of us wanted, with numbers!

The last go-round, gas mileage played a big part in the calculations but unfortunately most things that can haul 6 people (3 of which are in carseats) get about the same mileage, assuming of course that gas guzzling SUVs have been ruled out.  While gas prices have come down quite a bit, we've been down the $450/month fuel bill route and have once again set our vehicular pride aside in favor of leaving some $$ left in the budget to eat, so things like Suburbans, Sequoias and anything else big and V8 powered that starts with an "S" will not be included here.

This go-round I'm going to use Edmunds True Cost to Own tool for gathering numbers since it's easy to use and has all the info needed to aid in our decision-making process.  In the table below you'll see Edmund's estimates for each vehicle option described above as well as an "Adjustment" column where I've made changes with justification in the "Notes" column.  Quick data is great but it's pretty general so you'll more value gathering some info on your own and plugging in where appropriate (like getting a quote from your insurance co for vehicles you're considering).

As expected, the newer car has lower repair costs and uses a little less fuel due to better mpgs but carries the burdens of higher insurance and sales tax as well as the pain of depreciation which is a fairly large chunk of change.  Also, Edmunds repair estimate seems a little low to me if not doing the work yourself just based on what I know breaks on the Odysseys so YMMV there.

While we'd prefer something borrowed and/or blue, the ~$11k of savings over 5 years with the Odyssey is certainly enticing but doesn't come without risk as a 10yr used car is always a crapshoot so some guidance and discernment is certainly in order!

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Cash Back Christmas, 2015 Edition

It was a close one this year but we managed to carry on our tradition of covering our holiday expenses with cash back from our rewards credit cards.  Last year we got a boost from the $450 sign up bonus from our Chase Sapphire Preferred card (which was closed before the annual fee was due this year) and while we did open a new card earlier in the year (Capital One Venture) and get a bonus, it was mileage used towards the 5 incredibly expensive airline tickets we purchased for our Thanksgiving trip in November, 3 of which we were thankfully able to pay with mileage/rewards.

Because of the trip and things on the horizon, we did cut back some this year on both our gift and food budgets but still had a blast and somehow our living room still looked like a toy bomb went off despite the reduced budget.

The final tally for Christmas 2015:

Source	Amount
AMEX	$530
Discover	$235
Ebates	$64
Total	$829

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Good in ALL things

 

I was reminded of Luke 6:38 this morning as I rode by a neighbor's house and spotted a weight bench out by the curb.  You see, our 15 year old has recently gotten into weight lifting and has been asking for a gym membership and/or some more workout equipment at home but with the holidays upon us we haven't had the extra cash to pursue either.  BAM, once again, God delivers in an interesting but effective way.  While probably not as appreciative/receptive as I was due to being awakened during break at 8AM, I pulled up Luke 6:38 on the web to refresh my fuzzy memory and passed it along to him as a reminder that no matter how small and insignificant something seems, God's got it.  

In my experience, this goes beyond deep down needs extending upward to wants and desires that may be more surface level.  Case and point is our planned trip to Colorado next week to visit family and some friends that are having a baby any day now.  While I love the mountains and visiting loved ones certainly isn't a bad thing, we don't NEED to go to Colorado, but through an alignment of circumstances and prodding from the Holy Spirit via multiple friends mentioning they were traveling to the state over the holidays (seriously, this happened like 3x while we were talking about possibly making a trip), it's happening.

It may seem like a small thing, but the weight bench was a simple reminder to me that God's got us in all things, something I desperately need in this time of planning for kid #4 that will arrive 4 short months from now.  Speaking of that planning, you may be wondering why I took a screenshot of Luke 6:38 instead of just copying the text above.  Well it seems Google Ad Services has a good pulse on the current subject of my preoccupation.  As sad as it may seem, after buying a Prius (which I'm probably due for an update on) we are now considering buying the other type of vehicle we swore we'd never buy--a minivan.  

I'm still hoping with all that's in me that our $3500 Volvo XC90 will suffice but a recent road trip revealed it's pretty cramped with 6 people piled inside (let alone the addition of an infant car seat) and with all the driving over the past year for baseball we're back to the point of our lowest mileage vehicle having over 150k on it.  Sure, I have the ability to fix stuff, but with increasing work and family demands, time has become precious and I'd rather spend what extra I have hanging out with those I love and/or turning a wrench on a friend's car or enjoyable project.

Old me would have probably dumped the Volvo on craigslist and picked up similarly priced van but looking at what's on the horizon something slightly newer/fresher probably makes more sense as much as I hate to admit it.  A new car is most definitely out of the question but there seems to be a good supply of 1-2 year old low mileage vans out there for sale at a fraction of their original list price that could provide many years of faithful service (assuming the vehicle of choice is a Toyota, of course).  Most of these are out of cash-paying range and while I've always avoided auto loans like the plague, with rates hovering around 1.45% from our local credit union it's an option worth considering, especially since we could funnel any funds received from selling other vehicles towards a naggy student loan with a 4.25% interest rate.  Ignoring the inevitable depreciation on a vehicle (accelerated by 3 of its occupants being under 4), the slightly fuzzy math of that choice may make sense.

I've also considered liquidating our vehicle inventory (currently 3 running, 2 not) for a cash purchase but that leaves us in the range of a 100k+ mile van and no backup cars and also reeks of a fight for self-sufficiency which has typically not worked out well for my stress level in the past.  We're just in the beginning stages and while I'd usually post about something like this after we'd worked through options and made a decision, I figured I'd drag everyone along for the ride...

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Carpet for the Cure

After a month of waiting and living with the stench, our new carpet arrived last week along with some pretty pink surplus padding courtesy of our installer.  Curious of its origin, I Googled the part number on the label and discovered it was Mohawk SmartCushion (Memory foam!) and also that the color was due to a portion of proceeds going to the Susan G. Komen foundation.  All that aside, I'm still learning when and when not to do it myself but when we remodeled the master bath in our last house I made the right choice (with some persuasion of course) to pay someone to do the tile work. 

I'm not much of an engineer in the traditional sense but do have perfectionist tendencies when it comes to cut lines and grout gaps and after helping a friend lay tile in his entryway I quickly learned my skills cannot match my expectations (best way to learn something like this is definitely in someone else's house!).  We got quotes from a few installers and ended up with a wide spectrum of prices, the highest being over 2x the lowest.  In the end we landed on a guy named Alex who runs the aptly named "Alex's Flooring" and after seeing 3 professionals spend almost a week laying tile I was pretty confident in my choice to outsource this particular job.

I bring all this up just to say that shopping around and knowing where/how to find resources is key, especially when labor is involved as quotes can vary wildly and it's important to have a good way to sift through the options, whether it be recommendations from friends and co-workers or good 'ol Google.  I've also found that little old ladies on your street are a good source.  They're typically picky, frugal and have oversight skills that would make most professional project managers sit up and listen.  This is how I found my yard guy (an expense I'm currently justifying by the cancelling of our satellite tv and baseball tournaments for 7 weeks straight this summer) , who keeps our grass looking great for a mere $50/month because he already comes by every other week to do my neighbor's yard.

Anyways, back to the carpet.  We shopped the big box stores and found some decent deals but in the end saved over $700 doing a little more leg work (and waiting).  We saved almost $200 on the pad alone by purchasing it through a guy our installer know who sells job leftovers, the other $500 coming from buying the carpet from a wholesale retailer.  It took a little longer but the extra cash was well worth it, especially considering the number of things still left on our house punch list...

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Cash back Christmas

Christmas can be an expensive time (even for those of us who try and avoid the commercial hullabaloo) and we've spent many a January lamenting our lack of holiday restraint so this year we set out to cover our expenses (gifts, food, travel etc.) with cash back earned on stuff we were already buying throughout the year.

As of 12/23 our final purchases have been made  (hopefully) and I'm happy to announce we achieved our goal!  The $450 Chase sign-up bonus was a big contributor but even without that we were more than able to cover our holiday expenses netting over $1000 in cash back on the year:

Source	Amount
Bank of America	$381
Chase	$710
AMEX	$225
Discover	$102
Ebates	$70
Checkout51	$31
Total	$1,518

Not too shabby considering most of it was earned on stuff we were going to purchase anyways, click the links above or visit the referral page for more info on the various methods we used to earn our holiday kitty!

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Down and to the right!

Certainly not the trend you want to see in your investments, but after some recent tinkering in my budget spreadsheet I was pretty happy to see (in graphical form) the impact of the spending changes we've been making.  As I briefly mentioned here we've shaved about $2000 from our monthly budget since 2011 with the heat turned up over the past 2 years after going to a single income with 3 kids in tow.  Some of the $2k was related to commuting expenses for the Mrs and some to other things not 100% applicable to everyone so I'll focus this post on the $1200 or so that is most relevant to the outside world.

I started poking around on Financial Independence blogs about a year ago after hearing about Mr Money Mustache and while I don't plan to retire at 40 (although that does sound pretty fantastic), the principles and practices put forth on FI sites are beneficial to anyone regardless of what their financial goals are.  There are tons of sites out there with tips on how to save but what I like about Mr Money Mustache's philosophy is it's focused around contentment stemming from a mindset change that helps you realize that any dollar not spent can be put to work for future you thus increasing your margin and in his words "badassity".  In our case it was a gradual process that is still evolving 3 years after we started the making changes but has resulted (thus far) in a 28% reduction in living expenses.  By basically paying less for necessities and buying less crap we don't need we've not only improved our bottom line but have been able to add luxuries such as our new "Activities" budget category that includes a YMCA membership, select baseball (which in itself amounts to a monthly payment on a nice CTS-V Wagon), as well as other fun and usually healthy family activities.

I want to start off by stating that like everyone else's, our budget fluctuates due to unforseen circumstances as well as good 'ol fashioned wasteful spending.  Also, as I mentioned in the post linked above, we completely blew it in May (and again in July) and doubled what we planned to spend going out to eat (this would serve as appropriate soundtrack, right click, "Open in New Window" if you want tunes while you read).  In May, this was compounded by the fact that we couldn't keep our family healthy and ended up in the doctor's office just about every week (horay high deductible plan!).  Thankfully, despite all that we still ended up in the black due to budget cutting in other areas, something that definitely would not have been true in the past.   

Food: $500

This is where we've wrangled the most savings and my wife gets most of the credit here.  A little prep/planning and some research goes a long way, once she started planning out meals a week or two ahead of time we not only saved from not overbuying but were less tempted to grab a pizza due to being undecided on what to eat.  As I mentioned here, we also started comparing costs ($/oz, lb etc.) between our local grocery store and Sam's Club and found that quite a few things are actually cheaper at the store.  Coupons are also king for non store brand items and handy apps like Checkout51 and ibotta make it incredibly easy to get rebates (which we're storing up for Christmas expenses) on things you buy as well.

Our diet has also changed quite a bit in that time and now includes more fresh fruit, veggies, and healthy fats/proteins.  People say eating healthy is expensive but really look at the cost of your salty sugary snacks and you'll see that when bought/prepared right, good fats/oils and lean proteins probably aren't much more expensive.  Junk food also doesn't serve as a meal replacement so it's really just adding (delicious) cost to your grocery bill without adding dietary value.  This is a fact that we validated on our summer vacation when loosening the dietary reins not only upped our grocery spending but also the diameter of our waistlines. That said, I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Eating out was another area of big spending in the past that we've essentially cut by more than half, from lunches at work to indulging in happy hours and dinners out when we were feeling too lazy to cook.  Obviously kids and lack of opportunity for dates plays into this, but we also came to the realization that it was a lose-lose as we were forking over quite a bit of money to essentially make ourselves fat.  A social life and quality time doing fun things as a family is of course important and I'm still willing to pay 4x cost for a pint of beer for the atmosphere and chance to get away so our new budget still includes provisions for date night at our church (can't beat $16 for 3hrs of babysitting!) and an $8 weekly lunch with my buds along with occasional special celebration averaged in. We have also made a habit of packing lunches and snacks for baseball tournaments but an unpredictable schedule still leads to eating out sometimes more than we planned.

Bills: $300
This area is one where a minimal amount of effort and change has led to huge savings with little to no impact to quality of life, from $140/mo savings ($202 to $62) on our cell phone expenses to $50 related to cutbacks on satellite and internet including 10% savings that was had just by calling and asking.  We were also the "lucky" recipients of a new HVAC system last fall, something that when combined with a cheaper energy provider and setting our thermostat at 80 in the summer has led to an average savings of $60/month. Little things have added up to the other $50: paying our car and homeowners' insurance annually, water saving shower heads etc.

Gas: $260
Big one here, we live in the urban sprawl of the suburbs of Austin, TX and have to drive (large distances at times) quite a bit, something compounded by our traveling baseball schedule.  We took a small step by driving more efficient car (a $1200 Volvo mentioned here) and a big one after trading our gas guzzling Sequoia for a Prius. I also started Bike commuting (~4 days/week) which netted an additional savings of $60/mo with the added benefit of my commute becoming my daily workout.

Misc: $140
In the past misc (clothes, toys, other junk) was our wildcard category and would typically make or break the budget for a given month.  I covered this in decent detail in my Worth the Wait post, but planning misc budget spending months in advance has helped us to know and plan what's coming up as well as ponder whether those things are really needed at all in comparison to what those Benjamins could be doing for future us.  Although I still wear the same set of shirts and pair of shoes purchased 2 years ago to work on a daily basis (shoes purchased 9/5/12 according to Amazon order history), I realize that I'm married to a female (and would like to remain so) and like the occasional gadget myself so we also started budgeting a small bucket of fun money for each of us a few months back which seems to have been a big help in keeping this category in check as well.

Final Savings Tally

Food $500

Bills $300

Gas $260

 Misc $140 

Total $1200

All in all, a few big changes and multiple small ones gave our income a huge boost in a time where the economy could not and while we weren't able to make up for the full amount of my wife's social worker salary, we got close enough to make it work and now have a sustainable budget that will allow us to continue paying things off and save for the future.  In the end, we're all called to be good stewards of the abundance we're given and making the most of our income is one way to accomplish that.  Taking a hard line at maintaining (or reducing) expenses as our income (hopefully) goes up as we come out of the recession will also set us up for an even better savings rate, something we will desperately need as we look towards 3 sets of braces, college educations, and all the other things that come with a growing family.

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The cost of irreverent, silly myths

"You deserve it." A seemingly innocent tagline found in much of today's advertising justifying frivolous short-term purchases often at the expense of true purpose and long-term stability.  You may also remember McDonald's longest running ad campaign reminding us all that we deserve a daily McBreak (with a side of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes).  Heck, even pickup trucks, originally designed to haul crap,  have gotten bloated with luxury to the point where they're ridiculously expensive and questionably useful for their original purpose.  Fair warning, I'm going to jump on a soapbox here, not from the standpoint of coming out the other side on this issue but as one who is immersed in our wasteful and immediate-term thinking culture. 

I recently had a conversation with someone who stated that the air conditioned seats offered in the GMC Acadia were a large part of their decision to buy an Acadia over its Chevy equivalent the Traverse. Not sure what the cost of the option itself is, but the base price alone of the Acadia is $3155 more than a Traverse leaving a $6200+ hole in future you's pocket 10 years from now versus if you had instead invested that money earning 7% of compounded interest over that time.  Looking on a larger scale, those air conditioned seats will cost close to $50k (approximately 1 year's freedom) over the course of a 40yr working career which begs the question, how much is a chilled bum really worth to you??  As my most referenced blogger said in this post: "Maximizing your luxury and convenience right now may feel like a reward to your present self, but the belly full of expensive food will be converted to a turd on the conveyor belt by the time your future self retrieves the results"  just like that fancy Acadia will be a pile of rusty scrap metal around the time that $50k could have really come in handy. 

My men's group has been doing a study of spiritual disciplines and I thought the guiding verse for the study (1 Timothy 4:7) aligned well with the content of this post: "Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness."  Although most of the junk I buy usually isn't subject to mainstream advertising (unless you consider Turbo by Garrett's Facebook page mainstream), there have been many times that I've been bitten by the "I deserve it" bug and have found this verse a helpful reminder to remain focused on what really matters in those instances (or after they occur in some cases).

I realize this is all somewhat hypocritical coming from someone who drives a fancy hybrid with auto climate control and doors that unlock based on proximity, but numbers not only helped us decide what type of car to buy but also talked us out of a shiny red Prius a couple years newer and into our little white driving appliance. Sure the immediate $5k vs $500 out of savings was basically enough to fuel the decision but $35,255 hole it would have left by retirement age was the real kicker, a number arrived at using this calculator populated with our magical 7% interest number. We've found that guiding data to go along with a guiding verse allows for sound decisions based on the long-term cost of a purchase instead of just the immediate outlay or monthly payment.

Other food for thought:
Eliminate Short-termitis the bankruptcy disease

Are you giving the shaft to your future self?

And another handy verse, Romans 12:2: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

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Recommendations (Credit Cards, Savings sites, Cell Providers etc.)

Throughout this journey we've come across quite a few ways to save money, some of the most powerful being credit cards and apps/websites that provide cash back as well as our favorite cell provider so I thought it might be helpful to others to organize the info in one place.

Feel free to swing back by this page as I'll be adding things as we run across them. For posterity's sake I also wanted to mention that there are referral bonuses for some of these which I will be happy to use to buy you a cup of coffee if you're local!

Credit Cards

Believe it or not, we covered our Christmas expenses this year with cash back and plan to do the same for the years to come.  Here are a couple of our favorite cards that had a hand in that.

*Chase Sapphire Preferred
This card provides 2% on travel and restaurants but the biggest benefit is the 40,000 point bonus (redeemable for $400 cash back) you get for signing up.  Chase also offers a 50,000 point bonus when you add an authorized user within the first 3 months. The annual fee is pretty spendy ($95) but the initial bonus will cover that for quite a while.

*Amex Blue Cash Preferred
Food is our biggest expense and the 6% back on groceries is awesome.  With this card you also get 3% on gas and 1% on everything else and there is a $150 bonus for signing up which covers your annual fee for a couple of years ($75/year)

Fill out the form below for a referral!

Name:

E-mail:

*Discover
The original cash back card. With no fees, 1% back on everything and 5% back in quarterly bonus categories it's a solid contender especially if you exchange your cash back for gift cards which typically adds another $5-10 on top.  Use the link above for a $50 signup bonus and I'll use mine to buy you something nice :)

Cell Phones

From cheap phones to $150/month savings on service there are some good savings to be found here.

*Ting
Leveraging Sprint's towers (and soon T-mobile's as well) Ting gives you reliable service at the fraction of the cost of a traditional provider, more details on how that works here.  We were paying $202/month for our Sprint family plan (the least expensive of the big providers at the time) and now average $50-60/month for service on 3 phones.  Use the link above and get a $25 credit on your first month's service!

*Glyde 
Whether you're buying or selling there's opportunity to make or save some cash with Glyde.  With options to buy and sell used phones hassle-free with Glyde acting as the intermediary to purchasing refurbished phones directly from them, they have a multitude of budget-friendly options for all of your wireless needs.

Savings Sites

From groceries to online shopping, sites and apps like the ones linked below can actually provide quite a bit of cash back with minimal effort.

*Ebates 
We've earned $70 this year on *Ebates  just by doing our online shopping through the site. They frequently have featured deals offering 10%+ back so it's handy to have a running list of stuff you're planning to buy so you can strike while the iron's hot. A list will also hopefully help mitigate impulsive "what a deal!" purchases as well :)

*Checkout 51 
A large portion of our $ goes towards groceries and Checkout 51  is a great way to earn cash back on stuff you regularly buy. With the app and your smartphone it's as easy as taking a picture of your receipt and reaping the rewards!

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Stay the course

I've been on a bit of a life and work forced break from recording what the voices in my head are saying on this page but was doing some lunchtime reading the other day and ran across a post that is very relevant to where my thoughts have been lately.  The budgetary pressure valve has gotten some relief (at 10 instead of 11) lately thanks to all of the changes we've made over the past year or so and with those things somewhat on autopilot the temptation to slip back into old wasteful ways has started to creep back in necessitating some readjustment and refocusing.

As I've mentioned before, I have a bit of an addiction to Craigslist and 15+yr old Volvos and typically scan the 'List on a daily basis which can be both profitable and expensive depending on what I happen to run across.  A week or so ago one particular vehicle that had been posted for a while hit the magical "I must go see it" price and a few hours and $300 later and we had the beauty you see above in our driveway bringing the total car count to 6.  Excessive yes,  but I'll excuse it by saying it's an opportunity to spend time wrenching in the garage with the boy and we'll hopefully make a little $ when it's all said and done. 

I've also been doing quite a bit of mountain biking lately and my 15yr old bike is starting to show its age in creaks, groans, and broken parts.  While I could easily justify a shiny new 29er under the guise of facilitating fellowship and exercise, in reality a little elbow grease and a few $ in replacement parts would probably have 'er ready for another 15yrs of service.  That said, I've been fighting the urge to go on a bike research/deal finding bender which I have neither the time or money for (thankfully).  
 

One of my favorite verses is Matthew 6:21 and it's one that's helpful in just about any circumstance,  especially those requiring a refocus of priorities: 

"Where your treasure is there your heart will be also"

I also really like the Thoreau quote in the post linked above and it ties in well with the Simplify study we've been doing in our small group: 

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."

The idea of transcending to a point where you're not constantly having subverted desires for stuff but actually training yourself to not want those things at all even if you can afford them is very appealing and I'd like to say I've risen to Thoreau-like levels but that's far from the truth.  Killing off our Amazon Prime membership has helped some in the area of convenience driven unnecessary purchases but there are still plenty of other ways to blow money on things we don't need.  

The real key, and I think what both Thoreau and Mr Money Mustache are getting at, is that clearing your mind of such things cuts the noise and leaves you free to focus on the more important things in life.  The less your mind is filled with desire for things you don't have, the more you're focused on the present and enjoying what you do have, whether it be people,  experiences,  or even things.  Plus as Mr Money Mustache says "wanting less is an age-old recipe for having a much better life." 

If nothing else, I'm thankful for the occasional reminder of where my money and time should be spent,  regardless of whether it comes from a cheeky blog or the Word of God. 

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Money and faith

I've been spending a lot of time lately reading, writing, and thinking about money, something that can (and has at times) become an all consuming focus.  Although I'm not a huge Wu-Tang fan like the Mrs, I jokingly titled one of my first posts "Cash rules everything around me", something that seems to ring all too true in our capitalist society and can certainly become true in my own life when not kept in check and balanced by focus on God.  My focus on money these days typically isn't for the purposes of having more to buy crap (although I wouldn't mind having a Hellcat in the driveway) but to support my family and save for the future, in essence security.

I ran across the Killing Lions series on YouTube a while back and the segment on money came at one of those all consuming times where I really needed a reality check.  In that video, John Eldredge pretty much sums it up: "The world says money is your security, God says chase me, I'm your security."  These words are a gentle but powerful reminder that while we should do what we can to be good stewards and not let consumerism get in the way of our primary focus, He is ultimately the one who can and will take care of our needs as stated in Matthew 6:26-27:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, 

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not much more valuable than they? 

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

I'd love to get to the stage where my frugality muscle has developed to the point where I don't think about money at all, but regardless the words of Matthew 6:33-34 can and should be my guide:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

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Tax free bike parts

I was pretty stoked to find an email from my employer in my inbox after the holiday weekend highlighting some new benefits effective September 1st, namely the availability of new commuter spending accounts for biking and public transportation.  Employer transportation benefits have been around since 2009 when they were added to IRS Publication 15-B to help promote more environmentally friendly ways of getting to work and allow companies to set up flexible spending accounts for select commuting expenses.  These accounts work similar to how an HSA does for healthcare expenses and the transportation benefits fall into 2 categories, public transit and bike commuting.

Public Transit
For those who commute via bus or train, you're allowed to contribute up to $130/month via payroll deduction to a transit account (debit card) that can be used towards fares.  Like an HSA, these are pre-tax funds that you can bank up over time and use as necessary for eligible public transit expenses.

Bike commuting
Being a recent convert to pedaling my way to work, I was excited to find out I too could sock away tax free cash for commuting expenses.  I've logged close to 2000miles thus far this year and will likely need to replace wear items on my trusty steed in the near future and not having to pay taxes on these parts elevates bike commuting to hat trick status when combined with calorie shredding and gas savings.  The max contribution to the bike account is only $20/month but assuming I don't have regular run-ins with tire shredding debris or increase my bi-monthly cadence of wipeouts, a couple months of accrual should put me in good shape for the occasional maintenance item.

Also to note, this is an either/or type of deal so those who commute via a combo of bike and train/bus will have to pick their poison but transit is the more obvious choice as you can sock away quite a few more tax free Benjamins going that route.

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Once a month grocery shopping update

Time for a long overdue update to our adventures in once a month grocery shopping which I first mentioned here a couple years ago.  The short of it is this method didn't work out for us for regular grocery needs.  It seemed that no matter how much planning we did we always ended up needing a few things here and there and had to make multiple trips to the store anyways.  We also found that we'd overbuy on some items for fear of running out leading to overspending and also that I will drink a month's worth of beer in a week given the opportunity.

During this time we also changed up our eating habits to include more fresh fruits and veggies which don't keep for a month so we've have been doing just a couple of larger car trips with walks or bike rides to pick up things here and there (although we've been slacking on this lately with the summer heat as our excuse), including the occasional Friday evening beer run (or walk).

Once a month trips to Sam's Club on the other hand are working well for us as we have regular staples we consume in predictable amounts every month.  Cutting down on trips also cuts down on the number of monthly pizza combos purchased which is becoming increasingly important now that we have to buy a slice for our twins and a (2nd) slice for our 14yr old man child.  That said, buying in bulk isn't always cheaper as quite a bit of what Sam's sells is name brand and I would definitely recommend comparing prices as we've found quite a few store brand items that are actually cheaper per unit weight (oz, lb, etc), something that's pretty easy to do in the age of cell phones that allow you to snap a quick picture of the price tag for comparison.  A notebook will also do if you're old school.

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4 Months, 10,000 miles, $1400 saved

I figured it was time for a Prius update as last week marked the 4th month we've owned our little white driving appliance.  In that time we've logged over 10,000mi, including a 3800mi road trip to the East Coast to visit family and get some R&R.  Similar to what I reported in month 1, we've saved a ton on gas and maintenance and have yet to find a situation where we needed a bigger vehicle (although as you can see we pushed the limits of that on our road trip).

In that time we've averaged 43mpg (42 on our trip with the car fully loaded running 70-75mph) which amounts to about $1400 in gas savings over 4 months compared to the 15mpg we were averaging in the Sequoia.  Even factoring in $300 in tires (2 of which were emergency replacements on our trip) we've still ended up with quite a bit of extra cash in our pockets.

Aside from being excited about the Prius having a timing chain (Sequoia was due for a timing belt which is a massively painful job on a quad cam v8 and took me 2 weekends to complete on our LS400), maintenance costs are another area of savings I hadn't considered as part of our purchase research. That said, having about the same mileage, both the Sequoia and Prius were due for a helping of fresh $8/qt Toyota WS ATF transmission fluid, the difference being that 16qts were required for the Sequoia vs. only 4 for the Prius!  Even things like oil changes are quite a bit less expensive as the Prius only takes 4qts and doesn't require synthetic due to the fact that the IC engine doesn't have to work very hard being supplemented by the electric motor, something that hopefully also leads to a long life because we plan to drive it until the wheels fall off...

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Glyde your way into even more wireless savings

Time for a followup to my post about MVNO cell phone plans (no Urban Dictionary inspired title this go-round as everything I came up with was a bit inappropriate).  As I mentioned, an impulsive purchase of a closeout priced Google Nexus 4 left us with an AT&T/T-mobile device along with our 2 Sprint devices.  While managing 2 different plans was only a minor annoyance, it also left some savings on the table as Ting only charges $6 per phone attached to the account and all share data, minutes etc.  Initially the savings wasn't quite enough to justify selling the Nexus and buying another new phone for a couple hundred bucks but then I discovered Glyde via this post on Ting's blog.

Glyde is a service that acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers of used devices.  They handle all of the paperwork and even provide you with packaging and a prepaid shipping label when your device sells making "selling as easy as throwing it away" as they state on their website.  Buying is just as easy, just search for what you want, select the desired device condition and after a few more steps your new device is on its way.

We decided to take a bit of a gamble and picked up a Samsung Galaxy SIII listed in "Good" condition (looked brand new when we received it) for $135 prior to selling the Nexus.  After getting the Galaxy all set up on Ting we listed the Nexus 4 on Glyde for the suggested $143 list price and it sold less than a week later.  The next day the shipping kit arrived and off it went, we'll net about $125 after shipping and transaction fees leaving us with a $10 delta that we'll make up in about 2 weeks in plan savings, not too shabby!

The final tally:
Sprint Unlimited "family plan" with 3 devices: $202/mo
Ting/Ptel service combined cost: $62/mo
Ting cost with 3 devices: $46/mo
Savings: $156/mo!

Figured I'd post a first month update, even with the added data usage from 2 weeks on the road we managed to come in just shy of $60 with all 3 phones on Ting.  I'm confident that we'll be in the sub-$50 range this month considering we're not planning to spend 52hrs in the car in August...

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Little Things: 1.5 GPM Showerhead experiment

There's more than one way to slice an egg and multiple small changes can make just as much of an impact as a large one (like killing off your bloated "family" plan).  Now that we've convinced our teenager to shower daily, water usage is up a bit in our home and after reading this I decided to throw caution to the wind and blow $15.82 on a pair of fancy 1.5 GPM shower heads for our 2 full baths.  I didn't really expect much (other than maybe complaints from tenants) but since the existing heads were old and rather crusty from hard water I figured what the heck.

A couple days later (thanks Amazon Prime!) and I had 2 shiny new chrome coated plastic do-dads to install.  I'd love to say that I was so eager to save some dough that I immediately spent the 5 mins it took to install them and started putting cash in my pocket one shower at a time but the reality is I finally got around to it about a week after they were rush shipped to our house. 

A couple of observations--there were some complaints about reduced pressure on the wide spray setting but there is also a jet setting that could easily chip away shower tiles one layer at a time if that is your preference.  Also, we've noticed that it takes longer for the water to heat up since lower volumes are being drawn through the system which results in more time being required to purge the cold water from the pipes, an effect which is most pronounced in our master bath at the opposite end of the house from the water heater. 

I feared the longer warm-up time would kill any savings but fortunately that wasn't the case. Our water is pretty cheap (especially considering the inequality of demand and our currently dwindling supply) and the bulk of our bill is usually sewer and trash so I was pretty surprised to see a reduction equating to $6 in water savings the first month after installation. 

May seem insignificant but that's $72/year for $16 and 5 minutes of effort, a 450% annual ROI and another grand in the retirement fund every 10yrs using Mr Money Mustache's 173 multiplier for monthly expense savings!

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Because YOLO: MOLOs, MVNOs and what you need to know to DESTROY your cell phone bill

Congratulations, if you got past my terrible attempt at an acronym-based joke and actually clicked on this post after reading the title your reward is the potential to save some serious cash on your cell phone bill.  MVNO and MOLO are abbreviations commonly used for wireless communications service providers that lease infrastructure from the big boys and provide cell service to you at a highly discounted rate.  These types of services have been around for a while and were born out of regulations to keep the market competitive as well as large providers having extra capacity on their networks available, both of which benefit you by having lower cost options available that leverage widely available infrastructure that's already out there (ie more bars in more places for less dead presidents). 

The other component of the savings is the fact that devices are not being subsidized by the plan (ie no free phones or $300 iPhone with a 2yr contract), you either bring you own (most services have a list of supported devices) or purchase an unlocked phone directly from the service provider.  I figured I'd put that caveat up top for the "I must have the latest iWhatever" crowd so you don't waste your time reading the rest of this, although I'd recommend you think about the fact that you could be paying over $1200/year for that hunk of plastic and fancy glass that you can buy outright for $700 (which leaves you with $500 for fancy cases and headphones!).

There are many of these types of providers out there but I will only speak to the 2 we have experience with, Ting (uses Sprint CDMA devices/towers) and Ptel (uses Tmobile GSM devices/towers). I'll start out by saying that I am way too reliant on (and distracted by) the computer in my pocket and probably wouldn't have ever considered this change had I not had a couple of friends who started tinkering with this idea and Google Voice about this time last year,  which along with using Wifi every chance you get, is the key to this money saving equation if you're a heavy texter. 

By setting up a Voice account and installing the App on your phone, all of your texts travel via data (or wifi when available) and there are no per message charges typical of most MVNO plans.  You can also text and call (like a VOIP service) from any computer which is an added bonus.  Calling via the data connection used to be an option with 3rd party apps as well but has gone by the wayside recently although I heard Google will be incorporating this into Hangouts in the near future so one could presumably get away with only paying for data, which is incredibly cheap with Ting.

Ting
The boy and I had fairly fresh Sprint devices when this experiment began so Ting was our service of choice.  Ting's model is quite unique, they have buckets of varying sizes for minutes, data, and texting and you just pay the amount for whatever buckets you fall in at the end of the month along with a $6/phone base charge.  For us this amounts to an average of $27/month for 2 phones using 100 minutes and 500mb or less/month (no text charges since we use Google Voice for that).

They have a handy calculator you can use to figure out how much you'll save based on your current usage and will even pay up to $75 towards your Early Termination Fee (ETF) if you have an existing contract, which for me led to the decision to end my Sprint contract a year early as I'd pay myself back in less than 3months due to the savings.  Service has been flawless thus far (same as when we were on Sprint which makes since as they use the same infrastructure) and they've even lowered their rates since we signed up, when's the last time Sprint or AT&T did something like that??

PlatinumTel (PTel)

Our original plan was to move the whole family from Sprint to Ting but a cracked screen and an impulsive purchase of a sale-priced Nexus 4 right before the new models came out left us with a GSM device that wouldn't work on Ting's network.  The Ptel recommendation came from a buddy who is a true Mustachian and spends less in a year on phone service with their "Real PayGo" plan than most people pay monthly. 

The Mrs started out with PayGo and we were spending <$20/month early this year when she was still cooped up in the house with the little ones and on wifi but once baseball season ramped up and she starting doing mom's outings her data usage increased and we switched to he $35/month unlimited plan.  Sure it's only 3G but you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference and for $35 (about 1/2 of most other "unlimited" plans) who cares!  If you must have 4G data they also have $40 and $50 fancypants plans if you can't wait a few more seconds for pictures of your friends' dinner to load on Facebook...
 
The end result for us is a 70% reduction in cell phone related expenses, from $202/month for our ridiculously priced Sprint "Family Plan" to a $62/month average with the new setup for 3 phones.  I'm not sure what Sprint's idea of a family value is but I can think of a lot more productive and rewarding family related things to spend $140/month on.

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Electricity: The power (may be) yours

It's one of our biggest expenses (other than food and baseball), but our choices in electricity retailers is something I (stupidly) hadn't looked into until this year.  Here in Tejas our energy was selectively deregulated in the early 2000s opening up the marketplace in some areas to hundreds of "retailers" who resell energy delivered to homes via a service provider (Oncor energy in our case).  In a nutshell, the service provider creates and maintains the infrastructure and sells the energy to retailers who handle the customer side of things.  More info can be found here, including a map indicating which states have deregulated electricity and/or natural gas: http://www.deregulationofenergy.org/

Until one May evening last year when one of those annoying solicitors knocked on our door (at dinnertime of course) resulting in dogs barking and babies crying, I hadn't thought much about what we were paying for electricity.  We were on a plan I signed up for with TXU energy when I moved into our house in 2005 and had long since forgotten what the rate was, but this young man (who was probably in high school and had never paid for his own electricity) reminded me that I had the POWER to CHOOSE!  

I don't buy anything from someone who knocks on my door, especially the guy selling $100 magazine subscriptions for "charity", but the brief interaction led me to the interwebs where my research (and spreadsheets began).  After spending an hour one evening parsing through 2 years of emailed electricity bills while sipping on one of my favorite brews, I had enough data to conclude that we were paying way too much for electricity at an average of about $.12/kwh and at times up to $.135/kwh when our usage was low!  Our typical usage is under 1000kwh/month 9 months out of the year (we have gas heat and hot water) and ~1500kwh July-September when our A/C is battling the 100+ degree Texas heat although we did eclipse the 2000kwh mark a couple of months in 2012 when the temperature was over 100 for a record number of days and my wife was incredibly pregnant with our twins. 

Armed with my newly collected data I headed over to powertochoose.org to find our new money saving electricity plan.  Understanding your usage is a very important part of shopping for electricity, there are big differences in pricing depending on which bucket your household falls into and you need to find a plan that best matches how much energy you use.  Some quick math (usage * rate = monthly usage charge) will give you a good idea of monthly savings, for example our 1000kwh/month usage at our old plan's $.12/kwh = $120/month whereas a new plan at $.09/kwh would only cost $90 ignoring taxes, fees etc. leaving us $30 for Redbox movies and $1 drinks from McDonalds (can you say date night??)

Some plans will also charge a base fee if your usage drops below a certain threshold so be aware of that and check the fine print if you're a low energy user.  This is something I looked closely at since were the (fortunate?) recipients of a new HVAC system last November and I'm betting we can beat those numbers supplied by our 25 year old system this coming summer.  That said, in our case focusing on the lowest cost for the sub 1000kwh bucket while balancing costs above that was the best route.  There are also options for fixed, variable and market plans as well as contract durations, earlier this year we signed up for a 3mo contract with a new company to test them out and got a $.0525/kwh rate to boot!

There are lots of fees and other variables associated with energy costs so be very careful to review and understand them all, having a good understanding of the Electricity Facts Label is a good place to start and gives you a good way to compare plans you're considering giving you a good understanding of what the average cost will be for each usage bucket including fees etc.  It's also a good idea to monitor pricing in your area over time, here in Texas rates usually go up in May and can skyrocket over the summer (be careful with market and variable rate plans!) but are typically pretty low in January.  I'm kicking myself a bit for not doing a 1yr plan instead of a 3mo earlier this year but the $.0525 rate was too hard to pass up and I was a little weary about locking in for too long with a retailer that didn't have any reviews.  In the end, after our 3mo plan ended we locked in a plan for the next year at $.096/kwh which is about 20% lower than the 6 month plan we were on last year, not too bad for a few minutes of poking around on a website.

One other thing to note, you have access to special promotions using websites like powertochoose.org and in my experience you'll see higher rates when going directly through a given retailer's website so keep that in mind as well!

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