Technology Makes It Harder To Save Money

Hugh Pickens writes "LiveScience reports that a survey conducted for the American Institute of CPAs reveals that while more than half of U.S. adults believe technology has made it easier to spend money, just three percent think it has made it easier to save. The research found that Americans who subscribe to digital services spend an average of $166 each month for cable TV, home Internet access, mobile phone service and digital subscriptions, such as satellite radio and streaming video — the equivalent of 17 percent of their monthly rent or mortgage payment. Those who download songs, apps and other products spend an additional $38 per month. 'Our gadgets and connections can bring benefits like mobility and efficiency,' says Jordan Amin. 'But they can also bring financial challenges, like taking money that could go to savings, for instance, or contributing to credit card debt.' If facing a financial crunch, Americans would rather change what they eat than give up their cell phones, downloads or digital TV services. Asked to choose the one action they would most likely take in tight time, 41 percent said they would cut back on eating out, 20 percent said they would cut off cable TV, 8 percent said they would end cell phone service and 8 percent said they would stop downloading songs and digital products."

Comments

translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no lifeguard in the financial gene pool

you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

by giving up TV. With internet access and a mobile phone, you really don't need TV.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I'm from, giving up the basic cable package ($60 a month) is not a "ton" of $.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[internerdj]

Particularly when you lose your bundle discounts and you get fees tacked on for having internet service without the company's primary service installed(cable or phone)...

Re:you can save a ton of $

[dae1]

Unless you like sports. I can let go of cable tv at any time, but I'm too much of a sports freak. And it's more cost effective having cable than subscribing to each sports package for online viewing.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[iPaul]

It depends on where you live. $200 a month is 2,400 a year. When it's 1-2% of your income, it probably doesn't matter. So, you do a little less saving. When it's more like 10%, then it's a problem because you greatly reduce your ability to save.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

Well said. Quoting the article, here's how much I spend on all this crap:

$0 each month for TV (antenna+hulu)
$15 home Internet access
$5 mobile phone service
$0 digital subscriptions, such as satellite radio and streaming video

So I'm spending just $20 a month plus the occasional DVD rental (example: True Blood season 3). There's really no reason to be spending 150 to 200 dollars each month.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Missing.Matter]

What kind of bandwidth do you get for $15?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

true enough. If they ever stream sports from their web sites it is all over for cable tv. Sports is the only thing worth watching, unless like me you don't care about sports.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to watch the multiple games of grab ass between sweaty women.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[mcgrew]

How is giving up TV supposed to save any money? Giving up cable, sure, but all I spend to watch TV is the electric bill and ISP bill (my computer uses the TV as a monitor).

And a mobile phone? I hate watching tiny screens, my TV is forty two inches and it's still too small. And most people have data caps on their phones.

No, technology isn't an impediment to saving, lack of discipline is the impediment to saving.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as I saw this article's title, I knew cpu6502 would be posting a list of how much money he doesn't spend.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anne_Nonymous]

Two bits = a quarter
There are four quarters in a dollar
2*4*15=120

120 bits of bandwidth

Re:you can save a ton of $

[kryliss]

"lack of discipline is the impediment to saving."

This has always been the truth.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

by giving up TV. With internet access and a mobile phone, you really don't need TV.

Depends... many internet providers already caught onto this, and price their internet accordingly (i.e. it's the most expensive component of their bundles)

Verizon FIOS where I live in MD is $89/mo for 25/5.
The "double-play" bundle price is $79 for 25/5 internet, and HDTV.
The HD box rental is $10/mo.

So the choice is literally $89 for intenret, or $89 for internet + HD tv

I previously lived in a Time warner cable area. i.i.r.c. Internet was something like $59/mo, and the TV bundle w/ dvr was something like $79 (only about $20 savings for dropping cable w/ hd dvr... even less if you factor in equipment rental fees)

Re:you can save a ton of $

[__aaeihw9960]

No, technology isn't an impediment to saving, lack of discipline is the impediment to saving.

Ex-fucking-actly. There could be hookers and coke for sale on every street corner I pass, but my own decisions will dictate whether I buy them or not.

It's just like when people talk about certain colleges as party schools. YES, there is drinking in college. YES, most colleges do have bars near them. NO, no one is going to pour it down your throat. Make good choices, and that 'party school' just becomes 'school'. Make good choices, and 'technology makes it harder to save' becomes 'hey, look, my savings account isn't empty because I'm not an idiot.'

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

Why don't you post under your real ID?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[element-o.p.]

They key to having people believe you can predict things is to predict them before they happen.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[craigminah]

A typical iPhone contract will cost roughly $2500 (source: http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/06/iphone-4s-plans-compared-sprint-att-verizon/). You can get a bundle from Comcast that includes TV and phone for $75/month (http://www.allconnect.com/shopping/sc-bundles/bundles.html#selectedTab_bundle2_bundles) and save the difference which would be about $30/month. Or you could reduce frivolous spending by a small amount to make up the difference and live like a king. At the end of the day (and the beginning) technology makes it easier to spend money and easier to track expenditures (e.g. bank sites, mint.com, quicken, etc.) so it all depends on the maturity and responsibility level of the consumer.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[White Flame]

You can save a ton more by eating out less. People can easily spend upwards of $500/mo on restaurants, depending on their habits & tastes.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I'm from, giving up the basic cable package ($60 a month) is not a "ton" of $.

Sure it is. Just figure it all in pennies. $60 a month = 6,000 pennies. 1 US penny is 2.5 grams. 6,000 pennies is 150,000 grams. That is approximately 330 lbs. In approximately 6 months you save 1 US ton (short ton) of money. How is that not a ton?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[ZombieBraintrust]

By cooking your meals and not eating fast food for every meal. Suppose you save $3 a meal and $1 by eating less snacks. That is $10 a day or $300 dollars a month. The extra time investment is no big deal if your unemployed.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Reality Master 301]

+1, agreeing to everything above, including the figures (exactly the same amounts for all four), except I don't do DVD rental, I hate physical media. I got a very strange Fight club feeling until I read that last line...

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

cell phone does not necessarily = iphone, or any smart phone.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Reality Master 301]

I get 100 megabit (in reality ~14MB) down, and 10 megabit (~1.45MB) up. Although the speed varies a little, it very rarely goes below 95% of nominal max, and is usually slightly above the max-speed I pay for.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

People can easily spend upwards of $500/mo on restaurants, depending on their habits & tastes. They can, but they usually don't.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not hard to guess that cpu6502 is someone's grandpa. Makes it an easy prediction that he will talk about how little he spends on entertainment.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Work it out in mills and you can actually figure out how much you get "reamed".

Hint for the clueless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_%28currency%29

Re:you can save a ton of $

[White Flame]

If you can't cook, then chances are you're eating out. $500/mo is just $16/day, which is easily done by grabbing a combo meal & a starbucks on a regular basis. If you're going to a sit-down place, it's easy to spend $16 on just 1 meal, even at something like IHOP, including drink/tax/tip.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[DarkOx]

I don't cable TV because after what is available OTA and on Netflix I value the reaming entertainment i could get from it at about $0 so as little as it would cost I still don't have have it. Last I looked however, shortly before I dropped it the all the major providers have their packages and pricing plans if you have Internet service, than adding basic cable to that will only run you $10; they practically give it away (because its worthless).

So you don't save much there. Netflix is on of the last things I'd cut though if I need to really lower my expenses (like if I was not working or something). The way I figure it is that $7.99/mo is keeping at home and not out spending money. Hell you can barely go for a drive for $7.99 when you consider all the costs! Even the public library likely costs you as much to utilize unless you live near enough to it to walk!

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you live, but near me there's no such thing as broadband for $30/mo. (And the $30/mo broadband is pretty shitty). Cell phone service (feature phone, no data) starts at about $30/mo too.

And these days I'd consider a cell phone and broadband near-necessities. Yes, by many measures they're luxuries, but not having them cuts you off from a lot of the opportunities available in this country (including most white-collar jobs, higher education, and a sense of what's going on in the world).

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

true enough, and the meals would be far more healthy. It is just that I am so glad I cut cable tv. It is not just a question of saving money by not paying to cable, you don't realize how horrible it is until you give it up for a while, and then watch it at someone else's house, or a hotel lobby, airport or whatever. Almost all of cable tv is hideous. You need a decent internet connection and a cell phone (iPhone is nice, but you don't really need one) and you really have your communications needs taken care of.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

>>>It's not hard to guess that cpu6502 is someone's grandpa

I'm in my 30s Mr. anon. coward.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

some of us are eating cheese with fruit juice in the employee break room. some of us are lucky enough to work from home.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on how far the ethernet cable reaches and if you can plug it in.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

Enough to stream hulu and youtube. 1000k. Also downloads movies/shows faster than I watch them (my HDD is full).

Re:you can save a ton of $

[h4rr4r]

I am doing
$0 for TV(HULU and Amazon prime which I had before)
$40 Internet
$150(Two phones with unlimited data)
$20 digital steaming(netflix, I get dvds as well)

How is your cell phone only $5? Is it with a carrier that has national coverage? For reference t-mobile is barely what I would consider national coverage.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Fiber coming my way!

Local small town phone company is installing to the rest of the city after a small test-bed. Current offerings of 50/50 fiber for $90, no data cap and a small static IP *block*. New offering next year, all the way up to 200/200, but a currently unknown price. And I'm in the USA :p They use L3 and have a 10ms ping to Chicago.

ZOMG!

Re:you can save a ton of $

[h4rr4r]

I have FIOS 25/25 and pay less than half of what you are paying. Is there no alternative in your area?

You could pay $79 for the bundle and return the HD box. You would get the clear qam channels still.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Nadaka]

where the hell do you get 100 megabit for $15? I can't even get 56k dialup for $15 (33.6k is a possibility though).

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Shadow99_1]

At least in the US it's getting harder and harder to find a carrier willing to let you use a phne that isn't a 'smart' phone of some kind... Or at least that has been my experience. The only ones I've seen that still have a good number of cellphones are pay as you go companies.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[pnutjam]

haha, they encrypt everything now.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

VirginMobile over the Sprint network. $5==30minutes (I don't talk much) with rollover for unused minutes. It's always worked everywhere I've taken it.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Iniamyen]

Each camp obviously has so many idiots in it, I'm amazed that I can successfully walk the line between being a nerd and enjoying sports, too. Bravo, me.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cayenne8]

Who, these days...needs a land line?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Reality Master 301]

Sweden, student discount, although the approximately same price is possible for non-students if your house / building has access to an open network, and the price is only slightly higher (~20-25$) for 100/100. I'd change ISP in a heartbeat, but I don't have any other option with faster upload, plus the only other option I have goes through POTS (vdsl2) and requires you to _rent_ the modem and still isn't any faster, only more expensive.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

You can save a ton more by giving up sodas and sugarly food, not to mention tobaco products. Make your lunch and you'll save a ton more, not to mention have the ability to eat much healthier. Stop eating out all the time. Stop eating cardboard, ready made dinners. Cut back on your alchol. Set your thermostat to 78 during the Summer.

Seriously, you've be amazed how much more money you'd have if you did most of these, let alone all of these.

I'm constantly amazed at the stupidity of people around me. They complain about not having money and look at me like I'm rich. I look at them like the idiots they are. Of course, they complain while wasting vast amounts of dollars every day, a nickle and dollar at time. It adds ups.

I was onced challenged to prove that I wasn't full of crap by a co-worker. We ran the numbers. He triviallly wasted ~$400/month on bullshit and had nothing to show for it. Needless to say, he changed his life style. For him, that's $4800/year difference by giving up simple stuff he'll rarely miss. That's a modest used car or boat. That's a vacation. That's a pilot's license. That's new furniture. Various home improvement projects. A couple of new laptops. That's a hell of a lot of things. While your savings may not be so great, I bet it would be trivial to put an extra $1-2k in most people's pockets per year - if you need only stop being so lazy and dumb with your money.

Technology hasn't made it harder to save money. Technology has made it easier for people to be stupid with this money. No one wants to take responsibility and technology, all too often, makes it easy to spend and forget without worrying about when, where, or why you're spending all your dollars a nickle and dollar at a time.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[mcgrew]

I'm paying $40 to AT&T for six megabit DSL. No landline, phone, no cable, my cell is with BOOST (another $45).

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

$1 for a McDonalds hamburger times 2/meal times 3 meals == just $6 a day.

As for CATV I see it while traveling hotel-to-hotel and I usually turn it off. It's almost nothing but junk. It's not like the 90s when they filled CATV with actual programmming.... when TLC meant learning channel, History meant history, and sci-fi meant actual sci-fi (granted it was reruns but I had never seen UFO or Time Tunnel before). Now every channel has reality junk.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cvtan]

by giving up cable TV and a smart phone. With over the air TV, internet access and smarter friends you really don't need cable and you don't need to pay twice for the same data services.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cayenne8]

Unless you like sports. I can let go of cable tv at any time, but I'm too much of a sports freak.

Hello!?!?!

That's what bars are for....!!

Go have a few....yell at the tv with friends, and maybe meet a cute girl while out there!!

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Gr8Apes]

The fees tacked on are minor, and the bundle discounts are gamed to not really be discounts. I supposedly get a bundle discount of $10, but amazingly I get an HD fee of $10 a month. Lose the bundle, lose the fee, and the discount - wind up paying roughly what was expected for internet service.

And speaking of all this, I'm about to chop the cable myself, having reviewed what little I watch is all available via OTA, so bought an OTA network receiver for my DVR services and ready to shut off the cable. Oh, and the entire solution has an ROI of less than 8 months and has the additional benefit of not requiring me to phone home on every show I wish to watch nor be limited in any way of how much or how long I store things, nor control how I fast forward or, gasp, even skip, commercials or if there happens to be a crappy portion of a show. Did you know a football game can actually be viewed in about 30 minutes?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>It's not hard to guess that cpu6502 is someone's grandpa

I'm in my 30s Mr. anon. coward.

You horndog generating horndog. You may be a failure as a parent, but quite successful as a genetic distribution mechanism.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Khashishi]

Yeah, but your doctor's bill will trump what you've saved in food costs.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's fucking trash. I haven't watched TV in years. A couple years ago I had to spend a month in jail (for possessing some live plants.) There is nothing to do in there but read or watch TV, and of course the type of people who typically inhabit the place and brain dead TV addicts who are glued to it 24/7. It just shocks and amazes you what fucking garbage it is when you're away from it for a while.

And what shows do the "inmates" choose to watch, from inside this 60s era cell with peeling lead paint walls, blue haze of asbestos floating in the dead air as dim rays of light penetrate the grimy windows? (only half joking) ...? Shows about beautiful fields of grass, escape from oppression, freedom, the man "gettin his"? No: prison shows, of course. Hour after hour of law and order, arrests, incarceration, snitches "gettin theirs"....interspersed with the occasional creative yelling match with some anonymous denizen of a cell down the way. Glorious times were had by all, I can assure you..

Re:you can save a ton of $

[ZombieBraintrust]

True but if you were suddenly unemployed you would get a lot more value out of a cable package. Your use of it could go from a 7 hours a week to 40 hours a week.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Iniamyen]

In my experience, TV is a consumed product, and not a communication device.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[h4rr4r]

I don't talk much either, but last I checked they will not let me bring a phone and their selection sucks for smartphones.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cayenne8]

Enough to stream hulu and youtube. 1000k. Also downloads movies/shows faster than I watch them (my HDD is full).

I'm guessing that pretty much none of that is good HD content? Not 1080p or 1080i

That's my problem with only internet and streaming....I didn't layout a decent bit of cash for a 59" plasma last year...to watch content that wouldn't use the clarity and fidelity of the instrument itself....

Kinda why I don't buy mp3's of music online....I have too good a stereo at home not to buy in best format I can (generally CD)....and then, rip to lower lossy files for environments that are poor ones (iPod at gym, ipod on bike...etc).

Do that many people just now watch tv/movies on little computer monitors, rather than have a nice, large TV or two in the house?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Khashishi]

Snacks are generally a very cheap source of calories, in my experience. You can get a big bag of Lay's chips for like $4. Don't have the numbers on me, but that's probably like 3000 calories. You probably won't save money by cutting out snacks, unless you eat just rice and beans.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cayenne8]

I watch is all available via OTA, so bought an OTA network receiver for my DVR services

Can you elaborate on what receiver you got...and what kinds of programming you can get on it? Is this strictly for local...or are you grabbing stuff off satellites too?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

If I was unemployed cable TV would be the FIRST thing I cut.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Presto Vivace]

true

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Grishnakh]

The thing about party schools isn't that they're going to brainwash you into being a parties; the typical criticism is that a "party school" is one where students are mostly there to party and get an easy degree (the assumption being that students who spend all their time drinking and partying aren't going to excel in difficult classes), so the academic credentials of the school are in question, and a degree from such a school is seen as being inferior because it's supposedly easier to get good grades at such a school than a non-party school.

With the way that most college classes grade on a curve, there's probably a lot of truth to these assumptions. If all your classmates are hung over or didn't study for the exam, even if you get a shitty score, you can end up with an A+ because all your partying classmates got even worse scores. Whereas if you go to a school where the students are all super-serious and don't party, they're going to be much stiffer competition for you, so when you get a 50 on the exam and they all get 90s, the prof isn't going to bother with a curve and your 50 is going to be an F, not an A+ like at the party school.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Nadaka]

Yea. That is not available in America, at all.

Only a few neighborhoods in a few cities have 100megabit services, and those are around $100/month.

Most of America is served by single digit megabit cable and dsl, at $50+/month.

Yay, the power of telephone and cable monopolies.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Grishnakh]

Set your thermostat to 78 during the Summer.
Seriously, you've be amazed how much more money you'd have if you did most of these, let alone all of these.

Here in Phoenix, that's a pretty cold setting for the A/C in the summer.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cayenne8]

YES, there is drinking in college. YES, most colleges do have bars near them. NO, no one is going to pour it down your throat. Make good choices, and that 'party school' just becomes 'school'.

Wait..why would anyone go to college and only study and not enjoy some of the extra-curricular activities out there?

I mean, you are at that last age where society gives you a license to party and act like an idiot.

No, don't let it interfere with your studies, you can make time for both....but sheesh...don't blow off having some of the best times of your life man.

Hell, get out there and get boozed up, and get laid by young girls before society starts trying to tell you you shouldn't be doing that....

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Whorhay]

It's hard to qualify anything from McD's a food. I wonder though if 6 of their cheapo burgers actually meets the 2k callories a day recommendation.

I did put all my spending into a spreadsheet a few years back and realized I was spending around $400 a month on frivolous eating out. That is I was eating out for lunch almost everyday and I wasn't eating on the cheap. I typically only eat from fast food places when I'm on a road trip and just need something fast. Otherwise I'd much rather sit down and actually be waited on.

Anyways the wife and I decided we needed to start saving money. So I cut back on eating out and packed a lunch 4/5 days a week. We killed the satellite TV. We scaled back our internet service since we didn't have three gamers eating up the serives all the time anymore. We canceled all the extras on the land line phone service and bought a cheapo answering machine. I think the only thing we didn't change was the cellphone plan which was already a cheapo no-text no-data plan for one phone that she carries and uses to make long distance calls. Two years later and now we have reduced our debts and hold more than 8 months of net earnings in the bank.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

You were SOOOO close. It's a shame you didn't do it successfully. The last two words did you in. ;)

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cpu6502]

>>>I can let go of cable tv at any time, but I'm too much of a sports freak

(1) Sports is just soap opera for men. Pretty pointless and not worth the $1000/yr cost of cable. (2) There are sports on the broadcast channels... they carry all the key games or races (like the Super Bowl and NASCAR). No need for cable. (3) You can also download many of the games off bittorrent.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you are disinterested in lawfully participating in the culture that surrounds you - like it or not, popular culture is referential and much of what is relevant on television is still not legally freely available on the internet. Give it a few years though....

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not a ton because you math is wrong.
check what 6000 X 2.5 is

Re:you can save a ton of $

[drawfour]

Your math is off a bit. 6000 pennies is 15,000 grams, not 150,000 grams. So your 330 pounds is more like 33 pounds, which means that it takes around 60 months, or five years to save a "ton" of money.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[tepples]

giving up cable TV and a smart phone

Other than a smartphone, what handheld device runs Angry Birds?

internet access

If I were to buy a smartphone and no service, where would I get Internet access? A lot of businesses have stopped providing free WLAN service to customers; the WPA key is for employees only. And where would I get Internet access while riding a bus or waiting for a bus?

and smarter friends

I can't especially pick a smarter family. One household in my survey sample can't do without MSNBC's Morning Joe Brewed by Starbucks and The Rachel Maddow Show, and another can't do without ESPN's Monday Night Football.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[EzInKy]

So $24,000 a decade not counting the interest/dividends it could have been earning? Doesn't sound like chump change to me.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[antdude]

Over the air (OTA) is free if you can get it. ;)

Re:you can save a ton of $

[BryanL]

I think that's right. $15 is abut 3 Happy Meals. Each Happy Meal is only about 5 bites. Eight bits in a byte would make 120 bits.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Kelbear]

Cablevision here in NJ is $99 for cable, telephone, internet.

Want just internet? It's $70.

They already have the monopoly (No FIOS). Just because you don't want to get all the services doesn't mean they can't charge you as if you got all the services anyway. They just cut it down slightly to pretend like the other services were worth something.

I was pissed off enough to tell them I'm canceling and switching to Verizon's achingly slow DSL to save another $10-15, so they knocked the price down and upgraded my internet speed. I'll have to go through the same song and dance next year when that expires.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[chromas]

Hey, now, those TLC/History reality shows are edubational: they show you what's about to happen, then show a couple clips of it happening, then review what just happened. It's just like an essay.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I invest in higher resolution crap? TV is shit and I do not need a bigger pile of it in my home. :)

Re:you can save a ton of $

[TheRaven64]

I pay under the equivalent of $5 for my phone. It's prepay, most of my calls are incoming (so free) and I make outgoing calls when I'm in near WiFi over SIP (much cheaper for calling landlines).

Re:you can save a ton of $

[WastedMeat]

Actually, it sounds a lot like the cost of a college education after about 18 years. I guess people have their priorities though.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

If you can't cook, then chances are you're eating out.

If you can't cook. go buy yourself a slowcooker (Crockpot) and hit Google for some instructions (Recipes) you will thank me.
Slow cooker cooking is so easy that even I can do it. The food that comes out is fantastic. I have never managed to ruin anything I made in mine.
I just do the 15 minutes prep before bed, throw it in the fridge. In the morning I take it out of the fridge, add the water, and start it up. By the time I get home from work I have a delicious dinner waiting for me. Usually with enough left overs to cover me for several more days.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[gmanterry]

Cablevision here in NJ is $99 for cable, telephone, internet.

Want just internet? It's $70.

They already have the monopoly (No FIOS). Just because you don't want to get all the services doesn't mean they can't charge you as if you got all the services anyway. They just cut it down slightly to pretend like the other services were worth something.

I was pissed off enough to tell them I'm canceling and switching to Verizon's achingly slow DSL to save another $10-15, so they knocked the price down and upgraded my internet speed. I'll have to go through the same song and dance next year when that expires.

That's what Cox Cable charged for their bundle, $100.00 for Internet, Phone and TV. Fast forward five years and now it's $150.00. No big increases. Just $0.85 one month $0.67 another month. They never acknowledge a rate increase they just sneak the bill higher by less than a buck every few month. I broke my bundle and replaced the TV with DirecTV and saved $20.00 a month. I am thinking of replacing my phone with Vonage or something. The inflation that the government denies is getting pretty bad. Especially food.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

As an aside, back in the early '90s, I had a coworker who was a grandfather at 37.

Different AC.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

That's my view on the national debt. 1.5 sextillion pennies, but it's just pennies.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[HungWeiLo]

I have the weirdest relationship with slow cookers.

I can make really good food - to the point where my own friends actually offer me money to eat at my place - every cuisine - French, Chinese, Indian, etc.

But every time I try to use a slow cooker to make a simple beef stew, I fuck it up big time. It's always too watery despite following the recipe to the dot.

Maybe mine's broken.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[icebraining]

But why would one want a license to act like an idiot?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[icebraining]

Lack of calories are hardly the problem with McDonald's food. But not all calories are equal (or better said: they are, but the effects depend on the type of food).

Not to mention the lack of all the other stuff, the ultra high salt concentrations, etc.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of New Zealand is served by DSL, with all the speeds implied. If you want 80 gigs/month, you pay $120/month, not including phone line. Right now, the government is giving millions to the company that created this problem (who also argued, on national TV, that competition is a bad idea because it would rob them of their profit margin) so they can install 100 megabit for everyone across the nation. Right now, my town (Dunedin) is being upgraded.

Well, it's being upgraded if you live in the CBD and a few of the wealthy neighbourhoods. The rest of us can go to hell, though.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[zippthorne]

And the down side of pay as you go is....that they don't have a great selection of smartphones....

Re:you can save a ton of $

[zippthorne]

NO, no one is going to pour it down your throat.

That really depends on the party...

Re:you can save a ton of $

[AthanasiusKircher]

Do that many people just now watch tv/movies on little computer monitors, rather than have a nice, large TV or two in the house?

Meh. Some people care more about the overall quality of the experience, rather than the size of the equipment.

Most TV and most films are crap. I don't need crap magnified for me in high fidelity to know what it is. This may not apply to you, but I have noticed a disturbingly high correlation between people with enormous TVs and people who like to watch crap movies mostly consisting of stuff blowing up.

High definition is a bonus to a viewing or listening experience, but it's one of the least important to me. Not important enough for me to shell out thousands of dollars certainly... not even enough to shell out the money for a modern digital flat screen -- I only have one because I was given it as a gift.

But then again, I also think some Classical recordings from the 1940s, or some jazz from the 1930s, or even some Dixieland from the 1920s are fantastic, even though their sound quality, according to modern standards, is complete crap. Some of my favorite classic films (and certainly much classic TV) aren't high enough quality in their original form to even benefit from an enormous monstrosity like your TV.

If I had oodles of money to burn and a small theater in my house, I might invest in a giant TV. But 97% of my viewing experience is based on other things, whose quality is much more important to me.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

If it is too watery, throw in a handful of instant rice, and wait 30 minutes. Problem solved.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[CryptDemon]

My computer is hooked up to my TV. Most of the stuff you get over the air isn't 1080 anyway. Netflix has plenty of HD stuff. I do hulu, netflix, and other streaming sites. Costs me $8 a month. For how much content I get, HD cable can go fuck itself in the ass for all I care. Savings far outweighs the benefit of a super sharp picture.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[fanningj]

You might want to check the available plans that are around. For example, Snap will provide you with a phone line and 255GB for $115 per month, for another $30 you get 555GB Vodafone will give you 120GB with phoneline for $130, Telecom is cheaper still

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

"lack of income is more of an impediment to saving."

This is even more of a basic truth.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Rick17JJ]

I am not really a sports fan, and have never had much interest in having cable TV or satellite TV. Instead of cable, I use a converter box to watch a few digital antenna channels on my old mid-1990s era analog 13 inch TV set.

I have never had much interest in downloading music, and have never done so.

I do own a cell phone, but rarely ever use it. I do not use any extra features such as text messaging.

I now finally have a DSL connection, but up until about 5 years ago, all I had was 26.4k dial-up. I have never used social media. I do occasionally buy and download an occasional e-book for my Kindle. I use Linux and other open source software on my home computer, which is free. I do not spend much on software.

I have continued to have steady secure employment over the last several decades, so I could afford to have cable TV, and to download music, if I really wanted it. But, I am just not interested in having either.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Desler]

Who let grandpa out?

Re:you can save a ton of $

[cayenne8]

But why would one want a license to act like an idiot?

Well.....this is another one of those things, that if you even have to ask, then no one can explain it to you...

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be a big sports fan a while ago, and would rarely miss a game. Ever since I quit cable I found this sportsbar that has a 100 inch big screen and a very good burger. I don't watch all events now but the ones I do, I find to be much more exciting. My friends like it better too. And we all drink a lot less beer now!

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Elldallan]

Parent also doesn't mention is that that there is no bandwidth caps(atleast I've yet to see any swedish ISPs that use bandwidth caps so far). Only mobile internet has bandwidth caps.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[iPaul]

But you could say that about a lot of things. For example, buying an inexpensive car, like a Honda fit, as opposed to an SUV. Or spending money on games, etc. What's missing is the good but affordable option so that a decent option is available at lower price points. It seems like a lot of phone plans or cable plans are almost bait and switch. It might have a cheap plan but only if you order the more expensive bundle.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[justthinkit]

There are too many odd remarks in this post to ignore.

.
(1) Posting in chat forums is just soap opera for men. Sports is more like reality TV, or documentary movies -- both of which I like as well.

(2) Pretty pointless except for how it makes us feel. When we watch something inspiring, we get inspired. Inspired is good. You should try it some time.

(3) ...and worth the $20*12 differential between straight Internet and triple play packaging for those of us that watch more first run sports than rerun movies/TV series.

(4) There are some sports on the broadcast channels but plenty more on non-broadcast channels. Next you will be saying that all we really need to watch is Fox & Disney.

(5) You can also download many of the games off bittorent if you live under a rock. Otherwise you will already know the result of the game, reducing the enjoyment in watching it. How many movies are almost completely unwatchable once you know the outcome? Keyser Soze, I'm looking at you.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[pla]

By cooking your meals and not eating fast food for every meal.

This actually does not hold true anymore, for the most part. You may eat a hell of a lot healthier by cooking for yourself, but realistically, the cost of buying ingredients at the grocery store exceeds the cost of plopping down a few bucks at a non-snooty restaurant.

Case in point - Subway. Try buying just the bread, meat, and cheese that goes into a footlong for under $5. Now add on the extras like a quarter of a tomato, a few sheets of lettuce, a pickle or two, some hot peppers, a hefty squirt of one of their sauces, and to make the same thing at home would likely cost you nearly twice that much, and that doesn't even consider the additional prep time of doing one sandwich for yourself vs having all the ingredients laid out neatly in bins suitable for a sandwich assembly line.

Same goes for a burger - You can't buy an eighth of a pound of ground beef, a slice of cheese, and a burger roll for under a buck, even ignoring the rest of the condiments.

At best, if you buy in bulk from a restaurant supply store, you can probably break even - But you still have the extra time invested, not to mention you'd better damned well like having the same thing for lunch every day for a few months in a row. :)

Now, in fairness, you can save money on preparing your own higher-end meals - Fresh seafood, good Italian, a quality steak. But looking to save money on lunches or fast-food like meals, you just can't realistically do it.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

Set your thermostat to 78 during the Summer.
Seriously, you've be amazed how much more money you'd have if you did most of these, let alone all of these.

Here in Phoenix, that's a pretty cold setting for the A/C in the summer.

In Scotland, that would mean turning the heating ON during the summer. Not sure how that saves money......

Re:you can save a ton of $

[ZombieBraintrust]

I am not talking about a 1 to 1 replacement. You can go into any Grocery and buy 10 single servings pizzas for $10. Or spend a tad more and get get a TV dinner for 2-3$ Or you could start using alot of rice in your meals. Or cook up a large pot of soup and eat it for a week. A large jar of peanut butter and bread can last a long time too.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

More like 1500 calories, and most of those calories are from the vegetable oil.

Raw potatoes (10 lb. bag for $3.49 at Aldi):
10 pounds * (105 kcal / 85 grams) / ($3.49 * 1.08) in kcal/dollar = 1,487 kcal/dollar

Lay's, assuming 10 ounce bag for $4:
10 ounces * (150 kcal / 1 ounce) / ($4 * 1.08) in kcal/dollar = 347 kcal/dollar

At Aldi you'd probably save $2, so double that.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

$1 for McDonalds hamburgers? Luxury!

cpu6502, I'm so disappointed in you. And here you had us believing that you were really a cheap bastard.

I live off of white bread (the cheap stuff -- $0.99/loaf) and yellow mustard ($1.79/bottle store brand) sandwiches, and I'm happy to have them! Works out to about $0.13/sandwich. For a treat, I'll add a slice of deli meat ($0.45/package), raising the cost to $0.16/sandwich. I tell that to kids these days, and they look at me like I'm mad!

Or maybe it's a look of disgust due to the fact that I'm so horribly malnourished; I can never tell which. Doesn't matter anyway -- them damn kids with their Taco Bell and their 4th meals -- they wouldn't know frugality if they starved themselves to death trying to save a buck!

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

No you aren't. If we assume you are at the far end of your 30's (lets use 40 for simplicity), that would mean you were born no earlier than 1972. Considering how you grew up watching Star Trek TOS alongside such people as Steve Jobs (1955) and Bill Gates (also 1955), and that the last episode aired three years before 1972, there is absolutely no way you are as young as you are claiming to be in this post.

Now what I don't understand is why you felt the need to lie about your age here. Are you ashamed of being old enough to be someone's grandpa? Because you shouldn't be.

Re:you can save a ton of $

[Anonymous Coward]

McDonald's nutrition facts

1 hamburger = 250 kcal
6 * 250 kcal = 1500 kcal

So, no. And adding ketchup won't get you much farther (15 kcal/packet). Something like honey mustard or ranch might; you wouldn't typically put them on a hamburger but it wouldn't exactly be horrible.

But really, the sedentary lifestyle that most people have lowers their kcal requirement by a few hundred kcal. They wouldn't starve.

america

[nimbius]

where a $200 cellphone with a multi-year contract of indentured servitude and mandatory upgrades is an essential item
but a meal that costs over $7 and doesnt come with a free cola is a sure sign of the imminent collapse of western civilization at the hands of a communist marxist kenyan muslim.

Re:america

[Ferzerp]

I think the point is that everyone recognizes that there are cheaper alternatives to eating out all the time. You can eat out for $20/meal (not talking fast food), and it's really, really convenient. Do that 3 times a week (or more), and you're spending at least $240/month eating out.

We recognize that the benefit from that $240 (12 meals that we could make for maybe $40 ourselves, but it would be less convenient) is much, much less than the entertainment value of cable, or internet.

I can always make my own meals by buying ingredients and save a huge amount of money (I eat out a lot), but I can't make my own cable service or cell phone service.

It isn't trading food when the subject is eating out. It's trading convenience. You still eat... you just have to prepare it yourself.

Re:america

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to cite me where not getting a free soft drink with a meal has been blamed on Obama?

Re:america

[Anonymous Coward]

You need 3 meals a day, 365 days a year, so that is $7 * 3 * 365 = $7,665 annually. But a $100/month cell phone contract is $1200 annually. Clearly, one would save more by cooking at home than reducing the dataplan. Also, food is tied to energy and commodity prices which is tied to our (de-facto) printing of money and burning our food (ethanol). It is also tied to our overseas agression as the military is a huge waste of fuel. We'd be better off paying every soldier to stay home, stay safe, and not drive/fly into anything.

Inflation is an artifact of a spending problem. Prices should go lower, all other things being equal. Is it harder to produce and transport a loaf of bread to the grocery store now than it was tweny years ago? By all measures, it should be easier.

As regards the article, the way to save money is to be freetard or a pirate (I'm both). Frustrated with a niggling HTPC problem in linux (HDMI audio out), I grabbed an old pair of analog speakers that was gathering dust rather than trying to shoehorn on the aging XP or purchasing Windows 7. Technology also makes it easier to save money. Automatic savings plans, direct deposits, better liquidity for more and more assets. Also ebay and even Froogle make comparison shopping tons easier than it used to be.

My tech budget is $21/month for fiber-optic internet. No cable. No dish. No Hulu/Netfix. I do indulge like with my HDTV antenna DVR but there is no monthly fee and I found more to record than I have time to watch (the marginal value of additional programming is small).

Re:america

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to cite me where not getting a free soft drink with a meal has been blamed on Obama?

It's America. I'm sure someone somewhere has blamed Obama for that kind of thing without a shred of sarcasm or irony.

Re:america

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because of right wing nutjobs like you that caused the increase. You fuck.

Re:america

[cpu6502]

Envy for what other people have is also a factor. My brother had a "spending spree" and went-out to get a new phone. The salesman conned him to sign a contract for $110 cell service. After he told me that I said "That's nuts cause you can get the same thing for about 60. Or 3 gigs for $35." I recommended he cancel it before the 7 day trial period ends, but of course he didn't. He said he wanted to try mobile internet like his coworkers have.

Now he complains about the bill every month, so I say "I don't want to hear it."

Re:america

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you Republican. Your wars and your bailouts have caused this nation to sink into debt. What the president has done has profited America.
 
Go cry on Bush's shoulder while we take back our country and our civil liberties. You can't do fucking anything about it.

Re:america

[DocSavage64109]

Compared to how many $7 meals + drinks you consume in a month, the cellphone can be downright cheap.

Re:america

[h4rr4r]

Your side? Politics is not a team sport you moron.

The USA is far from a peoples republic. If anything we are closer to right wing state than that. Both are hyperbole to the Nth degree.

Re:america

[h4rr4r]

Where is this 3GB for $35 plan?

Re:america

[Grishnakh]

Hey stupid, Obama didn't pull out of the wars, and instead started a third one and massively increased involvement in another one. He (and more significantly his party) were instrumental in the bail-outs. Remember, the bail-outs started just before Bush left office; this was when Congress was controlled by.... Democrats!

As for civil liberties, it's Obama who's massively increased the power of the TSA.

If you actually think there's any significant difference between the Republicans and the Democrats with regard to wars, bailouts, and debt, you're a complete moron. The only difference between the two is which groups they pander to. The Reps pander to the religious nuts. The Dems pander to the unions, the liberals (I mean the people on the street who actually have real liberal values, not the politicians who claim to be liberal), etc. Then in office, they both simply work for the lobbyists with the most money to give to their swiss bank accounts.

Re:america

[Grishnakh]

I don't know about that, but these days T-mobile has an unlimited* data plan for $50/month, or $60/month if you get a subsidized phone, if you get two phones on this plan. For couples, it's a pretty decent deal.

*"unlimited" is actually limited to I think 4GB, but if you go over that, there's no fee, they just drop you down to 2G speeds until the next monthly billing cycle.

Re:america

[Gr8Apes]

I can always make my own meals by buying ingredients and save a huge amount of money (I eat out a lot), but I can't make my own cable service or cell phone service.

And apparently the cable companies have another successful convert.

There's this whole method of receiving HDTV that has 15 Mbps streams, 5.1 audio, is not subject to "authorization" from a centralized authorization server nor has limits on whether you can record the stream, edit it, or store it that is also free: OTA. For the rest, you can get a Netlfix, Hulu, or Vudu account or use Redbox or BlockBuster, and you're good to go for a fraction of the cost of cable. Cable has kept jacking their prices up to keep their revenues increasing, so they can keep their shareholders happy, which in turn caused content producers to demand a bigger piece of the broadcasting pie, which has turned into a vicious unsustainable price escalation as far as consumers are concerned.

The only way it will stop is when enough consumers cut the cable and bail. If you think it cannot happen, it's already happened with landlines, and cable is already losing subscribers as a whole, there are a few major players at this point, the market's saturated, and the only "growth" a provider can generate is through a combination of cannibalizing another providers subscribers and/or raising rates. Given that people are already bailing on cable, going with OTA and/or streaming options, you'll note that all of a sudden we're facing ridiculously low caps on data per month to the point where even streaming a few Netflix HD movies starts seriously putting you near your cap.

Re:america

[Anonymous Coward]

Eating tasty food that I do not have to cook has a great entertainment value to me. Plus it's going to be much healthier than what I'm willing to make at home, and the mental-health benefit of getting out of my couch and meeting actual people. It's definitely worth the money, much more than TV (I don't own one any more).

Also if you are interested in your savings, you should compare the price of restaurant with your own hourly price. You could use your cooking time for your business and use some of the extra dollars to order better food.

Re:america

[zippthorne]

Prepaid

That one's only 2.5 GB, I'm pretty sure tmobile has better plans but their website is atrocious. As are the websites of most phone companies, prepaid or not. Virgin seems to be the easiest to actually find the price tables (though, they still hide them, and have split the two kinds of plans into separate areas despite actually being available for all the phones...) The other prepaid plans I'm aware of are comparable, though.

um, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The term "technology" is being used in a particularly ill-defined manner.

Money itself is a technology.
It should be clear that spending money is only possible if money exists...
I think you see where I'm going with this.

Bundles and termination fees

[Anonymous Coward]

"41 percent said they would cut back on eating out, 20 percent said they would cut off cable TV, 8 percent said they would end cell phone service and 8 percent said they would stop downloading songs and digital products."
If I cut my TV service my phone bill goes up, if I cut my phone my TV bill goes up. If I cut either I have to pay a fee to terminate the contract. Of course I'm going to cut back on eating out.

Re:Bundles and termination fees

[King_TJ]

Very true! But I've never been one to accept those bundles in the first place. Our local cable company (Charter) is constantly trying to market bundled internet/TV/phone in a "Triple Play" package -- but reading the fine print, one realizes it's not possible to select one of the faster broadband internet speeds with that bundle. As soon as you try, they won't give you the special pricing anymore and you have to order the services separately (at regular prices). AT&T wants to bundle your services together with U-Verse as well, but again, it's not a good value anyway. Rather than pay what comes out to $24.95 per month for their VoIP telephone bundled with U-Verse, I can pay under $19 per month to PhonePower for their stand-alone VoIP service (which is great because they even have an iPhone app and a Mac OS X or Windows app which allows making VoIP calls through the service from anywhere you have a wifi connection).

Service contracts with early termination penalties are another matter, and often, there's really no economical way around them if you want the services in the first place. (I've tried the cellphones from companies like Cricket that have no contract, but the phones they let you pick from are sub-standard, and their networks are proprietary enough so other handsets can't physically work on their network. Pay as you go on the big name cell networks is more expensive to use than a contract deal too in every case I've seen, unless you're assuming you'll need to shut service off in less than a year.)

But regardless of all of this? Yeah, if it came down to it, I'd rather just skip eating out and find cheaper food at the store than shut off one of these communications services. Why's that so shocking to people? I'm not saying I'd rather starve than turn off my phone. I'm just thinking I get more value out of things like my internet connection or cellphone than I do out of letting someone prepare a meal for me that I select off a list.

Steam Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to pay $20+ for computer games. Then technology enabled Steam sales. Now I never pay $20+ for a game.

Re:Steam Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to pay $40 for boxed games around 2000, now they're $60. Adjust for 12 years of 4% inflation, which is +60%, I'm paying slightly less at $60 in 2012 than I did at $40 in 2000. But yes, Steam.. f'n sweet.

On Cell Service

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd LOVE to get rid of my cell phone but today's job market requires me to have access to a phone to set up interviews and such. I wish it could all be done through e-mail but that's just not the case. And screw a land line. If I'm going to be extorted, I'll be extorted with a phone that isn't stuck in my wall.

...not quite it...

[raydobbs]

People are willing to change what they eat because their cell phones plans have steep early termination fees if you drop your level of service - same with your digital television or broadband connection. Temporarily changing your dietary desires is much more simple - not a sign of technology addiction, more a sign of service charge and penalty avoidance.

Re:...not quite it...

[zero0ne]

Cutting out a single night out at a restaurant will almost always end up covering the cost of that month's cell phone bill.

Re:...not quite it...

[CanHasDIY]

Cutting out a single night out at a restaurant will almost always end up covering the cost of that month's cell phone bill.

Where the hell do you live, that a single meal costs upwards of $100-200??? Shit, the wife and I spend that much* on food a week!


*To OP's credit, I live in the midwest where the cost of living is significantly lower than elsewhere in the country.

Re:...not quite it...

[wmbetts]

If you have kids you either spend $25 to $50 for a babysitter, gas at over $4 a gallon, and the price of the meal. If you don't use a babysitter you then pay the same or more for the food your kids will eat. I can't goto a movie for under $70 any more. I'm not complaining about it, because it's just a fact of life. I wanted to have a wife and kids and I knew that it would be costly. I'd rather spend the money on cable tv and internet as our primary forms of entertainment. Sure, it sounds expensive when you hear $200 a month for the cable and internet bill, but in reality it's the cheaper form of entertainment for a family. I also have 2 WoW accounts (currently the only game we play) for my wife and myself. Raiding together or pvping in a bg or arena to us is a lot more fun than going out all the time. It's also a lot cheaper and gives us something we can always do together as a couple.

Re:...not quite it...

[CanHasDIY]

Always forget about the kid angle... a side effect of not having any, I suppose.

Re:...not quite it...

[Hatta]

Sure, it sounds expensive when you hear $200 a month for the cable and internet bill, but in reality it's the cheaper form of entertainment for a family

The library is free. Crayons cost $2. You can get a soccer ball or scrabble board for $20. You can feed a dog for $60 a month.

TV and internet doesn't even come close to being the cheapest form of entertainment.

Re:...not quite it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, that's a typical Friday night for the two of us with drinks and dinner here in Beantown. just sayin'...

Re:...not quite it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you sound like a good man. God bless you and your family.

Re:...not quite it...

[Grishnakh]

For a good restaurant around here (Phoenix), you're going to be paying close to that much for two people, each with a glass of wine, after tip. There's plenty of sit-down places that are cheaper, maybe $50-60 for two, but the food is shittier and the service sucks (they come back to your table every 5 minutes to ask you "how's that tasting for you?", interrupting your conversation).

Food quality has gotten so bad at less-than $30/plate restaurants these days, at least in this area, that it just isn't worth going out much any more, and the service around here is abysmal at all but the most expensive restaurants (like Salt Cellar in Scottsdale).

Re:...not quite it...

[CanHasDIY]

Damn.

I feel bad for anyone living on minimum wage in that region.

Here in the Ozarks, 2 people can have a fine dinner at an upscale local joint for around $60, including drinks and a nice gratuity.

You should come pay us a visit sometime; you'll like how far your dollar goes, and we'll be glad to have your business.

Re:...not quite it...

[Grishnakh]

There's plenty of "upscale" local joints here for $60 too, it's just that their quality of food and service isn't worth $60 to me any more. Food quality seems to have gone downhill in the last 10-20 years (esp. lately with the devaluation of the currency: but instead of seeing big inflation, instead we're seeing everything getting cheaper and crappier as companies cut corners on everything so they don't have to raise their prices), and maybe it's just the Phoenix area, but the service around here is ghetto, though I'm not sure it's better anywhere else besides places like NYC. American waiters for the most part don't seem to understand the concept of watching their tables to see if people need anything, and instead want to run around and interrupt your conversation to ask you if there's anything you need, every 5 minutes. I'm not paying a lot of money so I can talk to some stupid waiter, I'm paying to be served, which means having someone anticipate my needs and meet them without me having to tell them every little thing (i.e., if my water glass is low, fill it up; if I'm looking around, obviously looking for the waiter, come then and ask what I need). Traditional French restaurants know how to provide this kind of service, but stupid American restaurants don't, except in the truly fine-dining places, rather than the fake (frequently chain) fine-dining places where they try to make the restaurant look "upscale", but still have the same style of lowbrow service that a typical road house has.

Re:...not quite it...

[Rolgar]

My wife has recently proposed a babysitting exchange. Feed the kids and drop them off at a friends house for an evening. On a different night, return the favor by watching the friends' kids in return.

We haven't actually done this yet, but we may try in a month or two.

Re:...not quite it...

[wmbetts]

I didn't say cheapest, but a cheaper form. Yes, I do those things also and they're fun our favorite games currently are Sorry and Trouble. The kids are still a little young for scrabble or risk, but I'm looking forward to playing it with them in the next couple of years.

Re:...not quite it...

[wmbetts]

That's a really good idea. I wouldn't even mind feeding my friends kids if they came over in time for dinner. We're planning on moving back home so we can be closer to our friends and family. Their grandparents would be offended if we had a babysitter and they were available.

Change what you eat?

[Hatta]

Good. Humans don't need meat every day anyway.

Re:Change what you eat?

[rrohbeck]

Worse:
All red meat is risky, a study finds
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/13/health/la-he-red-meat-20120313

Re:Change what you eat?

[danomac]

Where I am fresh fruits and vegetables cost far more than most meats...

Re:Change what you eat?

[Hatta]

No problem. You can get the bulk of your calories and proteins through delicious rice and beans. And those cheap flash frozen packs of veggies contain more vitamins than the fresh veggies that were picked before they were fully ripe and trucked across the country anyway.

Re:Change what you eat?

[Gordonjcp]

And all water is risky, and all vegetables are risky, and all air is risky...

You can find a study that will make any point you want. There are undeniable ecological benefits in only eating things produced near where you live. For much of the world, that includes "unhealthy" carbohydratey potatoes, and "unhealthy" proteiny red meat. It's a bit of a bummer, but it still makes more sense than shipping soya beans half-way round the world only to throw most of them out processing them into something humans can just about digest.

Re:Change what you eat?

[Chrisq]

And all water is risky, and all vegetables are risky, and all air is risky...

Next you're going to be telling us that death is inevitable

Re:Change what you eat?

[couchslug]

"Good. Humans don't need meat every day anyway."

Word! My sister does physical rehab, and MANY of her patients are morbidly obese fat slobs who lived/live on a diet of HFCS products and meat.

Moderation in all things, not for me, PETA, or Gaia, but because when you fuck up your body it stops working properly and you will suffer misery that no amount of the slop you eat can assuage.

Re:Change what you eat?

[Hentes]

This. People preferring information over food is not the start of the end, but a sign that our race is advancing.

Re:Change what you eat?

[danomac]

It's not an issue for me personally, but most families I know of cut fruit and vegetables out before meat due to price. Rice has gone up a lot here as well.

That's all I meant to point out.

Re:Change what you eat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Frozen vegetables are as or more nutritious than fresh (especially fresh that's been sitting around or spending long times in transit). Okay, they're not as tasty, but they work well in various types of dishes, such as curries and other sauce-based recipes. Add in canned beans/chickpeas for protein, and you'll have no problem cutting your meat consumption down.

Re:Change what you eat?

[Hatta]

Right, and I was pointing out that they could switch to dried and frozen vegetables which are cheaper and equally nutritious.

Re:Change what you eat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe *you* don't, but I do.

So you go graze over there and I'll gnosh over here, mmmkay?

Re:Change what you eat?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Good. Humans don't need meat every day anyway."

Word! My sister does physical rehab, and MANY of her patients are morbidly obese fat slobs who lived/live on a diet of HFCS products and meat.

Moderation in all things, not for me, PETA, or Gaia, but because when you fuck up your body it stops working properly and you will suffer misery that no amount of the slop you eat can assuage.

An anagram of sausage! Delicious meats....

In the sense that there is more "stuff" now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I probably spend more on gadgets and electronic parts than I would if we didn't have any of those things.
But I don't have a crystal ball to say what else, if anything, I'd be spending my money and free time on, if there wasn't a whole world of electronics. Maybe I'd spend more time and money on other hobbies, like music.
As far as subscriptions, I pay for phone and internet, and nothing else. Those comics and jokes about not paying 99c for an app or a subscription to watch movies? I'm that guy.

Re:In the sense that there is more "stuff" now...

[Joce640k]

what else, if anything, I'd be spending my money and free time on, if there wasn't a whole world of electronics. Maybe I'd spend more time and money on other hobbies, like music.

Don't let the RIAA hear you say that...they'll have you 'silenced'.

Power, Water, Shelter make saving hard too

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like power, water, and shelter; communication both for social and economic reasons is not an option, it is a requirement of being a member of society.

While there may, in enlightened countries, be either competition or mandated platforms (like local roadways are); the US is really lacking in this department and the various monopolies and duopolies know it.

Who needs all that stuff?

[arcite]

Just get a decent connection for say $50 and bittorrent the rest. =)

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[Zico]

Or add on to a friend or family members unlimited sprint account, that will cover your phone and net access at a modest price, then yes torrent, share netflix+hulu accounts, hell throw in 40 bucks once for an antenna,over the air DTV is very good. You could have unlimited consumption of stuff you'd actually like to watch for next to nothing.

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[kryliss]

I can make an antenna for about 5 bucks that beats almost anything they put out for sale.

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[Methuseus]

Please post a link to how to make it. i would love to, but don't know how to verify a certain construction's validity as a design.

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[Grishnakh]

That works fine for replacing cable TV (much better than fine, actually), but it'll only save you about $8/month for a Netflix subscription, and make it much more difficult to watch movies that aren't highly popular and/or new. It doesn't work at all for cellphone bills. Unfortunately, cellphone service is very expensive here compared to, say, Europe, and since there isn't much competition there's not much we can do about it.

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[olau]

Unfortunately, cellphone service is very expensive here compared to, say, Europe, and since there isn't much competition there's not much we can do about it.

Don't chat in the phone? In fact, don't buy a phone at all? Works for me. :)

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[Grishnakh]

Well if you're single and you just work as a barista or something, that probably works fine for you. For those of us with high-paying professional jobs, not being available on the phone, and not having a cellphone (esp. when you're traveling to meet customers), is not an option if you want to stay employed. And those of us who are married like being able to reach our spouses at any time in case there's a problem, instead of only being able to talk to them in person at home (remember, pay phones are mostly extinct these days).

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[jones_supa]

What's your high-paying professional job, then? If you are talking about yourself and it is OK to ask...

Re:Who needs all that stuff?

[Grishnakh]

Software engineer, like half of Slashdot's membership.

Americans priorities are wrong...

[who_stole_my_kidneys]

should be the title of this article. In a country where it is considered good to be on "The Jersey Shore" and bad to be a "Geek", its no wonder there is a economic crises. Its just amazing to see people in the unemployment line playing a game on their $600 iPad, or Driving a $70K car into a trailer park.

Re:Americans priorities are wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know for a fact that the guy driving that $70k didn't pay for it in cash? Maybe he had something bad happen to him that cost him his job and all of his savings and he's holding on to that car, because it's the only thing he has left from that life? That's exactly what happened to me and I keep the car I have, because it reminds me that things will get better and I will be back to where I was.

No big secrets here

[husker_man]

Big thing is to first know where you are spending money, and then categorize your expenses into what is a can't-do without, must have, nice to have, and frivolous buckets. You need to put about 10% of your income into a long-term retirement fund, and have (ideally) six months of living expenses in a money-market or savings account (Must have). You need to put a certain amount of money aside each month for certain necessities (housing, required food, loan payments) (can't do without (unless you're living in your parent's basement)). Most of the rest of it tends to be the nice-to-have (like cell phones, phone lines, new clothes, eating out).

I would agree that cable internet is indispensable to me for work purposes, and would be one of the last things that I would cut back on in the event of a major problem (like losing a job).

I pay about $225 for phone service, cell phone service, and satellite service, with another $50 for cable internet (total of $275). I've looked at getting rid of the home line and going strictly cell phone, but my spousal overlord unit isn't ready to do that yet, and with three teenagers in the house, I expect my telephone costs to be going up here until they move out of the house.

Re:No big secrets here

[Ichijo]

I pay about $20 per month for my no-contract cell phone, including data, because I'm on a pay-as-you-go plan, and I use my $20 per month VoIP landline whenever I need to make a call. Before Google Voice, if a call came through on my cell and I thought it would be a long call, I would ask to call the person back, but now I just take the call on the landline. Total cost for phone service: $40 per month.

I don't advise getting rid of the landline because it might tempt you to switch your cell phone to a much more costly unlimited plan.

Re:No big secrets here

[KalvinB]

MagicJack is all of about $30 a year.. TracFone is probably the cheapest pre-paid plan you can get. You can call 911 even if you don't have any minutes or service days left. If the kids want more minutes have them earn them. Otherwise, 911 is all you as a parent really care they can use. I recently switched from TracFone to Virgin Mobile which is also pre-paid, no contract stuff. $37 a month for unlimited data and 300 talk minutes. Kids mostly text anyway and that's part of the unlimited data. I barely manage to use the 300 minutes of talk time.

Personally, I only care about what bills come in. That's my budget. Anything I earn above that is negotiable for where it goes. I look at my bills and see which I can get rid of. Subtract bills from income (not food or gas) and that's the money you can split between food, gas and fun.

Depending on how old you are, saving money now could be a waste of time. Inflation makes your current dollars worth pennies when you retire. I plan to wait until I'm 45 to even begin saving. That gives me about 15 years to pay off debt instead. I'll be entirely debt free (house and all) which will make the 20 years of saving add up ridiculously fast and I'll easily have a million even without counting interest. And that will be 35 years into the future millions. Not current day millions that will be worthless in 35 years. My current rate of return for paying off debt is about 6.5% guaranteed. I can guarantee significantly more than that with investments so my best investment is mathematically just paying off debt.

Also my year 45 dollars will be worth a lot more than my current year 32 dollars when I'm living year 65.

Also teenagers can get jobs. Set a price limit and make them get jobs if they want something fancier.

Re:No big secrets here

[legont]

You need to put about 10% of your income into a long-term retirement fund. , and have (ideally) six months of living expenses in a money-market or savings account (Must have).

There is a catch though. If the US people really switch to 10% savings rate, we'll get Great Depression 2.0 and 6 month savings will be way too low. It's called Paradox of thrift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
That's why the only sound strategy is to save yourself, but push others to spend. Unfortunately it does not work long term either because saved money is a form of credit to said others and sooner or later they will default.

Re:No big secrets here

[olau]

. You need to put about 10% of your income into a long-term retirement fund, and have (ideally) six months of living expenses in a money-market or savings account (Must have).

If we're discussed being financially sound, here's another tip I recently discussed with a coworker. if you own the place you live, consider setting aside some money for renovating said place. The housing association I live in (it's a group of rented houses) does this, and it actually makes a lot of sense.

If you think about it, many things in a house needs periodical replacements, e.g. windows (20-30 years?), roof (50 years?), bathroom and kitchen (30 years?). If you set aside the money when you're planning your income, you won't have to think hard about whether you deserve a new kitchen or not, and your property will stay up-to-date and not lose value over time. Long-term, it may make you more happy than most other ways of burning the money. I don't think it's really that hard to do, and if nothing else will probably give a much more precise idea of the real cost of owning a place besides mortgage and housing tax.

Re:No big secrets here

[Anonymous Coward]

GoogleVoice/Googletalk has been "free" for the past couple years, and works without a PC, unlike MagicJack.
Page Plus service is $10 / 120 days - far cheaper than TracFone.
Telna is even cheaper if you do low-volume texting.

Re:No big secrets here

[AthanasiusKircher]

Also my year 45 dollars will be worth a lot more than my current year 32 dollars when I'm living year 65.

Sorry, but what the heck are you talking about?

I agree that if the interest rate on your debt is higher than you could get in investments, pay down the debt first. That's a no-brainer. But at current interest rates, I'd try to get that interest rate for your debt lowered somehow.

Anyhow, your "current day millions" won't be worthless in 35 years if you invest them in anything that can at least keep pace with inflation. With even a minimal investment strategy, you should be able to beat inflation by at least a few percent, which means by the time you're 45, your "year 32 dollars" will be worth a lot more in "year 45 dollars" than the money you're actually earning in "year 45 dollars."

Example: inflation rates for the past century have averaged between 3 and 4%, so let's just say 3.5%. If you have a moderate allocation for an investment portfolio (nothing crazy or risky), you should be able to get at least double that annual return. Let's say you manage to get 7% on average.

You're now 32. You invest $1000. When you are 45 years old, at 7% growth rate, you will have $2410.

Meanwhile, inflation grows at about 3.5%, so $1000 in year 32 dollars is now $1564 in year 45 dollars.

For every dollar you invested in year 32 dollars, you now have 2410/1564 = $1.54 in year 45 dollars.

It's a good idea to pay down debt, but the other assertions you make about how your current dollars will be worth nothing in the future are just silly.

so true...

[drkoemans]

the difference is I'm spending more of my money on the product and less on time and acquisition. Where I would need to drive to as many as 3 or 4 stores to find (or just as likely not find) a product I'm looking for, I can now order it on my lunch break and it's at my house the next day. It's never been easier to spend my money but I can find reviews to buy the right product for my need, I have more direct access to the company that provides the warranty or tech support, I can comparison shop to find the lowest price and I don't have to buy gas to pick it up. I'd call that a fair trade.

DUH!!!!!!!

[rjejr]

I remember starting grad school 20 years ago spending $1,400 on a little 1 piece Compaq Presario and thinking - "Good thing for credit cards or nobody could buy a computer." And then I realized - there will always be "the next big thing' in technology for people to spend money on. Bigger tvs. Even bigger tvs. Flat screen tvs. 3D tvs. Sony Walkmans, mp3 players, iPods, iPads, notebooks, Netbooks, cell phones, smart phones, dial-up, broadband. I'm not saying it's all for the worse, nor am I putting on my tinfoil hat, but I'm pretty sure theirs a good correlation between the explosion of consumer electronics and the explosion of credit card debt.

Re:DUH!!!!!!!

[__aaeihw9960]

I think I might have the explanation for why there's always a next big thing in technology: R&D and Engineering? Technology has gotten better in the past 20 years? That's less of a conspiracy, and more of a fact.

If I had my current pc when I was starting school, I would have thought it was from outer space. Hell, my phone has more power than my first desktop pc. It's not that it's a massive conspiracy to make money, it's that companies that make the technology want to stay in business, so they innovate.

Saying that there is a conspiracy to make us buy new technology is like saying there is a conspiracy to switch from stone tablets to paper.

But I do agree with the correlation between the explosion of consumer electronics and credit card debt. I don't know why, but that just seems right. There's unprecedented access to credit, but we're still operating as if credit cards are cash money in our pocket. Schools need to (some are, poorly) improve the financial literacy offerings they currently have. We didn't cover credit cards when I was in high school, but then again, I would have been instantly denied at age 18. Anymore, 18 year olds will get one, charge it up and watch their credit scores tank.

Re:DUH!!!!!!!

[mattack2]

No, the explosion of credit card debt is people too stupid to save up for something.

(BTW, I use credit cards daily... because they're cheaper AND more convenient than cash. I auto pay in full every month.)

Thats funny....

[Eldragon]

I could have sworn it was getting taxed on the .01% interest earned on my savings account that made it hard to save money.

Re:Thats funny....

[Zico]

Why even save? It's the responsible ones the fed hurts; interest rates should be upwards of 20% instead of the bullshit we have now.

Re:Thats funny....

[toddestan]

It's game to prop up the markets by forcing anyone who wants any return on their money to move from safe investments to riskier ones like stocks. It's all a bubble and will come crashing down at some point.

Anomaly Here

[deweyhewson]

I can certainly see how, for the majority of people, this is the case. It is certainly easier to shoot money off here and there almost on a whim for various things we would have just gone without before.

For me, though, I'd have to say that technology has made it easier to save. Cash has always tended to burn a hole in my pocket until I find a way to get rid of it, but being able to just have a set of numbers show up in my accounts and move them around with ease has relieved most of that spendcrazy drive while making it more satisfying to move that money into my savings.

I suspect the true root here isn't that technology itself is to blame for the lack of saving, but that people are driven to spend, spend, spend anyway, and technology has made it far easier to do so without ever even leaving the couch. If you're not motivated to save already, technology isn't going to help you, I think.

Re:Anomaly Here

[stewbee]

I suspect the true root here isn't that technology itself is to blame for the lack of saving, but that people are driven to spend, spend, spend anyway, and technology has made it far easier to do so without ever even leaving the couch. If you're not motivated to save already, technology isn't going to help you, I think. Along these lines is pretty much what I was thinking, but I will expand on it. By having such conveniences as the internet, there is a lower threshold for impulse buying. there is no need to go the brick and mortar shop anymore. And the transaction is more of an abstraction than it ever was before when actually having to go to a retail shop to purchase something, where you grab for you wallet and either pay in cash or credit card. Now I just type a few letters and numbers on the keyboard, and viola, I have something new and shiny to consume. I know that I too am not immune to this. There are probably things that I wouldn't have bought otherwise without the convenience of the internet. I am just fortunate that I have enough restraint to keep from going hog wild. Unfortunately, most Americans aren't good at self restraint :(

Re:Anomaly Here

[stewbee]

I suspect the true root here isn't that technology itself is to blame for the lack of saving, but that people are driven to spend, spend, spend anyway, and technology has made it far easier to do so without ever even leaving the couch.

ARRGH! The one time I don't hit preview and I fsck up the HTML. Here is a clearer version of my post.

I think. Along these lines is pretty much what I was thinking, but I will expand on it. By having such conveniences as the internet, there is a lower threshold for impulse buying. there is no need to go the brick and mortar shop anymore. And the transaction is more of an abstraction than it ever was before when actually having to go to a retail shop to purchase something, where you grab for you wallet and either pay in cash or credit card. Now I just type a few letters and numbers on the keyboard, and viola, I have something new and shiny to consume. I know that I too am not immune to this. There are probably things that I wouldn't have bought otherwise without the convenience of the internet. I am just fortunate that I have enough restraint to keep from going hog wild. Unfortunately, most Americans aren't good at self restraint :(

Some day in the future people will look back...

[dryriver]

Some day in the future people will look back at the 2010s and be shocked/surprised: "People had to pay a lot of money to simply make a few voice-calls over long distances back then? Really? And they also paid money to go on the internet? How weird! OMG, people back then also had to pay money to watch a few low-resolution TV-streams of some movies... The world must have been sooo backward back then... Thank God we were born long after that peculiar time." This requires a future, of course, where society is advanced enough to grant new rights, like "The right to communicate over long distances. The right to access the internet. The right to access popular audio-visual cultural products that are broadcast or streamed." Our backward capitalist societies will likely strike these future people as "Backward, brutal, mean". =)

Re:Some day in the future people will look back...

[cpu6502]

Sorry but you don't have a nature-given right to take other people's money, property, or resources. For example you cannot force me to open my wallet, like a thief, and pay for your phone service. You only have a right to your body (because you own it) and what nature gives free of charge (like air, sunlight, etc).

Re:Some day in the future people will look back...

[betterunixthanunix]

This requires a future, of course, where society is advanced enough to grant new rights

Which is not where we are going. We are busy killing existing rights, rendering them useless, as well as deploying increasingly many computer systems whose owners need the permission of someone else just to run a program. The next generation will indeed be shocked by today's computer climate:

• You mean you could use a computer without having to pay for a monthly service plan?
• You did not need to present photo ID to get a computer? You did not have to use your legal name online?
• You actually owned your computer? You did not just own a terminal for connecting to computers owned by the computation companies?
• You were allowed to copy files without first getting permission from the copyright control and enforcement agency?
• You were allowed to run your own email server, without getting a license?
• People were outraged when books were removed from their computers without their permission?
• You were allowed to write and run your own software without having to pay a year programming fee?

• Hackers won round #1 with the PC, and round #2 with the Internet. Hackers are losing round #3, as governments and corporations focus increasing effort and money on taking back control of computers and computer networks. There is just too much profit to be had from it.

Re:Some day in the future people will look back...

[Anonymous Coward]

My hope for future generations will be when they're watching old video of our present, when the kids ask the parents, "Back then in the days of The Oil Wars, why were the people always passing papers with numbers on them back and forth between them?" And the parents will have no idea.

Re:Some day in the future people will look back...

[Ken_g6]

We also have to pay money for the "right" to eat, and not go hungry, to heat and light our homes - even to own the property a home is on. I expect we'll have to pay for internet service too.

Although, if food was so available that we didn't have to pay for it, that would solve a lot of problems.

Re:Some day in the future people will look back...

[Nethead]

You were allowed to run your own email server, without getting a license?

Having run large email services on both the corporate and ISP sides, you might not get much fight from me on that.

I'm sure that people from 100ish years ago would be shocked to hear that I need a license to run a transmitter of any real power. Maybe the future of geek networking will be like ham radio. Pass a various tests to prove that you know enough not to shit on the environment and you get more and more permissions. Ham radio already has 44/8 on the IP side, maybe a nice chunk of IPv6 space for amateur network use will come in to play.

Look at how radio developed with all the differentiated services that require licenses. Buying RF bandwidth? You already have to "buy" your IP space from ARIN (or whatever you local IR is) and prove that you know how to use it correctly, if you want a big chunk that you announce (broadcast) yourself. Need something for your business? There's Part 90 channels (static IPs) from your radio shop (ISP.) Need something for the home consumer? Ya got yer Part 15 FRS radios (RFC 1918) crap for that.

Then there are the companies that already straddle the two worlds: cell carriers.

I would look to the history of radio for a future history of networking regulation.

Maybe a good thing

[Baloroth]

This might actually help solve the obesity problem. If American's can't afford to eat out because they are spending too much money on tech, maybe they will eat healthier homemade food. One can hope.

Oh, and technology doesn't make it more "difficult" to save money, it just makes it easier to spend a lot of money. I can save my money just as well with technology as after. More, actually, since technology gives you lots of cheap or free entertainment, which is less money spent in bars or going out to movies or on gas.

Also helps that I don't own a smartphone or iPad. Don't need one, either. I do have a wifi-equiped MP3 player: no monthly contract, and works for 90% of the things I would need a smartphone for. A messenger phone works for the rest.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[RodBee]

This might actually help solve the obesity problem. If American's can't afford to eat out because they are spending too much money on tech, maybe they will eat healthier homemade food. One can hope.

Or they will buy money-saver frozen meals. You know, the ones full of salt and trans fat. Then they will get fat AND cancerous.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[sdguero]

Unfortunately it doesn't solve the problem of healthy food being far more expensive than McDonalds.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[White Flame]

If healthy food is more expensive than McDonald's, then you fail at basic shopping.

Seriously, I'm not talking about coupon-cutting crazies, just plain, regular shopping that can give you large, great meals for under $5 that blow the socks off a more expensive McD's combo meal; or if you have to focus on saving money, under $1 for a big pile of staple food.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[DNS-and-BIND]

Obesity? Where the heck did that get into the topic? Are you just thinking about that all the time and decided to brainfart in here?

If American's can't afford to eat
This link is for you, buddy.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[sdguero]

At Jack in the Box. 2 tacos and a jumbo jack are ~$2.20 and that is a sizable meal. It also takes about 2 minutes of my time vs 45 to make something at home.

I agree with you, and prefer to cook at home. Just saying that it is easier and cheaper (if you consider your time as money, I do) to eat fast food vs anything else.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[Zrako]

I did the same thing until my brother handed me down his iPhone. Now I have a wifi-equiped smart phone without the additional data plan or increased price of my cell phone service (T-Mobile). It's more convenent now because it's all in one device but I really don't need the additional data plan. I have wifi access just about every where I go except work and do I really need it at work? No. I think more people could do well to keep their smart phones and just cut out the data plan and use wifi instead.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

fruits aren't all that filling, but many greens, like broccoli are very filling because of the huge amount of plant matter. I've actually stacked a mix of broccoli, green-snap peas, spinach, and carrots in a small cereal bowl and found myself quite full for a good 10 hours.

It was about $2 worth of veggies.

I use to eat out A LOT in college, but I have been changing over the past 6 years between cost and health. I'm still young enough to make a difference for my long term heart health, so I'm slowly trying new veggie combinations for meal replacements a few days a week and snacks on the weekends.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[Terwin]

That really depends on if you are buying 100% organic-whole-grain-gauaranteed-to-improve-your-chakra-karma-enhancing food, or just plain basic food that is good for you like carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.

All of those are available for less than $1/lb, generally under $.50/lb.

Shop the produce section in Walmart and you can find a lot of healthy food for cheap.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Quality, quantity, cost. Pick any two.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[zippthorne]

There aren't *any* frozen meals that aren't full of salt and trans fats. Even the so-called "healthy" ones. Just read the labels on a few sometime.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Suddenly all of slashdot is a diet expert. I've heard mcdonalds mentioned over and over. Mcdonalds doesn't make you fat: Sitting on your ass, soda and french fries make you fat in that order. If anyone knew anything about diet they'd know that a dollar menu burger has a reasonable nutrient split.

Learn how to count carbs, fats and proteins. Get a multivitamin, and eat some vegetables, frozen mixed if you must. Almost all your calories can come from dollar menu burgers while still maintaining a healthy diet provided you're a healthy person to begin with.

Re:Maybe a good thing

[AthanasiusKircher]

Just saying that it is easier and cheaper (if you consider your time as money, I do) to eat fast food vs anything else.

Only if you don't count the years taken off your life by eating unhealthy food. If you eat crap, have a heart attack at 55, and die 30 years earlier than you might eating better food, you'll lose a lot more than those 43 extra minutes spent cooking each day. (Of course, this won't happen to everyone, but the more crap you eat, the more you roll the dice.)

And as for efficient use of time, make large batches and freeze them. Often it may take you 45 minutes to make one meal, but maybe only an hour to turn that recipe into 10 meals. Then you're talking about 5 minutes or so per meal, which gets you much closer to Jack in the Box convenience. (This is a trick used by households with two working parents for a long time.)

Sure, for many things frozen isn't the same as fresh, but if you choose recipes well, it can be really good. And, Jack in the Box is probably worse than most frozen homemade meals anyway....

My android

[Anonymous Coward]

Saves money due to the fact I can find low gas prices, check my account balances before proceeding with purchases, find coupons and deal while out and about, and so on and so forth. And with the Chase Bank app I dont even need to go to the bank which is another amount of gas saved. I honestly think the money Ispend on the cell phone yearly actually pays for itself if not pays me back for using it wisely.

I love seeing this

[__aaeihw9960]

Because it means that those of us 'young folks' (less than 30) in the USA who can actually plan their finances stand to be KINGS and QUEENS in the future. My wife and I live very, very comfortably on what my friends would call a meager pittance (we both work in education, thank you). Our stuff isn't as nice as what they have, but we also don't have the crushing burden of debt looming in our future. We may not have a MONDO flat screen, but we do have a high speed internet connection and access to as many movies and television shows as we need. We may not have a $70k car, but what we do have is reliable and gets 35-40 mpg. Our house might not be a McMansion, but our small house does sit on 67 acres of woodland. . . .

We're saving for a college fund for children we don't have yet, saving for early retirement and generally living the life of leisure.

Why am I saying all of this? Because, not all Americans are idiots. Most that I know are kind of stupid, but really not that bad.

And some, like my wife and myself, are actually quite bright. Not meaning to brag, just meaning to point out that people like us exist.

Re:I love seeing this

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you definitely do mean to brag. I'm glad you've got yourself together, but I don't give a shit.

Re:I love seeing this

[RodBee]

It's funny how you brag even while (allegedly) it's not your intention to do so.

Re:I love seeing this

[Anonymous Coward]

Me and all of my friends (under 30) are good with our finances and have little to no debt, modest lifestyles, relatively high incomes, and high savings rates.

Education salaries are usually modest but aren't "pittances", Im guessing you and your wife pull in between 60-90K combined, which would put you in the top 40 - 20 percent of household incomes (median somewhere around 45k). So you aren't roughing it too bad.

Also how do you pull off 67 acres and a house without a huge mortgage? Thats gotta be at least 500k in land alone. So I wouldn't judge your friends too harshly, Mortgage is still debt, and land is hella more expensive than a $500 tv.

Anyway just reminding you that there are millions of young people who are good with money in this country. We might not be the majority but there is still a metric crap-ton of us.

Re:I love seeing this

[White Flame]

As an American who's older than 30, it's great to hear this. It's becoming easier and easier to stand heads-and-shoulders above your peers just by doing simple things like this, and having a good work ethic.

Re:I love seeing this

[__aaeihw9960]

I really do apologize for that. It was the only way to prove my point, without being too vague.

I find it interesting that telling people how I'm fiscally responsible is seen as bragging, when most people brag about their giant tv's and new cars, etc.

Re:I love seeing this

[__aaeihw9960]

Education salaries are usually modest but aren't "pittances", Im guessing you and your wife pull in between 60-90K combined, which would put you in the top 40 - 20 percent of household incomes (median somewhere around 45k). So you aren't roughing it too bad.

Our combined income is around 45K, but I'm not sure that this is the median salary. Again, it depends on where you live. What I find fun (and is another discussion) is that we're both highly educated (Masters for both, I just started the doc), highly motivated, and rate highly on every metric given to us. Welcome to the US educational system. How's that for embarrassing?

Also how do you pull off 67 acres and a house without a huge mortgage? Thats gotta be at least 500k in land alone. So I wouldn't judge your friends too harshly,

It's called financial planning. We bought it in cash, in 4-10 acre increments. And apparently land is worth quite a bit more wherever you live - here it's worth just shy of 250K for the whole works, without the house.

Re:I love seeing this

[Anonymous Coward]

"Also how do you pull off 67 acres and a house without a huge mortgage?"

Depends on where you live. My dad purchased 40 acres of land for under $50k, then sold off more than enough trees to pay for the land, while still being heavily wooded. We were also close enough to the city to have cable. On top of that, he sold off some plots over several years as the urban sprawl made its way towards us, which gave him a net profit.

Re:I love seeing this

[zippthorne]

In a democracy (which we're slowly dismantling our republic to create), the rest of us will just vote to appropriate your savings for ourselves. So, I thank you for your effort in preserving some stuff for me to take.

Re:I love seeing this

[Anonymous Coward]

You say you are under 30 and spent time getting Master's degrees. Let us assume you and your wife started working since you were 23. Let us also generously assume that you have been pulling in $45k all this while.

So, in the last 7 years, you would have grossed $315k. Let us say you paid an effective tax rate of 0%.

You say your land is worth $250k (without the house). Let us assume you paid $200k for it. Don't know how much you paid for the house but let us assume $50k. That leaves $65k. So you are telling us that for the last seven years, you and your wife were able to live on just $9k a year?

Need more info to compute your story.

Well, yeah.

[PeanutButterBreath]

Inducing consumption is the goal. If you can convince people that they "need" to do it even better. If you can convince them that they don't "need" to do it, but really, really "want" to, you're golden.

Re:Well, yeah.

[CanHasDIY]

Inducing consumption is the goal. If you can convince people that they "need" to do it even better. If you can convince them that they don't "need" to do it, but really, really "want" to, you're golden.

No, you're not golden until you convince people that, because all the people they know (and a bunch they don't) are doing it, there's obviously something wrong with them for not doing it.

People spend money

[mehrotra.akash]

People spend money
Not technology

Re:People spend money

[Anonymous Coward]

Not technology

In hacked zombie iPhone land it does.

Not always true

[boristdog]

Because of the Internet, I stopped paying for porn years ago.

Misleading summary

[wealthychef]

Statistics, damn lies... 41 percent sounds like a lot more than 8 percent, making it sound like people will choose music downloads over food, but the truth is most people don't download music.

Internet should be free or dirt cheap and...

[madhatter256]

If access to the Internet is free OR if it is cheap and unlimited, either connecting through a land line or using a wireless device, such as a cell phone, then this will help people save money.

90% of my "television" entertainment comes from the Internet. I used to have cable, but realized it was outdated - I barely watched all the shows and most of the time, nothing good was on and was tired of watching Family Guy on four different channels!!!

My parents are also saving close to $100 a month when they turned off cable and are now only subscribed to netflix. They are going out more, eating at locally owned restaurants - basically enjoying the outside world a bit more....

Re:Internet should be free or dirt cheap and...

[tepples]

My parents are also saving close to $100 a month when they turned off cable

So how would I sell this solution to one of my own family members who is dependent on political talk shows?

Saving money is like Losing weight

[Overzeetop]

It matters less what you are doing with the flow of your metric, and more on your net balance.

Whether I spend $300/mo on digital services or buy a bigger house than I need, or a nicer car than is necessary for my requirements, it's the same dollar at the end of the day. Americans are gaining weight because of easy access to high-calorie food that is made to be appealing through advertising and instant sensory gratification. Americans are not saving because our entire economy is based on spending as much as possible on things which are made to be appealing through advertising and instant sensory gratification.

mint

[Anonymous Coward]

Mint.com has made it much easier for me to save money! No joke, it has kept my budget in check and I'll be buying a new car within the next month due to all my nit picking of expenses laid out in front of me

You know it

[arcite]

I was hit with a $500 roaming charge while I was in Thailand. Ok, well I should have realized that roaming was a complete rip-off but I had some emergency calls to handle. Must have been like $5 a minute! Bastards!

Tools for Saving Do Not Equate to Saving

[dgrotto]

I also view tech saving tools as a hindrance to saving. I've tried a lot: Quicken, Money, Mint, the venerable Pear Budget, etc. All tools that allow you to grok where your money is going, but provide little incentive or mechanisms to curb spending. We collect all this great data and then say "huh..." and shrug our shoulders.

My parents always had a drawer in the clothes dresser that had the "house money" in it for the month. Once that cash was depleted, there was no more money for the house, period. This was real incentive to spend wisely and to see how much money was left. If there is a technology that can easily enable this "cash envelope" system, I am not aware of it.

Re:Tools for Saving Do Not Equate to Saving

[Saganaga]

I haven't used it, but I've heard good things about http://www.mvelopes.com/

technology enables, it's choice.

[Anonymous Coward]

And choice is addictive...

Get what you want - But be smart about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Cell Phone: Prepaid android smart phone contract under $50 a month
Cable: Cut ties with my cable company in favor of torrents/hulu/netflix

If you live in a major metro there is no need to be subsidizing the farmers in wyoming, by paying extra for a cell phone contract that roam on other networks. You can get by just fine with single carrier coverage.

Focus on results not the hype.

Confusing percentages

[noahwh]

They say 41% of adults pay for digital products and services.
They say 8% would stop downloading songs and digital products.

So is that 8% of the total population, or 8% of the sub-population that actually uses it and could give it up?

I suspect it's the later, in which case they may as well say 20% (8/41) of adults who pay for digital products and services would stop downloading songs and digital products. That's a much more plausible number, in line with the percentage that would drop cable tv.

To be fair

[nedlohs]

Cutting back on eating doesn't seem like such a bad choice for "the average american".

Technology saves money

[michaelmalak]

Technology saves on:

• Landline
• Newspaper subscription
• Magazine subscriptions
• DVD purchases (buy used on Amazon.com)
• Book purchases (buy used on Amazon.com)
• Music purchases (99 cents per song is a third of the inflation-adjusted price of a 45 RPM in the 1970's)
• Percentage off the price of anything (sort by price on shopping.google.com)

Re:Technology saves money

[tepples]

Newspaper subscription

Replaced with online newspaper subscription: WSJ, NWT, or anything else paywalled isn't too much cheaper online than in print.

Re:Technology saves money

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you were already purchasing any of those.

Huge increases in compliance costs

[roman_mir]

So all the /. comments are going to go: yeah, bullshit.

Well, guess what. While you are busy coming up with 'new technologies', your government officials are busy coming up with new compliance requirements concerning these new technologies.

What are the costs of keeping all of the emails backed up somewhere for example for all the companies that have this compliance requirement?

That's just a small example.

Re:Huge increases in compliance costs

[Anonymous Coward]

any excuse to rant against government, ey? seriously, you would take a picture of a cute kitten and turn it into anti-government diatribe

Re:Huge increases in compliance costs

[roman_mir]

If the 'cute kitten' passes a regulation that increases cost of doing business, then yes.

Concerned about the audience

[mistermocha]

"8 percent said they would stop downloading songs and digital products." -- what if only 8% of the sample audience actually spent money on downloaded music and digital products? Pandora and Spotify offer music for free. It would, perhaps carry more validity and clarify the facts to say that X% of people who spend money on [product Y] would give it up in tough times.

Are you the guy this article was referring to?

[shiftless]

Who says TV is a "need" at all? It's just one of many forms of entertainment. If you're "saving" money by taking the money you'd have wasted on TV, and wasting it on other bullshit instead, you're not really saving any money at all now are you? Just like all these ringtones and other crap people waste money on. The Internet just makes it easier for people to waste money.

Funny, I don't seem to have any problem saving money using the Internet. Why drive to the grocery store, when I can buy 80% of my groceries and other basic essentials on Amazon.com--with a far wider selection and better (bulk) pricing--delivered straight to my door? Now when I do go to the grocery store I can just walk (or go to the corner store), since there's only a few things to get like milk and bread.

Re:Are you the guy this article was referring to?

[Presto Vivace]

I agree. I hate going to the store and do so only rarely. Even with delivery fee it is cheaper to buy your groceries online, especially if it means you can do away with your car. I don't have a car, because not only do they cost too much $, they are too much of a headache.

And this is why you're poor.

[shiftless]

Your mindset is the reason why you are poor. $60 a month certainly is a hell of a lot money regardless of where you're from.

Re:And this is why you're poor.

[cayenne8]

Your mindset is the reason why you are poor. $60 a month certainly is a hell of a lot money regardless of where you're from.

Are you kidding?

That's not even enough to cover a whole weekend's bar tab.....

;)

Re:And this is why you're poor.

[h4rr4r]

Since when?
I buy cases of beer that cost that. Not to even mention what a nice meal out costs.

Re:And this is why you're poor.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's part of why it's a lot of money. They are nice meals, cases of beer. You can eat and drink MUCH cheaper, but you value that and should value it appropriately. Just make a list of what that $60 could be spent on or see how much food you can buy and comfortably consume on a $60/week budget. It's an uncomfortable experiment/lifestyle to explore for most US residents, but our culture shapes us to not notice, and a great many of us have ended up in the wrong shape.

Re:And this is why you're poor.

[shiftless]

Exactly. When you have $60 in your pocket and that has to feed you for the next week, suddenly you find that fast food diet and laying on your ass lifestyle is no longer sustainable.

Re:And this is why you're poor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's talk about how much a nice meal IN costs. I can buy a month's worth of groceries for less than that. I eat a lot of potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, ramen, eggs, whole wheat bread, beans, rice, and carrots. None of them are expensive. I do try to limit the amount of ramen I eat since it's high in sodium, but the rest of them are pretty healthy.

Granted, I don't typically eat particularly "nice" meals, but I eat food that I like and I see no reason to spend a lot of money to buy food that's probably less healthy anyway. When I want something different, I occasionally eat out, so I'm not including that when I say "groceries" (but they'd only be a little more if I didn't eat out). And I spend about as much on booze as I spend on food, so if I was short for cash, I should probably cut back on that... but I'm not.

Re:And this is why you're poor.

[Anonymous Coward]

$60/week?! For what, a family of four?

I spent half that in 2011. And ~75% of that was on stuff that I consider extravagant (eating out, booze, etc. ... I put movie tickets, event cover charges, etc. into the same category, so include those too). If I was actually pressed for cash, I could probably cut my grocery expenses down to about $10/week. I'd be eating lots of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, rice, and beans... I'm already eating a lot of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, rice, and beans. Add the right spices and they all taste good.

Deciding to eat out less is

[Nadaka]

The comparison is pretty odd.

Most people with cell phones no longer have land lines. Giving up the cell phone means giving up phone entirely. That makes you nearly unemployable. No one will hire you without a phone number. Phone service is the absolute last thing you should consider eliminating.

Giving up eating out? most people have food in their house anyway, and eating at home is not only cheaper but generally healthier.

What's your point?

[shiftless]

So the choice is literally $89 for intenret, or $89 for internet + HD tv

.......

so....what? You "might as well" get the TV anyway? Whatever rationalization it takes for you to decide, man. Personally, I didn't want to get the TV service, so I didn't. I pay $80/month for business class 20/3 cable service in a small town in the boondocks. Not seeing how I'm getting gipped here.

Consumerism is where the market

[Burz]

constantly tries to invent ways for people to spend more, and rapid technical innovation is at the core of that process. You have to outstrip not only the ability of people to simplify their lives, but outdo the very desire to do so.

I did all of these things in 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2007, I left an extremely well paying contract position and haven't earned over $10K/yr since then. I tell people that I'm semi-retired, which is true.

My cable bill (ISP, TV, Phone) was $160/month - had a few paid channels and 300 other channels that I watched too much of 20 of them. I had a non-contract $40/month cell plan, but no POTS line to the house since 2002. Work provided a blackberry since 1999, so I didn't need a smartphone.

To get costs under control,
* Canceled the cable VOIP phone and transfered the ISP bill to a company that I own.
* Told the CableTV people I was unemployed. $80+/month became $29/month TV plan, which I took.
* Switched to a pay-as-you-go cell plan and spent $130 in the first 90 days to get the minutes to last 365 days. Since then I've been adding $10/yr to that plan. I worked it out and my monthly costs are $3/month now.

Was: $160 + $40 = $200/month
Is: $30 + $3 = $33/month

When the $30/month TV plan runs out in a few months, I plan to switch to OTA TV only. With XBMC and the "Free Cable" plugin, those scifi and other TV shows that I might miss are mostly available. Oddly, I do miss a few ABC-Family shows and Universal Sports events that don't seem available online.

I figured when I became bored, I'd spring for a Netflix account. That was before they decided to split the streaming and delivery services up. The TV contract is about to expire and I'm not missing it. If netflix still had both offerings, the decision would have been easy and done already. I'd like to see the entire BSG again, in order, without commercials. I suppose a free month of Netflix would allow that?

I'm not into piracy or "borrowing" video content illegally.

Or I could just join a darknet and get over my morals?

TV is not a need

[Presto Vivace]

But entertainment is. I find plenty of entertainment online, but everyone has a different view of entertainment. Basically I decided that cable TV was an annoyance.

Life as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Change the subject to "Progress Makes it harder to.." or for purists "Conceived progress.." or "wheel" or... Never mind, nothing to see here...

Attitude

[KalvinB]

Really what has to happen is that people have to decide they aren't going to sign contracts for luxuries. My income has fluctuated so wildly over the last several years that I absolutely will not sign a contract for a luxury. Sure I can afford a $70 a month phone now, but what about 1 year from now? So I go with cheaper, non-contractual alternatives. I pay $37 a month for Virgin Mobile but I can drop it any time and go with a cheaper alternative (TracFone) or nothing at all. For awhile I dropped Netflix, stopped watering my backyard, stuck with TracFone, etc to minimize my monthly expenses.

Contracts lock you into a particular life style that you may not continue to be able to afford. You need to be able to cancel services as quickly as you can lose a job.

People can have nice things even without being rich, but it's the effort to have all the nice things all at once that keeps people in debt and poor. Once the house is paid off, that's $1200 a month I'll have for other nice things. In the meantime, the nice thing I have is a nice house.

Re:Attitude

[Nethead]

People can have nice things even without being rich, but it's the effort to have all the nice things all at once that keeps people in debt and poor.
^ THIS.

Anybody who doesn't live alone

[tepples]

Anybody who doesn't live alone needs a land line. In my area, a land line and three pay-per-minute cell phone lines are cheaper than three unlimited-everything cell phone lines.

Insert memetic spread mechanism here.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

As more things are invented, there's more things to buy and less to save.

This and more in next month's issue of the economist's magazine, "Duh".

MNF

[tepples]

what little I watch is all available via OTA [...] Did you know a football game can actually be viewed in about 30 minutes?

Given that soccer lasts 90 minutes at least, I'm inclined to assume you're referring to American football. So what do you do when your favorite team is being shown on ESPN instead of OTA?

Re:MNF

[Gr8Apes]

I don't watch it or go to a pub and have a beer, provided I have the time to watch it in the first place.

Re:MNF

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right - if he was referring to international "football" (i.e. soccer), it can be viewed in more like fifteen minutes or so... 8x fast forward for most of the game and stop and rewind to watch the 30 seconds or so on plays that immediately led to a point. Watching grown men chase a ball back and forth for 90 minutes? No thank you.

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

sports

That's what bars are for

Where should people watch sports before their twenty-first birthday? Before then, it is unlawful to enter a bar.

Re:Go away, you're not 21

[cayenne8]

Where should people watch sports before their twenty-first birthday? Before then, it is unlawful to enter a bar.

Guess it depends on where you live....where I live, you can go into bars underage, they just can't serve you.

Re:Go away, you're not 21

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what fake IDs are for. Kids these days..

Re:Go away, you're not 21

[rthille]

In CA, Sports Bars are often restaurants, which by law, allow minors.

Either Hulu or $15/mo, not both

[tepples]

Sweden

Except that doesn't really count. cpu6502 mentioned Hulu, which to the best of my knowledge is exclusive to the United States. The United States market also happens to have far higher monthly rates for broadband.

Re:Either Hulu or $15/mo, not both

[Reality Master 301]

I have Hulu, it's actually not that hard to get outside of the US, although I prefer the "ad-free swedish edition" ;-)

Carry two devices

[tepples]

I've asked, and Virgin Mobile refuses to activate a payLo plan, such as the $5 per month plan you mention, on a smartphone. So one has to buy a dumbphone on which to make calls and a smartphone on which to run applications over a Wi-Fi connection, buy cellular service only for the dumbphone, carry both, and keep both charged. Is the inconvenience of carrying two devices worth the $30 per month difference between your payLo plan and the cheapest $35 per month Beyond Talk plan

Prestige of a particular college

[tepples]

It's just like when people talk about certain colleges as party schools.

Could these colleges have earned this designation because they happen to lack prestige among human resources departments? For example, if someone is seeking a first job after graduation, isn't a Rose-Hulman or MIT degree going to look better on a resume than an Indiana Tech degree?

Re:Prestige of a particular college

[__aaeihw9960]

It depends on what your end game is. If you want to work in a large, urban center, yes. But in my instance, it's folks that are staying in the area, and would be better served by the local schools. And in these schools' cases, it's because of the local media. They are both regionally well-known for certain departments - engineering and education are the two stand-outs. BUT, the local media only reports on the stories that are completely related to drinking.

It's poor choices and bad critical thinking skills all around.

Re:Prestige of a particular college

[tepples]

If you want to work in a large, urban center, yes.

And based on what CronoCloud has been telling me for months about the video game industry, it's either move to "a large, urban center" or have no job. In some genres, one cannot start by self-publishing due to console makers' qualifications and due to limitations in what most customers are willing to do with a PC.

What's wrong with PAYG?

[tepples]

The only ones I've seen that still have a good number of cellphones are pay as you go companies.

And what's wrong with Virgin Mobile and other PAYG MVNOs, unless you're still in the early stages of establishing credit and need some sort, any sort, of "utility bill" in your name?

Walk or drive? I take a third option.

[tepples]

Even the public library likely costs you as much to utilize unless you live near enough to it to walk!

On weekdays without excessive wind or rain, I have two branches within cycling distance.

To work and back

[tepples]

Even with delivery fee it is cheaper to buy your groceries online

Where available. How would I go about finding a reputable online grocer that services, say, northeast Indiana?

I don't have a car, because not only do they cost too much $, they are too much of a headache.

Then how do you get to work and back, or how did you get to job interviews and back? How do you get to a clothing store so that you can try on clothes before buying them?

Re:To work and back

[Presto Vivace]

I live in Washington DC and you don't need a car to do any of those things. Also, I learned to sew. While I no longer make my own clothes, sewing gives you an eye for how clothes look on you, so you can pick things out from catalogs and know what they will look like. I have not tried on clothes in a store since 2007. In any case in much of the country Peapod will hook you up with one of the local grocery stores.

Re:To work and back

[tepples]

I live in Washington DC

Not everybody is fortunate enough to have been born in an area with public transit that runs all day every day. Buses in Fort Wayne don't run at night or on Saturday evenings, and they provide zero service on 59 days of the year.

so you can pick things out from catalogs and know what they will look like.

Good luck with the return policy so that you're not stuck with something that doesn't fit well if the measurements that the catalog quotes are off by some.

Re:To work and back

[shiftless]

Where available. How would I go about finding a reputable online grocer that services, say, northeast Indiana?

I live way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Where in Indiana do you live where Amazon.com and UPS are not available?

Then how do you get to work and back, or how did you get to job interviews and back?

I'm self employed.

How do you get to a clothing store so that you can try on clothes before buying them?

1) If I need to get somewhere, I walk or ride my bike.

2) I order them online, because I wear T-shirts and blue jeans, and those come in standard sizes.

3) I save a shitload of money because of it, as well as get tons of good exercise.

Re:To work and back

[shiftless]

Not everybody is fortunate enough to have been born in an area with public transit that runs all day every day.

1) I wouldn't exactly call someone who lives in D.C. "fortunate"

2) D.C. isn't the only city in the world, nor the only town in the country (hint: there are tens of thousands of them) where one can quite reasonably walk or ride a bike most places.

3) Not sure why you would think it's necessary to "be born" somewhere in order to live there....

Good luck with the return policy so that you're not stuck with something that doesn't fit well if the measurements that the catalog quotes are off by some.

Way to focus on potential problems, instead of the benefits. The most interesting clothing isn't going to be found in stores, especially in smaller cities and towns. I get really funny and creative t-shirts and other clothing off the Internet and it really makes me stand out. At parties I'm always having girls and dudes coming up saying they love my hat, shirt, etc. If I did all my shopping locally I would just be another guy in boring clothes.

Re:To work and back

[tepples]

Not sure why you would think it's necessary to "be born" somewhere in order to live there

Good luck moving while not owning a car.

Re:To work and back

[tepples]

Where in Indiana do you live where Amazon.com and UPS are not available?

I wasn't aware that Amazon delivered groceries nationwide. I seem to remember the early online grocers having very limited service areas.

I'm self employed.

What classes do you recommend that one take in order to learn how not to make stupid mistakes when going self-employed?

Obligatory Oatmeal

[tepples]

With internet access

A lot of cable companies bundle essentially free basic TV service with their home Internet service packages.

and a mobile phone

If you replace your land line with a mobile phone, what do other members of the household use while you're gone?

you really don't need TV

HBO verifies your subscription to traditional cable or satellite TV first, and professional sports games being shown on cable TV (such as ESPN Monday Night Football) are blacked out online.

Line fee

[tepples]

Who says TV is a "need" at all?

The ISP does. If you don't buy TV with your DOCSIS Internet access, the ISP charges a "line fee" equal to the price of the cheapest TV package.

Re:Line fee

[shiftless]

Bullshit. I pay $80/month for business class cable. Is part of that a "fee" for not having cable? Who cares, and what difference does it make? I'm happy with the service I fee for the price I pay.

Good job totally missing the point.

But not enough food

[tepples]

In Indiana, sports bars that serve food (but not enough food) are legally bars. I believe there's a certain food-to-alcohol ratio that the establishment has to hit to qualify as a restaurant and avoid the 21-to-enter status, and some lines on a Pizza Hut menu about reserving the right to limit alcohol quantities bear this out.

Unless you have under 21s in the house

[tepples]

Unless the the child wants to watch the game with the parent. See my other comment.

Re:Unless you have under 21s in the house

[Gr8Apes]

a) it's most likely a pretty old child.
b)perhaps it will focus the child on more important activities.
What the heck did people do before ESPN? Geez. I remember - as kids we listened to radio, or, more commonly, went and played outside instead.

News and sports

[tepples]

Netlfix, Hulu, Vudu, Redbox, and Blockbuster are for scripted films and scripted series, not political talk shows or sports. With the combination of OTA and subscription online video services not tied to a traditional cable or satellite television service, what's the closest substitute for MSNBC's Morning Joe Brewed by Starbucks, MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, ESPN's Monday Night Football, or those NHL games shown on NBC Sports (the station formerly known as OLN)?

Re:News and sports

[Gr8Apes]

what's the closest substitute for MSNBC's Morning Joe Brewed by Starbucks, MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, ESPN's Monday Night Football, or those NHL games shown on NBC Sports (the station formerly known as OLN)?

Radio?

Seriously, if you're going to list things that are specifically done by cable to lock you into cable, guess what the option is? Yep, that's right - cable.

There's a surprisingly large segment of current cable customers who've never watched any of these shows, or could easily live without them. Once you realize that these "features" are costing you $1K/year or more, it's pretty easy in my case at least to simply say "no". I know quite a few others who feel the same and are in the process of cutting cable as well.

Cable used to be $13 a month plus $5-10 per premium package. Basic cable starts now around $30/month on an intro package, and fees etc rapidly expand that into a $60-100/month package, esp after the intro rate stops, depending upon how many TVs you have, how many DVRs you'd like, HD? Sure, $10 plus $5-10 per additional receiver/DVR, depending upon carrier. Yes, I know there's supposed to be something like a $10/month basic access package, good luck getting it and viewing it on a decent TV or getting the provider to service it if there's a quality problem.

Virgin Mobile: Phones for those who don't get laid

[tepples]

You're right: it's only 2.5 GB of high-speed data for $35, not 3 GB for $35, but it's close.

How cheap do they get for multiplayer?

[tepples]

I used to pay $20+ for computer games. Then technology enabled Steam sales.

What's cheaper: $50 for one Wii game that four people can play together (like Brawl or Mario Kart) or $60 for four copies of a PC game at $15 each? Or are the discounts during Steam sales even deeper than that?

Re:How cheap do they get for multiplayer?

[icebraining]

Well, this Christmas you could get Deus Ex: Human Revolutions (fairly recent AAA game) for $10.2. Hitman: Blood Money was at $2.5 during a weekend in March. Cheap enough for ya? ;)

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...yahts, sports cars, illegal drugs, and gold jewelry make it very difficult to save money. Of course, rents, utility bills, car payments, and taxes do as well unless you're a privileged by whiny YUPPIE who needs help spending your money. What an insightful article. It really opened my eyes.

5 years ago....

[Anonymous Coward]

...I had $35K in credit card debt, $90K mortgage debt, and recurring bills out the wazoo.

By becoming frugal and giving up frivolous expenditures including wasting money on stuff like cable TV with all the channels, smartphone (yes, I was an early adopter), buying the latest tech gizmos immediately the minute they hit the market, eating at restaurants, going to movies all the time, and spending too much on expensive clothes and entertainment, buying a new truck, etc., I have finally been able to turn my financial live around. Today at lunchtime, I did some of my online banking and discovered I have $980 on my credit card balance which will be payed to zero by the end of the month, my truck is payed off, my mortgage is down to like $48K thanks to extra payments, and best of all I now have over $25K sitting in the bank between my savings and checking accounts! And I really don't make all that huge of a salary, my take-home after taxes is about $42K. I was completely fed up and had enough of drowning in debt and decided to "get tough" on my spending discipline. Following the "Dave Ramsey" advice has helped too, believe it or not. But spending shitloads of money on technogeek toys was definitely an expensive thing to do. Once I started adding up how much money I've wasted on that, I stopped adding because it got so large of a sum that I did not want to ever know the final answer, it was that frightening.

forgot one thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed none of the polls included shutting internet service down... guess thats out of the question

Of course they choose to give up eating out...

[artfulshrapnel]

I would. Why? I can cook my own food, I can't yell loud enough for my friends in Colorado to hear me. I can buy groceries myself, I can't psychically know the right route to where I'm headed on my own.

The simple fact is, modern smartphones/cellphones offer a number of services that are uniquely useful and generally worth the cost of ownership. Eating at restaurants is a timesaving measure that makes sense only when you've got enough money and enought to do that you value the time saved over the financial sacrifice of paying 3 to 4 times extra for a meal...

don't do it; can't cut it

[dltaylor]

No digital downloads of any content (music, videos, games, ...) ever, so I couldn't legitimately choose to "give it up" to save money, could I?

In an entirely unrelated item...

[roc97007]

...new iphone this September...

Re:In an entirely unrelated item...

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, and my though is: "Son of a bitch, that's an extra 4 months I'll be out from under my AT&T contract." When I don't upgrade every 20 months, it's like giving AT&T a free raise. I sure as hell don't want to upgrade now, though, or it'll be 2.5 more years before it worth getting a new phone and they're willing to subsidize again.

Re:In an entirely unrelated item...

[roc97007]

And *my* thought is: Keep careful track of that date, and plan my breakfast somewhere far away from the Starbucks next to the AT&T store.

sweet spot

[roc97007]

There's a sweet spot in every technology -- most value for the buck, or "good enough" but not so good you'll never use it to it's full potential, or in some cases, better than you need at the moment but the potential to stay in service far longer than the cheaper choice. (Then you have to be regimented enough to stick with your choice through it's natural life in the face of shiny new choices.) The trick isn't to always buy the best, or even always buy the cheapest, but to make the most intelligent choices possible the most times possible.

I have a friend who longs for the absolute best of everything, to the point of absurdity. He has some nice things, but is in massive debt. I'd rather have useful things that I actually use and live within my means.

yea right

[Mariomario]

People would waist that money elsewhere if not on these things. Whether you save or spend is a mindset. Some (most I guess) will see something that interest them, and buy it without a second thought. Others will see something that interest them and think if it is worth the cost.

We eat too much sitting..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and dont move..

then try gym, books, training, then medical bills..

That costs way, wayy, waaayy more.

Superficial surprise

[golodh]

The only people who might be surprised at this finding are the ones who really don't think.

People who seriously seem to believe that the vast array of consumer electronics and consumer service subscriptions that make it easy to spend money is in any way neutral "technology".

Of course all these products were developed by for-profit companies. Such companies have, broadly speaking two criteria for new products they want to see developed: (1) people must want it, (2) it must make them money.

And now, after 20 years of R&D and product development by such companies there are some people who are actually surprised that said products aren't geared towards helping them being spendthrifty???

How stupid can you get, really?

Free software purchase decision support

[adougher9]

Here is free software to help with purchase decisions using AI technology. http://frdcsa.org/~andrewdo/WebWiki/UtilityMaximizationSystem.html

Right on the dime...

[TemporalBeing]

Yes, technology makes it easier to spend money than ever before.

While most here have focused on the items being spent on (e.g. phone, internet, TV, etc.) and technology certainly does add to the bottom line in those respects; there is also some fundamental sides where technology makes it easier too - e.g. debit and credit cards.

Many have tried the little trick of using Cash vs. Debit/Credit cards; and all else being equal find that using Cash (e.g. cold hard currency) saves them 33% over using Debit/Credit cards. Why? It's a psycological thing. When you're physically handling the money, it's harder to fork over so much when you are carrying it around - that is, $5 seems like a lot more when you hand over a $5 USD bill (or 5 Euro) than when you just put it on the card and its a number on paper. So you will tend to conserve more from the psychological aspect alone.

Now factor in other technological factors - e.g. internet, TV, etc - and it affects the apparent standard of living, making it higher than it really ought to be. For me, Internet is required as it is part of my livelihood so I have a higher standard of living than if the Internet didn't exist. (I could probably still do my livelihood, but it would be a bit more difficult.)

The list goes on, and yes, these things can be directly attributable to technology.

Of course, it doesn't help that many today don't understand debt vs assets either - whether economists or not. Anytime someone argues that "debt is a good thing" they are verifiably demonstrating how much they don't understand the nature of debt itself, or the cost of it. That not to say that debt should be avoided at all costs; but that it is not necessarily a good thing.

Stranger danger

[tepples]

[A couple generations ago, kids] went and played outside instead.

It used to be considered safe to let kids walk unaccompanied to a public playground until the moral panic about "stranger danger", AMBER alerts, trumped up charges of child neglect, and such.

Re:Stranger danger

[Gr8Apes]

[A couple generations ago, kids] went and played outside instead.

It used to be considered safe to let kids walk unaccompanied to a public playground until the moral panic about "stranger danger", AMBER alerts, trumped up charges of child neglect, and such.

Interesting, ours still play outside. No, I don't live in some small town in the boonies either, but in what I'd call suburbia at best in one of the larger metro areas. But I agree that the level of hysteria about a few bad eggs has seriously skewed how children get to play and interact, unless you take active steps to encourage healthy behavior.

They say it's worth $1000/yr

[tepples]

Seriously, if you're going to list things that are specifically done by cable to lock you into cable, guess what the option is? Yep, that's right - cable.

So what should I do to help households among my extended family break free from the cable lock-in?

Once you realize that these "features" are costing you $1K/year or more, it's pretty easy in my case at least to simply say "no".

I personally agree with you. However, the last time I tried explaining this to someone else, I get a reply that amounted to "Being able to watch college and professional football and hockey and MMA is worth a thousand dollars a year to me. If I had to cut costs, I'd go back to dial-up Internet before going back to rabbit ears."

Re:They say it's worth $1000/yr

[Gr8Apes]

In your case, you apparently are dealing with some of the few. It's like trying to change a FOX News addict. They have to come to the realization themselves,you can help, but that's all.