Skip to main content

Status Report No. 2: July 2012 Edition


An update on what's working and what's not:


Phone. After telling my husband I want to get rid of the landline for more than a year but being too chicken to tell AT&T, I finally made the call in June. We received a prorated bill that was about half of what we normally pay, but starting next month, we should be saving $70. Status: Money Saved. 


Electricity. Because we no longer have a landline phone, we no longer need our cordless phone charging base and answering machine. Unplugged. Bedroom TV that didn't work well? Unplugged. Second alarm clock in bedroom? Unplugged. I am under no delusions that those items together will net hundreds in savings over the year, but I hope to see a noticeable difference. On a month to month basis, I don't see much. Perhaps an even bigger draw on our electricity is the home computer. My plan was to turn off its power strip when it's not in use. I remember about once a week. My husband, though, remembers quite often. I need to do better. Maybe I will see more of a difference in our bill if I can just remember to flip that switch. Status: Eh. I could do better.


Check in Tuesday for an update on groceries.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

thredUP

Yesterday, I heard about a site called thredUP . Through this site, you can buy used clothes for your growing child from other parents, and sell the ones your child has outgrown. As quickly as our little girl goes through clothes at this stage, I think this sounds like a great idea. I'm constantly pulling clothes my daughter has outgrown out of her closet, and I feel like she's forever running out of clothes that fit her. I plan to look into it a little more, and I just might give it a try.

Frozen Dinner Thoughts

I've been trying to give some thought to what kinds of foods would make good homemade frozen dinners.  (My first post on the topic is here .) Tomorrow is grocery day, so I'd like to have an idea what kinds of things I can make to make sure I have all the ingredients. So far, I'm planning stew (per my husband's request) and a crustless cheeseburger quiche. Hopefully, I can think of another seven options between today and tomorrow.

Marking a Milestone; Saving on Internet

I just noticed this is post number 100. Whoo hooo! I found an even cheaper solution to my home Internet. Currently, we pay $110 a month to the phone company for our home phone and Internet service and $28 a month to the cable company for basic cable. My plan was to switch our Internet to the cable company, which would cost about $65 a month for the level of Internet speed I'd like to get, then cut out TV cable service and the home phone. That would eliminate the $110 phone bill all together, but what we pay to the cable company would a little more than double. To get TV service, I bought this: I love the Roku, which streams TV shows and movies to the TV. It doesn't require a subscription to a service to stream -- there are quite a few free options -- but to increase variety and to have access to new TV shows, I sprang for subscriptions to Netflix and HuluPlus. (Until my membership to Amazon Prime expires this coming December, I also have a whole additional set of shows ...