Simple changes can be profitable and painless
Cox News Service
February 24, 2008
I blame my recent poverty on squirrels.
You never want to find out how much it costs to squirrel-proof a house. Unfortunately I did. The bill, combined with general worries about the economy, has had me nervously glancing at my main savings account — stored in a popcorn tin with a picture of a cowboy on the front.
Maybe you're in the same boat. And maybe you're also a tech enthusiast like me. So today I'll offer some ways we can save money — and ease our economic anxieties — by trimming tech expenses.
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Television
Until recently I paid about $83 a month for cable television service. That included a premium channel and a wide selection of programming. I downsized to a package that costs about $50 a month. For that money, I still get HDTV service and a digital video recorder built into the cable box.
It was a painless switch. I don't miss the premium channel (I can use video on demand or rent a DVD and watch what I want, rather than what happens to be offered).
If I needed to save even more, there are even cheaper cable packages. For the real bottom dollar, I could drop cable, use an antenna and still get over-the-air HDTV.
I'm not going to get into specific cable packages that may or may not be available to you, but the bottom line is: Take a hard look at your current package and explore cheaper alternatives.
Savings: In my case, anywhere from an easy $33 a month, to a more painful $83 a month if I dropped it altogether.
Internet service
I use a DSL service that costs $38 a month. That's for the extra fast connection I need for my job. There are two other options from the same provider, offering slower speeds for $33 and $20.
Most people could get by fine with the $33 package, or even the slowest DSL connection at $20. And some people, like my mom, could check e-mail just fine with a $10 a month dial-up connection.
Savings: $5 to $28 a month.
Computers
It's been my habit to replace my main machine every year and a half or so, again with the excuse that I write about computing.
This year I'll drop that habit — at least until my budget balances. I need to follow some of my own advice: Only replace your computer when it can no longer do what you need it to do in a satisfactory manner.
Savings: If the average user could postpone a computer purchase for just one year, that's anywhere from an expense of $600 to $2,000 postponed. That's an expense postponed, not avoided, so I won't include it in my final savings total.
Telephones
We have two land lines and two cellphones. For various reasons, including my job and my wife's work-from-home job, we'll stick with that.
But many families have a second line that isn't needed anymore. Maybe the kids have grown and no longer use the second line. Or that line may have been installed in the days of dial-up Internet service.
Take a hard look at your own situation. The money-saving choices range from simply dropping an unneeded second line to doing as my stepdaughter does — using a cellphone exclusively.
When it comes to long-distance service, we use our cellular phones when we can. But some of our friends use Voice over Internet Service such as that from Speak Easy (www.speakeasy.net) and Skype (www.skype.com). That comes in especially handy for people who make frequent overseas calls.
It's hard to put a hard dollar amount on it, but most folks could save $5 to $30 by tightening phone expenses.
Energy consumption
Your technology pulls some watts. One plasma TV I've seen draws nearly 600. Most I checked were in the 150 to 250 watt range. But, when you consider that some small electric heaters draw 500 watts, that's still quite a load.
Add in another 187 watts for an xBox360, 100 to 250 watts for a desktop computer, and you get the idea.
The fix here is simple: Turn off your gadgets when you aren't using them. You'll be lucky if the savings here tote up to much more than $5 a month, but you're also helping the environment.
Total savings
If you were to take all of the steps I've suggested — even if you were to choose the easy savings and avoid major sacrifices — it would amount to about $50 a month. That's not enough to rent a villa in the south of France, but it would be enough to start a nice fund to prepare you for the horrible day when squirrels invade your attic.
