Sunday, July 06, 2008

Things I Can Live Without

I haven't allowed a job offer paying 25% more than my current salary to go straight to my head. Times are tough and getting tougher. I seriously want to eliminate unnecessary things from my life which are a monthly drain on my wallet.

Now it's a fact that I have a lot of unnecessary expenses and I'm not going to cut everything. I can start by eliminating those things which can be easily replaced at no cost.

If I take this new job, it will include my internet access at home since I'll be working from home. So I'm no longer going to have a $46 monthly Time Warner Roadrunner bill. That's at least $552 a year in after-tax dollars.

Here's another:



I just added the HD package to my Dish Network lineup so I need to sacrifice something in return. Besides, I've got 2 movies here which I've had since mid-March and a 3rd one I've had since late April. This is fairly common for me. At $19.47 a month, it would be cheaper for me to buy the movies I want to see and then donate them to Goodwill when I'm done and write it off as a donation. Or, just watch what's on Dish Network which is what we do anyway.

That's another annual savings of over $233.

Up next on konagod's chopping block is this tree killer:



This is going to be a tough adjustment but I know I can do it. Last year they trimmed both sides of the paper so it's slimmer and therefore holds less news that's fit to print. Then they raised the rates for delivery. And now they are about to raise them again.

I thought about just switching to Monday-Saturday since the Sunday paper is over $6 a week. But often the paper isn't here when I get up at 5:30 and occasionally I'm done with my coffee when it arrives. Besides, as you can tell from the last post, the contents of the paper are more of an irritation to me than anything else.

I can read the news online for free. That's another $665 annual savings in after-tax dollars, not counting the upcoming increase.

So what's my annual savings total for today? Close to $1,500. Not bad. That's about what I'm spending annually of fuel costs to drive to work. And soon I'll be working from home so that takes us up to $3,000.

This is fun! Wanna play?

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