Archive for the 'Frugal Living' Category
Friday, January 8th, 2010
You may recall that I recently bought an Ooma VoIP Telephone system since it offers me unlimited phone service for an upfront price of about $200. Porting your landline phone number over to Ooma costs $40, but can be worth it for some folks. (It’s also free with a 1-year $99 subscription to Ooma Premier service, which includes a second phone number.)
Although Ooma warns that it can take up to 4-6 weeks, the results are highly dependent on your local telephone company. I thought I would share the timeline of a friend’s successful port which took 19 days.
Day 1 - Filled out port request online.
Day 3 - Faxed/e-mailed in required paperwork, which required some signatures and a copy of recent phone bill.
Day 9 - Received the following e-mail from Ooma. Emphasis is mine.
You’ve recently requested your phone number to be ported to ooma. We have submitted all of the information you provided to your current Carrier and are still awaiting confirmation. We will notify you via email once we have confirmation of the actual completion date.
Please keep in mind that if you have DSL on the same number that you requested to port, you will lose your internet connection when your number is ported. ooma will not work without a broadband connection, so this is a friendly reminder to insure you do not experience down time.
Day 12 - Another e-mail from Ooma.
You’ve recently requested your phone number to be ported to Ooma. The expected completion date of your request is scheduled for 12/29/09 [Day 19].
Day 19 - Final e-mail from Ooma.
Thank you for placing your order with ooma, your porting request has been completed. Please reboot your ooma hub so your account will be updated with this number. You may also contact your local carrier to cancel your account with them.
As promised, on Day 19, the regular landline phone went dead. If you called it, it said “This number is no longer in service.” But after rebooting the Ooma unit, all calls were immediately picked up by the new Ooma line. After calling the telephone company to cancel, they said that everything was already terminated and that the final bill would come in shortly. I guess since the number was already gone, they had no reason to try and convince me to stay.
In general, I think Ooma did a very good job of providing regular updates during the process. The overall process was as smooth as could be expected, with the worst part being that it still took 3 weeks total.
Posted in Frugal Living | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Alright, now for a 15-minute 2010 Resolution that doesn’t make you spend less, just better. Huh? Achieving financial success doesn’t mean pinching every single penny all day long and watching your net worth ticker inch upwards. It means spending money on what you enjoy, and not wasting it on things that you don’t (like credit card interest).
An interesting exercise to help you focus is to list ALL your voluntary expenses, and then organize them by priority. When I say voluntary expense I mean that you should generally ignore bare expenses like rent for a single room and basic food. This is not a rigid exercise, but mostly to get you to think more about spending consciously. Again, don’t spend more than 15-minutes on this.
What is your most important expense?
What is your LEAST important expense?
For example, your list might look something like this, from most important to least important:
- Mortgage on my dream house
- Yearly travel
- …
- …
- Monthly iPhone Bill
- Dining Out
- Daily Starbucks
- Rounds of golf
- Cable TV
- Beer & Alcohol
You might think, well everyone is going to put housing first. No, in fact it may be at the bottom. Maybe you live in a luxury downtown urban condo right now, and would rather save $1,000 per month and share a 4-bedroom house with a bunch of friends and spend that money on private French lessons and wine. Only you know!
Now write down your list and place it somewhere visible. Make it your computer desktop background if possible. Next time you spend any money, you’ll think twice about whether you’d rather allocate it to something more important to you. You can now finish the rest of the 2010 with a better frame of mind.
In addition, the next time you run into a money hiccup, you’ll know what to cut first before dipping into savings or *gasp* stopping your 401k contributions.
See all the 2010 Instant New Year’s Resolutions here.
Posted in Frugal Living, Goals | 16 Comments »
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Just about every major cell phone provider has discount for large corporations or groups, even when it’s an existing personal line. While most people know about their company’s discount, some do a bad job of advertising them. In addition, many folks can get student/employer discounts using their school e-mails. So grab your work or school e-mails, visit these links, and find out what discounts are available to you. You may be pleasantly surprised.
I just found out that I could even get $10 off an iPhone plan from AT&T Wireless. Tempting!
AT&T Wireless: Premier Student & Employer Discounts
AT&T has business agreements with thousands of corporations, government agencies and educational institutions to offer wireless products & services to their employees and students at a significant discount.
Verizon: Employee Discounts
Verizon Wireless offers great discounts on products and services to many companies and government agencies. You may be eligible to take advantage of these discounts and save on:
• New phones and calling plans for you or your family
• Phone upgrades to one of our latest models
• A wide selection of accessories
Existing Verizon Wireless customers that are eligible for a discount can register their phone number with Verizon Wireless and have a monthly discount applied to their calling plan.
T-Mobile Corporate Discount Program
Employees of contracted T-Mobile Business Customers may request a corporate discount. The discount ranges from 0% to 15%, per Business Customer monthly volume. If available, the discount will appear on your monthly bill.
Sprint / Nextel: Employee Value Program
Submit your email address to find out if your employer qualifies for discounts through Sprint Nextel. Sprint has business agreements with hundreds of corporations and government agencies to offer wireless products and services at a significant discount when purchased online or over the phone.
AllTel Wireless: Employee and School Affiliation Discounts
If your employer is a participant in Alltel’s affinity programs, you’ll get great deals on:
* Wireless calling plans for you and your family
* New phones
* Upgrades to your existing phone or plan
* Accessories
These discounts are not just for new customers. Existing customers can begin to receive monthly discounts as well.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Frugal Living | 22 Comments »
Monday, December 28th, 2009
I found this interesting chart on Gizmodo about how Blu-Ray players are basically following the same price trajectory as traditional DVD players:
I don’t have a Blu-ray player myself, but I’m sure glad I didn’t buy one at $300. Hopefully this means that the discs will become dirt-cheap just as quickly. I can wait. 
Posted in Frugal Living | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Amazon now has a combo deal where you can effectively get the Ooma Telo system for $150.
Get a $50 Amazon.com Gift Card with the ooma Telo
Through December 26, we’re offering a $50 Amazon.com Gift Card when you purchase the ooma Telo. To take advantage of this special offer, just add both the qualifying ooma Telo and the $50 Amazon.com Gift Card to your cart to see the discount at checkout and you will not be charged for the Gift Card.
Simply add both the Ooma Telo and this $50 Amazon.com gift card, and proceed to checkout. You should get both for $200 after $50 discounts. Since you are getting a $50 gift card too, that’s $150 net for the Ooma.
I’m very happy with my previous generation Ooma Hub so far; The Telo has some advanced features with DECT 6.0 phones which makes multi-handset use really easy, but also requires a $12 annual tax recovery fee after the first year of ownership (not applicable to Ooma Hub). This creates a weird situation where the Ooma “Classic” Hub usually actually costs more. Of course, if you last past the first year of ownership you’ll likely have broken even on your phone by then and effectively be getting unlimited phone service with voicemail included for just $1 a month.
Update: For those interesting in learning more about how Ooma’s business model can work, check out this post on a VoIP blog.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Frugal Living | 7 Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
I mentioned before that I am shopping for a new car. I’ve been to multiple dealerships since this is the first new car I’ve ever bought, and (for some odd reason) wanted to experience the new car buying experience complete with high-pressure sales tactics. Here are some examples of lies and deceptions that I’ve run across so far from different folks.
MSRP “Market Value Adjustment”
Apparently, MSRP isn’t good enough for some cars. I like the Honda Fit, which is a relatively popular car in my area and one in which the MSRP isn’t that much higher than invoiced (as confirmed by TrueCar.com) and thus doesn’t have that much built-in profit.
So, they add another $1,000 to $2,000 and tell customers that this makes the price “market value”. Of course, as I finish negotiating back down a bit below MSRP they admit “oh, the first price I said is only for folks who don’t know how to buy a car. But one person every week walks in and pays it!”.
And people wonder why car-buying isn’t a fun experience.
Options That Aren’t Optional
Another way to boost profit is to package a bunch of options like floor mats, wheel locks, or keyless entry and make a non-official $600 options package and put it on all the cars. When you don’t actually want something, say, wheel locks, they just say “oh, it’s already installed, sorry”. I can remove the floor mats in about 30 seconds, pal. If you push, they’ll let you buy one without options only if you commit to one that hasn’t arrived yet but is on their shipping list.
Jacked Up Options Prices
If you’ve already artificially tried to raise the price of the car, and then tack on default accessories, what is left? Make the price of the accessories above MSRP.
I wanted to buy a cargo cover for the back, and was told it was $225. When trying to negotiate, I got the sob story “oh, I only make $20 on this anyway”. Really, then why can I go online to another genuine Honda Dealer at College Hills Honda for only $119 plus shipping? And the retail price is shown as $165??
Always look online for a dealer that has fair prices on direct accessories, and either use that price to haggle or buy the accessories separately if you’re willing!
The Magically Disappearing Newspaper Ad Car
Finally, they even whipped out the magic for me. I saw a dealer with a newspaper ad for a 2009 model car at a great price, only $150 over invoice. I called them, and they said it was in stock. I drove over, and they said to take a seat and they’d bring it over. “Oh! I’m sorry, that car has just been sold. Can I interest you in something else?” I was pissed and started walking out the door. “Okay, okay! What if I offered you a 2010 car that had identical features or better at the same price!” Fine, show me. Now. After we look for a 2010 that was similar for about 10 minutes, the 2009 was miraculously available again!
That’s it for now, I’ve got to catch another flight, but I’ve got more salesman deceptions to share later…
Posted in Frugal Living | 55 Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
‘Tis the season for some haggling with your internet service provider! Let them know you have other options, and you should be able to get a lower bill for at least a few months that can add up to some big savings. Below are some new customer offers - you might not get them to match completely, but anything is good in my book. (Also handy for those that recently moved - try using the name of another household member - or just want to start up new service.)
ComcastOffers
$19.99 per month for 6 months, with free wireless modem and $100 cash back
Broadband National
Click on “promotions” in the upper right corner for several offers including:
AT&T - $19.99/month for 6 months, free modem/router, and $100 cash back
Charter
$19.99/mo. for 6 months, free modem, free wireless router, no contract
Cox High-Speed Internet
$19.99/mo. for 3 months, free modem, free self-install kit.
Oh, and don’t forget to check out some of the haggling tips in this DirecTV haggle post.
Posted in Frugal Living | 9 Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
File-sharing and online collaboration site Box.net also has a handy feature that other similar services don’t have - 100 pages of free outgoing faxes per month via eFax. Their free Lite plan includes 1 GB of online storage with a per-file size limit of 25 MB. Simply upload the file you wish to fax (PDF files work well), right-click, and select “Send with eFax.” If you don’t see that option, click on “Add Applications” and find eFax.
There are no ads, and if you need a cover sheet you’ll have to include that in the .PDF file you upload. The fax is sent immediately after you initiate it, and it was received by my fax machine without errors and with good print quality (for a fax). You do get a confirmation e-mail from eFax that it was sent successfully. Not bad at all for free!
As a reminder, you can also sign up for a free fax number to receive incoming faxes at eFax or K7.net and have it sent to your e-mail. Together, I would imagine these services can cover most casual fax usage (assuming you have a scanner to convert things to PDF format).
Posted in Frugal Living | 13 Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
In testing out my Ooma, I used the free fax website FaxZero.com to send a fax over to myself. I thought I’d share a quick review.
- The free service has certain restrictions. You must have it converted to Word/PDF format, up to 2 faxes a day, and a maximum of 3 pages (6 pages total a day).
- There is an ad on the provided cover page, but thankfully it is just a simple FaxZero ad and not some random company. Here is a scan of what it looks like.
- You must provide a working e-mail address, as you need to click on a confirmation links sent via e-mail to send your fax. Some users report increased spam, so be careful which e-mail you use.
- The fax is not sent immediately. It says it might take anywhere from 5-30 minutes depending on how busy they are. It took about 5 minutes for me for my fax to ring.
- The fax did come through successfully, and the quality was acceptable.
- You do get a confirmation e-mail with the subject “Your fax to XXX has been sent successfully”.
Overall, I have no complaints about FaxZero since it was a free service that performed as promised. However, I did find a better free fax alternative recently at Box.net, which I hope sticks around for a while. See my Box.net Free Fax review.
Posted in Frugal Living | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Today I tried to both send and receive faxes through my new Ooma VoIP phone system. I used a Brother MFC-7340 multi-function printer and my Ooma is connected via cable modem.
While fax is not officially supported, there is a section with several tips in the Ooma Support Knowledgebase, which I highlighted below. Short version: Connect your fax machine directly to the Hub, and dial *99 before your fax number. Both sending and receiving worked perfectly for me on the first try. I’m very impressed!
While the ooma system is not guaranteed for Fax transmissions, it often works successfully, provided you follow these simple instructions:
1. For the best results, make sure your Fax machine is connected to the back of the ooma Hub or Telo unit, not the ooma Scout. The fax machine should be plugged into the “PHONE” port of the ooma device. If you plan on using a phone handset with the ooma Hub or Telo, you can use a splitter to connect a phone handset and the fax machine to the ooma device.
2. Dial the prefix *99 before you dial an outgoing Fax call. Please note that you may need to insert a pause or two in the dialing sequence after entering the *99 prefix and before entering the Fax number.
If you are still unable to send or receive a Fax, try the following additional steps:
1. Disable “ECM” (i.e., “Error Correction Mode”) on your Fax machine.
2. Decrease the transmission or baud rate.
3. Reduce the number of pages that are sent per fax.
4. Decrease the desired image quality of the fax.
5. Discontinue any large file downloads (for receiving faxes) or uploads (for sending faxes).
Posted in Frugal Living | 4 Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
This is turning into telecom week. A reader asked me what the best prepaid cellular plans are. (Maybe you quit Sprint without penalty and are looking for an alternative?) Here are the two plans that I would probably use, although depending the specific person another plan might work better due to coverage or usage patterns. Both have no contracts and no credit checks. Let me know if you know of something better.
T-Mobile Prepaid for Light Usage
You can buy a $100 card that last for an entire year with T-Mobile, which gives you 1,000 minutes. That’s just $0.10/minute. This gives you a basic cell phone for only a bit more than $8 per month. On a traditional postpaid plan, the taxes and fees alone are $5 per month! If you need more minutes, you can buy more but the best per-minute rate is at $100 refills (which resets your expiration another year as well).
T-Mobile coverage is pretty good is most urban areas, but I’d ask around first. Phones start at $20, although I think you can use any unlocked GSM phone.
StraightTalk by Tracphone for Moderate to High Usage
A relatively new product, StraightTalk offers you 1,000 minutes, 1,000 text messages and 30MB of data for only $30 per month. Everything expires after 30 days. The phone selection for this plan is pretty bad, so don’t expect anything with a touchscreen. However, this is a flexible package that offers a generous bucket of minutes, texts, and even casual web surfing for a great price. As compared with postpaid plans, a basic text plan is usually at least $5 per month, and again taxes are usually $5 a month alone. You can also upgrade to an “unlimited” plan for $45 per month.
StraightTalk uses Verizon’s cellular network, which is a plus. Phones start at $20, and I don’t think you can use other phones. There are some nicer ones that cost $100+. Phones and refills also available at Wal-Mart.
Posted in Frugal Living | 54 Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
I received my Ooma Hub/Scout phone system from Walmart today, and it is already up and running. Thanks for your comments, and here’s was my setup experience. It literally only took 10 minutes before I was both calling out and receiving calls on my new phone number. The best part is that I didn’t have to make any tech support calls to set it up!
- In the box, there is the Ooma Hub, the Ooma Scout, and the usual AC adapters and ethernet/phone cables. Since we only have one telephone base with 3 handsets, I haven’t even opened the Scout yet (eBay?).
- Before connecting anything, you go to Ooma.com/activate and type in an 5-digit ID code from the bottom of the unit. Then you can either go ahead an pick a free phone number (check number availability) or port your existing number. Porting costs $40 or is free with a 1-year subscription to their Premium service ($120). You can just pick another number for now to test call quality, and then port later.
- Next, setting up the hardware is pretty simple. If you are like my household and have a cable/DSL modem connected to a WiFi router, then you simply place the Ooma Hub between the modem and the router like so:
- After turning everything off and then on again, wait for the indicator light on the Ooma to go from red to blue to indicate that it is ready. You then connect your phone and listen for the distinctive dial tone. If you’ve already disconnected your POTS landline, you can plug the Ooma into any wall jack and use your existing home wiring to connect additional phones throughout the house.
That’s it, I was done! (Okay, setting up my free voicemail took another minute.) I like that they didn’t ask for credit card information, as I’m hoping to not pay anything ever again!
Made some long distance calls and so far the quality has been good. I’ll have to use it over the next few weeks to see how reliable it is and if it interferes with my broadband internet speed. If anything, I wish I bought this thing earlier.
Posted in Budgeting, Frugal Living | 12 Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009
If you’ve been shopping online for a while, you’ve probably heard of cashback shopping “malls” or sites like eBates which offer you a bit of money (or miles or points) back on your purchases made through them. I could have sworn I wrote a post about this already, but anyway, the new kid on the block is Bing Shopping brought to you by Microsoft.
Here’s some of the fine print:
A waiting period (of up to 60 days) and $5 minimum applies to payouts. To earn your cashback, stores will provide us (Microsoft) non-personal info about your purchase, and you will need to provide us with personal information (like your email address above) to create a Bing cashback account. We may use this information to personalize your online experiences, and will treat all your information in keeping with the Microsoft privacy statement. cashback is available only for personal purchases made during your store visit directly from the Bing site. You cannot use coupons or discounts. See Bing cashback terms. Additional store terms may apply.
If you follow the rules, right now you can get some pretty sizeable cashback, including 20% off Walmart.com and 20% off eBay.com purchases*. These stores carry many items that can be hard to find at an additional discount. For example, Walmart sells Apple iPods and eBay sells gift certificates and physical gold.
Always look for an link that looks like this, with the Bing cashback coin:
For example, I just bought an Ooma Hub & Scout from Walmart for $229 minus 20% ($45.80) and also a $25 Walmart gift card, for a net price of about $158. Otherwise, the lowest I could find from various price comparison sites is the price at Amazon of $215, although in some states you may be able to avoid sales tax. After finishing checkout, I immediately received an e-mail saying that I’d get $45.80 after 60 days payable to my PayPal account.
* Visit bing.com/shopping and run a search for “sony”. Look for an ad about cashback from eBay (see above). Click and you should see this image at the top to confirm your 20% cashback:
Posted in Deals & Offers, Frugal Living | 23 Comments »
Friday, December 4th, 2009
During my trip a few months ago to New York City, I picked up some “I Heart NY” t-shirts as souvenirs. After some haggling at one of the hundreds of tourist shops near Times Square (cheap enough so I felt like I didn’t have to take the subway to Chinatown), I happily packed up about 10 of them, brought them home, and doled them out to family and friends.
This is what they looked like after one washing:
See anything missing? Caveat Emptor!
Posted in Frugal Living, Funny | 28 Comments »
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
I’ve decided to go without cable TV for at least 6 months from January 1st, 2010. I actually don’t mind paying for cable that much, it is simply an entertainment expense and given the overall convenience, not that expensive in my mind (especially if you haggle every so often). Primarily, I want to cancel it as a passive barrier against my future kids don’t watch too much TV. Also, I want to experiment with ways of re-allocating that $50-$70 per month into other entertainment methods.
Potential Experiments. This gives me a little over a month head-start to find some solutions to fill the gap. I’ll probably start up NetFlix again, and considering getting a PS3/Wii with PlayON or a WD Media Player-like device for viewing downloaded content on my TV. I’ll need to figure out a smooth way to stream internet TV like Hulu to the living room with remote control (Roku?). For live sports, I wanted to see if I could grab some network channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS) off the air using an HDTV antenna for those that have an HDTV.
I’m not really A/V-savvy, but after some reading all I got was that getting HD channels from an antenna is not necessarily like using the old rabbit ears, but also still similar. I mean, it’s digital, so with a good signal you’ll be getting HD-quality images that is just as good as cable TV. However, it’s still over-the-air, so reception quality matters; It’s not like you either get nothing or 100% clarity.
Finding what’s available. To see what broadcast channels are generally available in your area, visit Yahoo TV and input your zip code > Antenna > Broadcast TV. Next, visit AntennaWeb to get a better idea of what you’ll actually get, and tips on where to point your antenna if needed.
Buying an antenna. If you actually have “rabbit ears”, break them out and try them first. There is actually no such thing as an “HDTV-specific” antenna. I don’t have any, and to try this it out I wanted to buy an antenna from a local retailer so that I could return it easily if I didn’t get adequate reception. I stopped by Radio Shack and picked up their Amplified HDTV Antenna for $35. The online reviews were mixed, but there were some positive ones, so I gave it a shot.
Result. In a word, disappointing. I was only supposed to get ABC and FOX in my neck of the woods, but the reception wasn’t that great for either one. The image was widescreen and HD but was “blocky”. If I stood near the antenna or held it just right for a minute, it would get acceptable but wouldn’t stay that way. It may be just my antenna, review site HDTVAntennaLabs and Amazon users seem to like the indoor Antennas Direct DB2 at a reasonable $38 and the outdoor Winegard HD8200U at $140, not including installation poles and such.
I don’t know if it’s worth the bother for a few channels, but if you’re in a nice flat metro area you may be able to do much, much better.
Posted in Frugal Living | 51 Comments »
