Give Up TiVo? Are You Serious?

TiVo Rocks! I may be looking to eliminate unneeded spending and keep out of debt but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up all luxuries in favor of going “bare bones”. Not yet at least. I have removed most of the fluff from my budget but after reviewing my expenses I decided to keep some items that others would probably consider completely unnecessary.

Yes, I must concede that they are unnecessary expenditures and I might be better off just saving that money. But aren’t many of the little pleasures and comforts we enjoy in life considered extraneous?

Living on a budget doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up everything non-essential. It just means you need to carefully decide which items add the most value to your daily life, budget for them, and then cut from all the areas that don’t.

What I consider to be unimportant (e.g. going out to lunch with co-workers daily) others might view as a perfectly reasonable expense that they want to budget for. There is no one-budget-fits-all solution.

And just because I’m keeping a few luxuries in my budget doesn’t mean I shouldn’t work to trim the fat off those areas, too. Here are 5 items we decided to keep in the budget and how we managed to cut costs to make it better.

1. Cable

We used to have premium cable. I’m talking the maxed out deal with all the movie channels and music and multiple cable boxes. We would watch a lot of TV, and sure it was fun to have, but really we only watched a few core channels consistently. We were paying premium prices but only using standard services.

I know many people feel cable is an unnecessary luxury, and you know, they are probably right. But I’m just not ready to drop the cable out all together. I don’t know that I ever will be unless I’m in a situation that absolutely demands it or my priorities change. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be smart about my choice and get the best deal that I can.

How we made it better: We decided to drop down to “standard” cable. We couldn’t rationalize spending the money for all those channels just for the off chance we might want to watch one someday. However, we made the decision not to strip down to “basic” because I would lose all my favorite channels and therefore my favorite show. Going to basic might have saved us an additional $10 a month but at that point we might as well ditch the TV altogether. Savings: ~$40 a month

2. TiVo

Ahhhh, my precious TiVo. This one goes hand in hand with TV. If you don’t value TV you won’t care about TiVo. TiVo is even more useful to us now that we started watching less TV and only at certain times. We find that a service which allows us to watch exactly what we want, when we want, with the ability to zip through the commercials is very handy and time efficient. Still, it was hard to justify keeping this non-essential item in our budget. We didn’t want to give it up completely so we found ways to save money.

How we made it better: We started with three TiVos (yes, three - we love multi-room viewing) then we dropped back to two. Now we are discussing dropping to just one TiVo because we watch fewer shows and don’t need the recording capacity anymore. When I bring up the subject my husband says he isn’t ready to discuss it just yet. I guess the weaning process takes longer for some. Savings: $6.95 a month

3. Netflix

We are not movie buffs but we do like to watch a movie every now and again. The movies might be more impressive on the big screen but I prefer the comforts of home over surround sound any day. For that reason we rent movies.

Netflix We loved the idea of Netflix. No late fees and unlimited movies? We will watch a new movie every night! We signed up for the 3 at a time unlimited plan for $16.99 and filled up our queue. The problem was we didn’t watch a new movie every night and it was getting hard to feel like we were getting our money’s worth.

How we made it better: We still use (and love) Netflix but we switched to the cheapest unlimited plan. We still want to watch our movies but we didn’t watch enough of them to make paying for the additional volume reasonable. We feel we can justify keeping it in our budget (for now at least) as long as we have the desire to watch and actually watch enough movies to beat the cost of renting from the store. So far it’s been cheaper but we revisit this item often to make sure it’s worth the expense for us. Savings: $8.00 a month

4. Cell Phone

I rarely use my cell phone but like many people I feel I need one. Maybe it’s an irrational feeling. I don’t want to be caught in a situation where I can’t reach my loved ones.

Cell phone plans are fairly expensive, especially if you barely make a dent in your minutes. My husband uses his all the time but I’m a sparse user. Many would say drop the coverage and just keep the cell phone charged up in the car for emergency purposes (modern cell phones can still contact 911 even with no minutes plan). That’s a valid option but I’m just not ready to do that yet. I still find substantial value in the ability to reach people and be reached myself when I’m out and about.

How we made it better: Instead of having a separate cell phone plan I piggyback off my husband’s plan. I have my own number and phone for a fraction of the cost and we share the minutes. It allows us to have piece of mind and that is worth a lot. We also lowered the bill by dropping off extra services I didn’t realize I even had, like insurance. I got this phone for free - I don’t need to spend $7 a month to insure a freebie phone. Savings: $20.50 a month

5. Soda

I am a diet soda junkie. Off Brand Soda I realize that water is the ultimate frugal drink but I just can’t stomach straight up water all the time. People tell me if I just start drinking water I’ll learn to love it and I’ll lose my taste for the fizzy stuff. Not so for me.

I relish my soda. I would have never considered it a luxury. I always viewed it as a staple. That was before I started looking at how much my habit was costing us. And knowing that I don’t need soda to survive means it is non-essential, no matter how much I love it.

How we made it better: I dropped my consumption rate and abandoned brand/flavor loyalty entirely. My favorite soda is Diet Sprite but I rarely seem to get that now. I feel that in order to justify getting this totally unnecessary item there must be a good deal. I only buy the sales and if there is no sale I ration or go without until there is one. And they have to be great sales, not just regular specials, to alleviate my guilt. This weekend there was such a good sale on Pepsi we stocked and bought 10 12-packs. I guess I’ll have to get used to Diet Mountain Dew and Diet Pepsi Max for a while. Savings: ~$25.00 a month

Some might see keeping these items in our budget as frivolous, or maybe as “unfrugal”. The changes we made were substantial for us, and result in our saving about $100 a month. That ain’t chump change. We are streamlining the “luxuries” we really value by scaling back on them, saving a substantial sum along the way. To me, that way of thinking is frugal.

Frugality is a journey, one that starts with simple changes and may lead to significant changes. Our idea of frugality is evolving. We might look back at this article in the future and say to ourselves “How could we have been so wasteful with our money!” But for now, this suits us. I’ll be curious to see how our priorities change and what non-essential “splurges” are still worth the money to us 6 months from now.

The Costs Of A New Home: It’s More Than Just The Mortgage

Can we afford this? If moving into a new home is a goal of yours, I’m sure you have already thought about the impact the higher mortgage will have on your budget. But have you considered how the new home could affect your other bills?

To best prepare for the real costs associated with that new home you should look at the ways the new home could influence all of your bills.

Each home is unique and will have different costs associated with it. For instance, a “fixer upper” will need more in household/maintenance costs than a brand new home. A new home will likely need window coverings that might otherwise have come with an older home. Does the new home have significantly more windows that face the sun? If so, your energy bills could be affected.

Consider these questions:

Will your new home have a bigger yard?
Will you have an electric or gas cook top/oven or dryer?
Will you have more or less interior space to cool/heat?
Is the home in need of repairs or improvements?
Does the home include features that require additional maintenance (like a pool, garden, or professional landscaping)?
Will you now have to pay HOA fees?
Is the new home farther from work or the stores you shop at?

These are just a few of the things that could impact your budgeting in the new home. If any of these are “yes” you will likely need to revisit your current budget to account for the increase/decrease in those areas.

We are planning on moving out of an older home and into a larger to-be-built home by the beginning of next year. In addition to the increased mortgage costs, we are planning for the following increases in our future budget:

Electric Bill - it costs more to cool a larger area and to top it off we will have an electric oven instead of gas
Water Bill - it will likely cost more to water a bigger lawn and tend to a garden
Household - we increased this budget for all the little things that are needed after a move like missing hardware or small repairs
HOA - our HOA costs are raising so we needed to account for that in the budget
Alarm - we expect that monitoring the new alarm system will cost more monthly
Vet - we have projected a temporary increase in vet bills because the stress of the move could mean a higher potential for illness.
Furniture Savings - we have created a new budget area where we save a small amount each month earmarked for furniture. We want to save up for quality used or discounted furniture to fill out the home piece by piece.
Miscellaneous - we increased this budget because we are expecting to run into odd expenses that defy other categorization.

To be safe we are estimating high. Once we are in the new home and get a better idea of the actual costs we can fine tune the budget. But for now an estimate will have to do. We want to feel confident that we can afford not only the jump in mortgage payment, but also all of the changes that come along with it.