Frugality

I previously posted about having my gas turned off because I felt that the monthly bill of roughly $45 was too high. My plan then was to take my showers at my school’s fitness center with the occasional cold shower at home. That plan didn’t work because my school requires you to pay to use the fitness center during the summer unless you’re enrolled in summer classes. Since I’m not yet enrolled for the fall semester I would have had to pay $40 a month to use the fitness center which would have basically wiped out the savings from not having a gas bill.

So now I am taking cold showers at home. They actually are not as bad as I thought they would be. You get acclimated to them after a while but I certainly don’t luxuriate in them. This has a green side effect in that I use less water in addition to using less energy. I also bought a solar camp shower from Wal-Mart for $6. This actually works pretty well on sunny days. The problem with it is that it is already starting to fall apart.

When I tell people that I’m doing without hot water they think I’m crazy but I think it is well worth it for the $45 monthly savings. What would you do to save $45 a month?

My electric bill for June was only $19.75 even with the use of AC. My electric bill normally runs about $11-$12 so the AC added roughly $7 to my bill. I know this is pretty cheap but everywhere I’ve lived I have usually had low electric bills.

Some reasons my ac costs are so low. I have a small one bedroom apartment so there isn’t a lot of area to cool. I don’t have central air and use a small window unit. I only run the air conditioning when I’m home. There really isn’t much point in running it when I’m not there. I also turn off the ac when I go to bed. It stays cool long enough for me to fall asleep and I keep a fan on which keeps me feeling cool enough while sleeping. Also I turned off my natural gas for the summer. My kitchen is noticably cooler without the pilot lights burning. My lease expires in October so I don’t plan on turning my gas back on.

Some other ways I keep my electric costs down are: Turning off lights when I’m not using them. I have a CFL in the lamp I use the most and my bedside lamp is a fluorescent also. Since my bill is already so low I don’t think there would be much benefit to replacing the rest of my lights with CFLs. I also don’t turn on lights when natural light is sufficient for what I need to do. Since I don’t have cable and my favorite shows are in reruns I am watching very little TV right now. I keep my microwave unplugged when I’m not using it. I don’t keep the TV or stereo on just for noise. Since I don’t have internet at home I usually walk to the library and use the internet there which means I’m not using my electricity to use my laptop. Those are just a few ways I keep my electricity bill low. I can’t get it much lower because they have a basic customer charge you have to pay regardless of how much electricity you use.

Here are some other people’s posts(OPP). These are all topics that I was going to write about but other bloggers have already written better posts on them than I could.

“How to start a Roth Ira” from Get Rich Slowly. I just opened a Roth IRA with T. Rowe Price and just made my first $50 monthly investment today. I’m happy with them so far.

“Finding Health Insurance Options” from My Money Blog. My health insurance started this month. I was able to get health insurance with more coverage through eHealthInsurance (aff link) for less than I could with the student health plan. You would think that since most students are young the group insurance would be cheaper than individual insurance for a 39 year old but that was not the case.

“Sprint SERO Cell Phone” from My Money Blog. This is where I got my new cell phone and I think it is a pretty good deal. I did have some problems getting my phone and service though. First I had a difficult time verifying my identity. They wanted me to tell them my last two addresses. I move often and once I’m gone from a place the address is gone from my mind. I couldn’t provide them with that information and had to call back later from the phone number listed on my credit report. Since this is my mother’s phone number who lives three hours away this was a hassle and delayed my credit approval.

After I got that fixed my phone was on back order for two weeks. The entire time I was given the message that my order would be ready to ship in 48-72 hours. Also every time I tried to call them they were experiencing heavier than normal call volume. If you’re experiencing heavier than normal call volume every day than it is just normal call volume. The company that sent the phone is a contractor for Sprint so now that I have the phone I expect better customer service.

“The Present Versus the Future” from The Simple Dollar. I have made a lot of bad financial decisions from not being patient. As a kid I’m sure I would have eaten the marshmallow right away. I might still write a post about this.

I had the night off from one of my jobs last night so I decided to get some food and watch a movie. First I went to Buca di Beppo which I had a free $10 gift card for that they had sent in the mail last month. I actually had 3 gift cards because I dug a couple others out of the junk mail trash basket. I sold the other 2 on eBay and kept this one for myself. I ordered a small spaghetti marinara for $8.99. With the local sales tax of over 10% the total came to $9.91 coming pretty close to using all of the card without any money coming out of my pocket.

While they were preparing my order I walked over to McDonald’s and rented a movie from Redbox. Since I had a free promo code the rental was free. Since promo codes are good once per credit card by using a different card every time I have plenty of free rentals coming to me. I then went back to Bucca and picked up my order. Their small spaghetti is enormous. I’ll be eating spaghetti for days. Then I walked back home and watched my movie while eating some spaghetti. It was an enjoyable evening at home and it was completely free.