Sunday, February 27, 2011

Week # 9: Coupons!

So apparently, there are these pieces of paper with bar codes that occasionally come in the mail and can be found online, which offer discounts on any number of items offered for sale in local stores of all kinds. I'm told these redeemable vouchers are called "coupons".

Trish has occasionally - and very casually - clipped a few coupons in past years. Most of those sit around in the miscellaneous junk drawer and eventually get thrown out a couple of years after they expire. So we've probably saved a few dollars per year via coupons before, but I'm going to count the dollars from this new effort to organize and track the savings we realize.

From the looks of things, it shouldn't be too hard to find coupons that cover things we actually do buy and use. A quick Google search for coupons turned up any number of online coupon sources. One notable site was CouponMom.com, which includes some printable online coupons as well as a complete list of the coupons available in each Sunday newspaper in our region. Those newspaper coupons are not printable online as far as I can tell, but it's nice to be able to put check marks next to the coupons you would probably use and then see them isolated on a handy list. From there, you can decide if purchasing the Sunday paper is worth it for the savings you would get from those offerings.

You will recall from our archived notes that we gave up the newspaper in week one of this year. If the coupons are particularly lucrative on a particular Sunday, we might grab an occasional newspaper from the store. To maintain the integrity of our running total of savings, I will subtract the cost of the paper from the coupon savings if that's the route we go.

I needed to replenish some sundries and found a few matching and printable coupons online. My first visit to the store with calculated coupon clippings netted $12.49 in savings. I also happened across a two for one offer on vitamin D in the store, something our doctor has suggested we take daily, so I'm counting the free bottle as kind of an instant coupon. That brings the total to $24.78 in savings, all on stuff we will definitely consume: shaving cream, deodorant, aspirin, peanut butter, tostitos (okay... this one probably would not have ended up in my basket without the coupon, but I do enjoy the occasional chips and salsa treat), vitamins, and orange juice.

This is one of those trackable items that I will update on a monthly basis. We should be able to reach $100 in coupon savings by the end of the calendar year.

Next up: alternatives to driving. Have a great week!

Coupon savings so far: $24.78 in just one visit. I guess it pays to look around a little bit for deals.

Total saved this year: $1,364.18

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Week # 8: Bottles and Cans and Dogs

Our kids are teenagers - one in college and the other a high school senior, both living at home - so they know about this little experiment. My daughter saw me working on the blog last weekend and commented, "Oh, I didn't know you were actually still doing that." She hasn't noticed any change to her normal lifestyle, so she assumed I'd given up on the resolution, like many others before.

Now that I think about it, apart from coming up with a new idea each week and attending to the administrative details of this blog, nothing much has changed. Our quality of life is exactly the same. That is certainly an indication that we have subscribed to and spent money on things we could easily live without. After seven cuts of $100 or more, the one and only thing I truly have missed is the summary of games on TV in the Register sports section. Maybe we'll make it farther into the year than I thought before we have to get really creative.

Number eight is also not much of a sacrifice; just a little extra collection work.

Bottles and cans in California have a redemption value associated with them. We pay the grocery store a CRV (California Refund Value?) for each glass and aluminum container, usually a nickel.

When we finish with a bottle or can here at home, the container goes into recycling to be whisked away by Waste Management. I would be interested to know if they collect the bounty and add it to their bottom line. For a large company collecting millions of recyclables, that could be a significant boost to revenue. For a small household, it still offers an opportunity to save at least $100.

My employer actually has a program in place to collect recyclables. There are receptacles at every major employee entrance. Money collected from cashing in the bottles and cans helps to fund training and development of guide dogs for the blind. Occasionally, the trainers are colleagues who bring the puppies with them everywhere, including our office building. It gives the charity a very tangible feeling; we can see the results of the collected money in action.

The sign on the side of the container says they get a nickel for each bottle and can. Instead of tossing them in our recycle bin at home, I will bring our cans and bottles to work each time a batch of 20 (worth $1) is collected. Can we collect 2000 cans before the end of the year? I think so, but whether we do or not, I don't know why we wouldn't just keep doing this, so we'll get there eventually.

Even though this $100 is not staying in our pockets - and not adding to our savings directly - I'm counting it for credit toward the challenge because we're creating $100 in value for a charity we want to support, without having to write a check to do it. I was able to find 20 bottles and cans ready to be recycled this weekend, so it's $1 down, $99 to go! I'll update the tally at the end of each month, along with other strategies that require some tracking.


Bottle / Can value so far: $1

Total savings so far: $1,339.40

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Week # 7: Yet Another Wine Story

No, we are not alcoholics. We just happen to enjoy the nectar of the gods - in moderation, of course. And red wine is good for your heart, right?

This one is a little different from the wine clubs we've already cancelled.

There's a great little store up the street called Wine Styles. It's part of a chain you can check out at WineStyles.com if you're curious. We're members of their club.

For $38 per month, we get the "selections of the month" - two bottles of something that's usually very interesting, discounts on the store's wares, and invitations to special events. The cubby hole of a room in the back has excellent wine tasting ambience and occasional live music. It's become a bit of a habitual meeting place to keep in touch with some of our neighbors, which is the primary reason for our attraction to the store.

So we're not going to give that up altogether, but we can do without the club membership for a few months. Suspending the membership for three months hits the $100 mark.

$38 x 3 months = $114

Total savings so far: $1,338.40

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Week # 6: Land Mine... er, Line - The Battle to Cancel MCI

Okay... any guilt I had about reducing our contributions to the national economy is gone for good after the effort I had to expend to make this week's budget cut. I have no idea what "MCI" stands for, but after  this week I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's Make Customers Insane.

We've been in the current house for almost 11 years. When we moved in, for whatever reason, AT&T was our designated local service provider, and MCI provided long distance service for our land line. That's just how it was set up and we never bothered to change anything.

Now that we're taking a closer look at things, we don't need long distance service since we have cell phones with national range. We considered getting rid of the land line altogether, but Trish is required to have a back up contact phone for her days on call. We haven't figured out a way around that yet. At least  we could cancel MCI's long distance service, so I set out to challenge their phone menu system on Friday afternoon.

First attempt: I dialed the number and warily stepped into the voice maze. This particular system felt like a video game, and I quickly defeated and advanced through several levels until I got to THIS challenge, asking what kind of change I wanted to make to our account: press 1 to add services, 2 to change services, or 3 to cancel service. I pressed "3". Wrong answer... first life lost. A cheery voice informed me that all representatives were very busy indeed, and my wait time was estimated at "18 minutes." I dug in my heels and tried to keep the elevator music from starting any permanent loops in my head.

Ten minutes into my hold, I tried to look at the time on my cell phone and inadvertently disconnected the call. Since I had a chance to start anew, I decided to try a new strategy, just as you have to try a different move the second time through a video game if you don't reach the end the first time.

This time, I told the nice virtual lady that I wanted to "add" service. When presented with a menu of services that they would be more than happy to set up for me, I feigned ignorance and refused to push a button, for fear that I might actually finish the call owing more than when I started. Sensing confusion, the helpful virtual lady placed me into a queue, presumably the one for those who had expressed an interest in spending MORE for additional unnecessary services. This time I was not given any estimate of the wait.

Guess what? Jennifer, a very helpful real person, was on the line in 45 seconds. She was obviously caught by surprise when I told her the reason for my call was to cancel. After some shuffling through papers to find the appropriate and unfamiliar script, Jennifer informed me that they could replace AT&T as our local provider for basic phone service for the low price of $6.11 monthly, and would that be okay? AT&T charges $27/month for that same service, so I said... "sure!"

"Great" said Jennifer, and she put me on hold to process the change request. Three minutes later, she returned to take care of the details. "Now", she said, "is your income less than $24,000 per year?"

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been paying $16 per month for years for basically nothing if that were the case, but I still should have seen that coming. Giving her some benefit of doubt, it's possible she just took a wrong turn on her flow chart before quoting me the impossibly low rate. I told her that we weren't going to qualify for any special programs based on low income. "Oh, okay... we'll just enroll you in the Neighborhood service at the regular price then." Before I could object, I was holding again.

When she returned, I had to turn the conversation back around to get the details from her before she completed the transaction. $25 per month plus per minute charges for long distance calls plus fees. The old bait and switch! That's basically our deal with AT&T. So I politely requested to just cancel the MCI bill... again. This brought on a fourth round of elevator music.

Upon her return, Jennifer, apparently out of sales pitches, informed me that she would be transferring me to the voicemail system which handles service cancellations. (Why, then, couldn't I have simply been directed there after punching "3" the first time around?) Finally... the last level... the chance to slay the dragon! After another round of silly menus requesting information I had already discussed thoroughly with Jennifer, I was finally given a confirmation number.

All in all, it took 40 minutes to make a simple cancellation. Makes me wonder how much MCI depends on revenue from accounts which users try to cancel, but are unable. At least I succeeded at jumping out of the understaffed or non-existent queue for cancellation calls, and we are no longer obligated for the monthly payments of $16 for land line services.

We'll probably examine the remaining land line charges later in the year. Any ideas about cheap services are welcome!

MCI savings for one year: $187.20.

Total savings so far: $1,224.40!

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Monthly Update

Early each month I will go back and update the totals from any actions that are cumulative, such as the lunch adjustment savings that are adding up from Week # 3.

Additional lunch savings from Jan. 20 - Feb. 4: $16.13

That  brings the lunch total to $27.60...

and the overall year to date savings to $1,037.21.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Week # 5: Cancel Other Wine Club

Yep... we were members of two different wine clubs, as I was reminded when a shipment arrived from Clos du Bois just last week. So I canceled that one too. This one shipped four times per year, charging $80.12 each time, so one year's savings is:  $320.48.

The psychology of canceling these services is interesting. Going back to week #1, making that first call to cancel something we've routinely subscribed to was really hard, not just because we like the things we've signed up for over the years, but I genuinely felt bad talking to the person on the phone about their company losing a customer. From the sound of it, I wasn't the first cancellation of the day, and there was definitely some guilt on my end of the conversation.

As I've gotten through the first month, it has definitely gotten easier. It helps when we realized that some of our money was just being given away for no return just by lack of attention. And as the dollars are adding up, there's a realization that we could actually save enough to cover property taxes or take a nice vacation. That is very motivating. The confidence in our decisions has grown and the guilt has become less and less with each call. Now it's only a small factor. Before this year, the guilt (along with some apathy) was probably the main barrier to making these decisions and calls. Interesting.

Annual savings from this action: $320.48

Total saved to date: $1,009.61