I subscribe to Netflix instant streaming and watch on my Mac and Wii and LOVE it! My budget is pretty tight as a grad student but it's totally worth it. Combine that with free Hulu and who needs cable? I also subscribe to two magazines - one of which was free by cashing out points with Recyclebank and another at a deep discount, like $5 for a year.
Great tips -- enjoying the local flavor of a community is all about getting off the beaten path and being immersed in the "dives" and local haunts that give each place texture (instead of the chain stores and restaurants that are such a large part of the world now). Thanks for the tips!
Love my Netflix and so does my daughter! I get Shape, Whole Living, Outdoor, Family Cirlce (ending soon), and a free year to Better Homes & Gardens. My daughter gets High Five (gift from Grandma). Got a gift one for my sister for Taste of Home. I just think the food (jelly cheese etc) and wine ones are just too expensive for monthly deliveries. Though I almost thought of the Gevalia coffee for my sister for a gift. Occasionally I'll get Rachel Ray or Fitness or All You.
I VERY rarely pay for subscriptions. (And I receive about 15 magazines a month) The last one I paid for was to "Gun and Garden" and that was at a discount of $3.75 for the whole year (6 editions) I buy a Sunday paper too, but do not subscribe to it.
New York Times online and Netflix. I live in western rural Montana, it makes sense not to go the Multiplex I can see six movies for the price of a months netflix. Reading the NY Times online is an important part of my morning, I feel well informed about world events and culture.
Netflix (~$10/mo)
Mobile telephone service (StraightTalk ~$45/mo w/ Galaxy Note II)
LastPass (~$10/yr)
Web host (~$130/yr?)
I periodically subscribe to Audible.com, but I have a *ton* of Audiobooks already and I have plenty I enjoy rereading (as I am doing currently with Dune).
We don't pay for any subscription services. We have Netflix but it's a gift from a family member. No cable, no magazines, no newspaper, no auto-purchases from amazon... I think maybe once in the last two years we got a movie from Redbox, but otherwise we don't pick up those products on impulse either. I guess the only "subscriptions" we have are to our utilities - power, gas, water, internet, and cell phones.
I subscribe magazines like National Geographic, Maclean, Backpacker, National Geographic Traveler, and some Chinese magazines on my iPad. Occasionally I would buy magazines in grocery stores based on the content of that particular issue, I like Chatelaine also.
We pay for the newspaper (three days a week here in Detroit). My wife has a magazine subscription that she pays for. I have a magazine subscription that I get for free through our recycling rewards program so that technically might not count. We dropped Netflix about three years ago, but I was loyal to that for years prior. All in all, not too bad!
My biggest tip is to find out where students live/hang out, for access to lower-priced but authentic local food. I've found that even in the priciest cities like London, Tokyo and Milan, if you walk around near a city university you're likely to find really great food at a lower price, and not just chains. Case in point, around the corner from the Goodge St tube station in London, you can get fantastic freshly-made whole pizzas for as little as £3.50, and a few stores down is a Chinese/Thai veg buffet for £4.
I really don't know about the paint. We painted our place recently. We mixed and matched and added white to some old paints so we used them all up. Our house looks great and it costed us absolutely nothing.
It's harder to part with cash - it's because you can actually see the money slipping away from you. Whereas credit card is just a representation of your money; hence it's easier to spend when we pay via credit card.
#10 made me laugh. We keep our AC at 79 because if it's any lower than that, everyone is griping about being cold and putting on sweaters. But, we do live in the desert so when it's 110+ degrees outside, 79 feels nice and cool.
I can attest to the tech sector being hot. My girlfriend works for a recruiting firm and she says they get get enough people to fill the positions.
I think that creativity will carry you in many fields. The ability to think outside the box and come up with unique ways to solve problems and improve processes is a key thing that will separate you from your peers.
The Discover More card is also paying 5% cash back on all Internet shopping as well as department store shopping for up to $1500 in spending from October through December.
You might also be interested in the rewards calculator at http://www.creditcardtuneup.com/ . You enter your average monthly spending in categories like restaurants, groceries, gas, airfare, hotels, etc. and it calculates the single best card as well as the best combinations of cards for your spending profile.
Thanks for the comment. I found math got easier when I could use it for something more concrete than passing a test ... but I'm still glad there's no call for calculus in my daily life!
I'm in the city limits of Atlanta. My property taxes are $2300 this year. Water is $50 per month; Atlanta residents are paying one of the highest rates in the nation due to the expense of a $1 billion-plus sewer infrastructure project. Repairs on my old house (built in 1955) have been high on some things. Plumbing repairs alone have totaled over $3,000. The roof needs replacing and I am afraid to ask how much that is going to cost for a 1200 sq. ft. house. However, I have been able to economize on a lot of things. I have put in central air and replaced furnace for under $2,000. Completely remodeled bathroom for under $2,000 as well (with nice Kohler tub and toilet) by using a handyman instead of a remodeling company. Had handyman put in new kitchen floor for about $500. I do whatever work I can myself -- all the painting, caulking, small repairs, yardwork -- I would never pay anybody for yard maintenance or landscaping that I am physically capable of doing myself. Window treatments? Forget it! I put up Venetian blinds myself and sewed my own curtains. Sometimes it is a financial strain to pay for these repairs and upgrades, but it's still much better than apartment life. I spent 25 years in apartments -- got stuck with rent increases every year, got forced out of three places by developers who bought the properties for teardowns, had to struggle to get the maintenance departments to make repairs, had noisy neighbors, just a long string of problems. After going through all that, I love my little house and will always be grateful I was able to buy it.
I subscribe to Netflix instant streaming and watch on my Mac and Wii and LOVE it! My budget is pretty tight as a grad student but it's totally worth it. Combine that with free Hulu and who needs cable? I also subscribe to two magazines - one of which was free by cashing out points with Recyclebank and another at a deep discount, like $5 for a year.
Great tips -- enjoying the local flavor of a community is all about getting off the beaten path and being immersed in the "dives" and local haunts that give each place texture (instead of the chain stores and restaurants that are such a large part of the world now). Thanks for the tips!
Great advice -- it's all about planning and sticking to budgets. Ideally, planning for the holidays is, at least casually, a year-round thing.
Love my Netflix and so does my daughter! I get Shape, Whole Living, Outdoor, Family Cirlce (ending soon), and a free year to Better Homes & Gardens. My daughter gets High Five (gift from Grandma). Got a gift one for my sister for Taste of Home. I just think the food (jelly cheese etc) and wine ones are just too expensive for monthly deliveries. Though I almost thought of the Gevalia coffee for my sister for a gift. Occasionally I'll get Rachel Ray or Fitness or All You.
I love my Victoria magazine subscription, but nothing else comes close to making me want to spend actual money on it!!
Amazon Prime!
I only have one subscription, Cruising World magazine. It's my investment in the education I need to move aboard a sailboat in two years.
I definitely pay for netflix. I don't know what I would do without it!
I VERY rarely pay for subscriptions. (And I receive about 15 magazines a month) The last one I paid for was to "Gun and Garden" and that was at a discount of $3.75 for the whole year (6 editions) I buy a Sunday paper too, but do not subscribe to it.
I subscribe to Birchbox and Runner's Magazine. I am quite late in renewing my Economist subscription.
New York Times online and Netflix. I live in western rural Montana, it makes sense not to go the Multiplex I can see six movies for the price of a months netflix. Reading the NY Times online is an important part of my morning, I feel well informed about world events and culture.
Self, Woman's Health, Heath Magazine, Fitness Magazine, Allure and Netflix.
Netflix (~$10/mo)
Mobile telephone service (StraightTalk ~$45/mo w/ Galaxy Note II)
LastPass (~$10/yr)
Web host (~$130/yr?)
I periodically subscribe to Audible.com, but I have a *ton* of Audiobooks already and I have plenty I enjoy rereading (as I am doing currently with Dune).
We don't pay for any subscription services. We have Netflix but it's a gift from a family member. No cable, no magazines, no newspaper, no auto-purchases from amazon... I think maybe once in the last two years we got a movie from Redbox, but otherwise we don't pick up those products on impulse either. I guess the only "subscriptions" we have are to our utilities - power, gas, water, internet, and cell phones.
I subscribe magazines like National Geographic, Maclean, Backpacker, National Geographic Traveler, and some Chinese magazines on my iPad. Occasionally I would buy magazines in grocery stores based on the content of that particular issue, I like Chatelaine also.
We pay for the newspaper (three days a week here in Detroit). My wife has a magazine subscription that she pays for. I have a magazine subscription that I get for free through our recycling rewards program so that technically might not count. We dropped Netflix about three years ago, but I was loyal to that for years prior. All in all, not too bad!
Only world of warcraft
My biggest tip is to find out where students live/hang out, for access to lower-priced but authentic local food. I've found that even in the priciest cities like London, Tokyo and Milan, if you walk around near a city university you're likely to find really great food at a lower price, and not just chains. Case in point, around the corner from the Goodge St tube station in London, you can get fantastic freshly-made whole pizzas for as little as £3.50, and a few stores down is a Chinese/Thai veg buffet for £4.
I really don't know about the paint. We painted our place recently. We mixed and matched and added white to some old paints so we used them all up. Our house looks great and it costed us absolutely nothing.
It's harder to part with cash - it's because you can actually see the money slipping away from you. Whereas credit card is just a representation of your money; hence it's easier to spend when we pay via credit card.
#10 made me laugh. We keep our AC at 79 because if it's any lower than that, everyone is griping about being cold and putting on sweaters. But, we do live in the desert so when it's 110+ degrees outside, 79 feels nice and cool.
I can attest to the tech sector being hot. My girlfriend works for a recruiting firm and she says they get get enough people to fill the positions.
I think that creativity will carry you in many fields. The ability to think outside the box and come up with unique ways to solve problems and improve processes is a key thing that will separate you from your peers.
The Discover More card is also paying 5% cash back on all Internet shopping as well as department store shopping for up to $1500 in spending from October through December.
You might also be interested in the rewards calculator at http://www.creditcardtuneup.com/ . You enter your average monthly spending in categories like restaurants, groceries, gas, airfare, hotels, etc. and it calculates the single best card as well as the best combinations of cards for your spending profile.
Thanks for the comment. I found math got easier when I could use it for something more concrete than passing a test ... but I'm still glad there's no call for calculus in my daily life!
I'm in the city limits of Atlanta. My property taxes are $2300 this year. Water is $50 per month; Atlanta residents are paying one of the highest rates in the nation due to the expense of a $1 billion-plus sewer infrastructure project. Repairs on my old house (built in 1955) have been high on some things. Plumbing repairs alone have totaled over $3,000. The roof needs replacing and I am afraid to ask how much that is going to cost for a 1200 sq. ft. house. However, I have been able to economize on a lot of things. I have put in central air and replaced furnace for under $2,000. Completely remodeled bathroom for under $2,000 as well (with nice Kohler tub and toilet) by using a handyman instead of a remodeling company. Had handyman put in new kitchen floor for about $500. I do whatever work I can myself -- all the painting, caulking, small repairs, yardwork -- I would never pay anybody for yard maintenance or landscaping that I am physically capable of doing myself. Window treatments? Forget it! I put up Venetian blinds myself and sewed my own curtains. Sometimes it is a financial strain to pay for these repairs and upgrades, but it's still much better than apartment life. I spent 25 years in apartments -- got stuck with rent increases every year, got forced out of three places by developers who bought the properties for teardowns, had to struggle to get the maintenance departments to make repairs, had noisy neighbors, just a long string of problems. After going through all that, I love my little house and will always be grateful I was able to buy it.