How to cut spending and save more for investing?
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It’s a beautiful Sunny Sun day!
It’s hard to believe such a pandemic is ravaging lives across the country. On
surface all seems all ok but it’s not, such a strange feeling. I hope all are
staying safe and healthy. I am working from home for almost now 1 and half
month and office just declared it will remain same till end of summer. I
believe for any large organization its going to be a challenge to bring all
employee back while keeping safeguards in place. In my office floor there are
about 40 people are placed in adjacent cubicles. I don’t think it will easy to
keep safe distance even half of the folks decide to back to office. Then
additional risk will be sharing the rest rooms, elevators, kitchen area so on.
Anyway, today I am going to
share some thoughts on saving few extra dollars by cutting recurring expenses
that we just cannot stop spending. Now that I am stuck at home, I started reviewing
our monthly recurring bills except grocery. So, I targeted if some way I could
reduce our car insurance, internet bill, home insurance and phone bill. Let’s review
each of them separately.
We were paying about
110$/month for our two cars. Our newer CR-V is fully covered while the old Camry
is under liability coverage only. I guess that’s quite standard price in
Hosuton metro area but wondering is there way to cut the bill further. These days
my office hours are approximately 7 am to 4 pm. I am saving almost two hours’
worth of commute every work day, what a blessing😊 So
after 4 PM, I started calling Liberty mutual, Geico, Amica and few others for
quote keeping the same existing coverage. I am not sure is it for the fact that
people are not driving a lot, so risks are minimal, all insurance provider were
giving discounts. I went with the lowest quote for 85$/month and cancelled my
existing policy. So that about 25$/month
of saving..wow, I am impressed.
Next I targeted my internet
bill which is currently running about $70/month. For internet, ther are not
many options in our subdivision, its either Comcast or At& T. After some search
I found only way to cut 10-15 bucks by opting for lower mbps policy. But my
wife objected that we both are working from home, so should not sacrifice on internet
speed. That was practical opinion from wify😊 So I
stopped shopping around on internet policy. I will review this option later when
we will go back to office again.
The next target was out yearly
home insurance policy. Here in Houston, due to close proximity to gulf of Mexico
and hurricane occurrences, home insurance is quite pricey. Currently we are
paying about 1500 $/year for full coverage of our house. We also keep a flood insurance
of 400$/year although our house is not in flood zone. I am keeping this for
extra peace of mind, specially considering the devastating flood Houston area experienced
after hurricane Harvey in 2017. So many neighborhoods which were not even not
near any flood zone, got decimated by that sudden flooding. So I am not
thinking to opt out for this flood insurance. Anyway, for home insurance I was
able to get quote at 1350$/ year from a large national insurance agency. I
could get much lower quote by scraping some option from my insurance. But I don’t
think that’s a pragmatic idea considering the repair cost even for a small
water leak or roof damage.
Our current phone bill is
running bit on the higher side of $90/month with T -mobile. I think this is
quite expensive considering the basic options it has. I was thinking several
times before lock down to shop around but could not find time. I was researching
some options on the internet and seem like same package we can get around
$60/month. But to get the SIM we need to go to physical store that I don’t guess
a safe choice for now. I will get back to this later once things come back to
normal.
Now lets summarize my savings,
its 25$ X 12 (Car insurance) + 150 (home insurance) = 450$/year.
Although this does not seem a
lot but hey who is giving me these 450 dollars for free anyway 😊
For many of us that’s almost
2-3 days’ worth of office work.
If I think another way, at 4%
dividend rate, I need to invest about 11,000$ to get same 450$ a year as income. That means
saving about 1000$ every month for 11 months.
So, in a way this a passive
income for us😊 for which I did not work at all!
Hope this article will help
you guys to review your recurring bills and hence some saving potential!
Stay safe!
Disclaimer: This article shows my personal opinion and its for entertainment purpose only. This is no way professional financial advice. You may seek professional advice or conduct own research before investing.
Disclaimer: This article shows my personal opinion and its for entertainment purpose only. This is no way professional financial advice. You may seek professional advice or conduct own research before investing.
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