Mean but Green 1

We are all suffering from the current downturn in the Economy and most people are trying to tighten their belts by economizing on the two things they should not economize on and those are health and food. Many of us boomers are also approaching our retirement where we have got to get used to live of fixed incomes and try and cut costs.

The following is a sampling of all my suggestions I wrote about in my various blogs where we can economize without resorting to scrimping on health or food.

Telecommunications:

- Telephone; Landlines
Do you have a traditional landline costing you $60 per month at least, including Long Distance?
Did you know you can get a landline for $25 per month with Voice over IP (VOIP)? If you have a DSL or Cable internet connection you can get VOIP. T-Mobile can even offer this service for your mobile phone from home for only $10 per month if you do not need international. That is a savings of between $35 and $50 per month!

- Telephone; Mobile Phones
Are you on a post pay plan that costs you at least $60 per month with tons of free minutes that you never use and where you are constantly cut off? Did you know that you can get pre pay or pay as you go plans for as little as $10 per month? If you use your mobile phone for texting or SMS only, this money can last you for longer than a month and your message always arrives! You can also fill it up with higher amounts if you need to but my average spend is less than $25 per month. So here is another saving of between $35 and $50 per month; the messages can be as long as you want to make them!

- High Speed Internet connection
Have you refreshed your Internet service contract lately? Are you paying nearly $ 65 per month for DSL or Cable service? Check out all the offers and threaten your service provider with changing to another provider, and watch how quickly your charges will be reduced to $25. Another savings of $40 per month.

- Cable TV
Do you really need 100 to 200 channels? Do you really benefit from your $90 per month? How often do you use your DVR? Do you not have a VCR or a DVD recorder which can perform almost the same functions? Also, is it not true that most of the programs (sport, series, funnies) us boomers watch are on the national channels for free?
Buy some rabbit ears for $20 from Radio Shack, put them on your roof , tune them correctly and attach them to your cable wiring. You now have all the TV you need in picture perfect HD for free! Saving your self another $90 per month.

So by simply going through your everyday communications needs and paring them down to what you need, without sacrificing anything, we have just saved ourselves the grand total of between $200 and $230 per month.

Just imagine what that can buy you in quality food and health care in a month. And you aint seen nothing yet!

The next episode I will discuss, savings on ELECTRICITY, use of your CAR and CAR PAYMENTS, your HOUSE and MORTGAGE PAYMENTS and so on