New Year, New Modes of Living

And so this year I have a few resolutions:

1) To be more fit. Anyone who knows me knows I'm already way fit. Not built. Fit. I'm trying to get stronger and faster. Not the easiest thing for someone running up to 40 years old but a goal I can reach.

2) Stop wasting money. Yes thought I am fortunate at this time to be employed (and seeing the recent unemployment stats that is saying a lot). But this year I'm doing my best to leverage frugality. So first thing is that my 88 325i died. So I had the opportunity to replace it with a '97 318i which gets about 50% more useful gas mileage as my other vehicle, a '97 Z3 2.8. When you're pumping premium, that matters. Not that when gas prices hit $5 I was sweating all that much as I live within my means (and I had been biking to work), but why spend the money if you don't have to?

So I'm looking at a minimum of a 20% reduction in my gas usage this year, without changing my habits. That's about $300 bucks for the year. I'm not keeping full tabs on my gas usage because it comes out of my weekly allowance.

Next is the reduction in land line phone service. Why do I still have a land line? DSL and legacy. I've had my phone number for ever. Don't want to give it up. Sue me. Anyway. I have a Gizmo number which I can get mad minutes for 20 bucks. I don't make a lot of phone calls. So the biggest money waster is actually my cell phone, but I prefer to be available and I'm not clear that a pay-go plan will work for me for when I do use the phone heavily. In any event, between my Gizmo number and my Google Grand Central number, Vocito on the Mac and Dial Central on the Nokia Internet Tablet, I don't pay for phone calls. Nothing. Nada. Not even long distance. If I was convinced that both Gizmo and Grand Central will remain free I would probably drop the land line altogether. But as of now I'm saving $20/month. It's possible that I can go lower but these phone companies have so many fees and such. I may end up going with Vonage or something when it begins to annoy me enough. But as of now I'm looking at $240 for the year in savings.

Next up: Apple TV and Boxee. I've reduced my CableVision to basic cable. I just bought an Apple TV and installed Boxee on it. I get CNN news. I get all those reruns that Spike, FX, TNT, and everyone one else broadcasts and then some. Of course we have torrents but you know, that wouldn't be legal. I realized I was ready for this when I was willing to sit at my computer and watch Spenser for Hire at my laptop. I suppose my Spenser watching caught the attention of AOL because not 48 hours after I discovered their monster stash of Spenser, then they took it down. Next time, I use my browser plugin and rip that stuff. Note to media companies: suddenly making stuff unavailable is a bad idea. Not that I'm threatening to do anything illegal. So my Cable bill was just cut by $30/month. In July I'll have to pony up for Versus so I can watch Le Tour (unless it ends up online somewhere). But for now that's $360 for the year. The Apple TV of course will eat into that particular saving but I still come out ahead by $140 if you include it's cost. However since I had an Airport Express that died on New Years, I'm not going to include it in the cost because I would have paid for a replacement anyway.

So what we have is a possible $900 savings for the year if it all works out as planned ($75/month). Not too shabby for cutting expenses without really impacting my life. If I wasn't attached to my land line phone number I'd probably be able to reach a grand. Well lets see how this goes.