• Local Telephone Service
• Long Distance Telephone Service
• Cell Phones

Local Telephone Service

While local telephone service can be affordable for most of us, it can quickly get expensive if you add all of the options offered by the telephone companies.  Asking yourself a few simple questions and making very little sacrifice, you can make some significant savings and pinch pennies.

1. Common services that are added to your phone bill.  Determine if you really need all of these features.  Each one you eliminate will pinch pennies and save you on your monthly bill.

• Avoid using the directory assistance.  This service is added to your phone bill each time you use the service.  Many times the charge is overlooked because it is not an obvious charge on your bill.  Look the number up online at WhitePages.com or use your telephone book and do it the old fashion way.
• Call waiting is another service that is not really necessary.  In the typical household, how many many of your calls must be answered immediately?  Plus, most people have a cell phone.  If the call was that important, chances are that person has your cell phone number and could reach you on it in an emergency.
• Call forwarding is yet other feature that the phone company often bundles.  I had this feature on my phone and I can not remember ever using it.  You may be paying for this feature and not even realize it if you bought a bundled plan.  The same goes for 3-party conference calling and last number called service.
• Voicemail – You can drop the voicemail monthly service and buy a phone that has an answering machine included.  The price of the phone will pay for itself quickly and you can check your messages from anywhere with a traditional answering machine by simply calling your number and entering a code you set up.

2. Long Distance Telephone Service

• Long distance providers is a very competitive market.  Shopping around with the different providers for your area can lead to some really great savings.
• Long distance service through your local provider is typically much more expensive than going through one of the competitors.  While it may be tempting to take one of their “bundle plans”, avoid these because they typically have hidden costs associated with them.
• Determine how much long distance calling you do.  If you do a lot of long distance calling, you will most likely want to go with a fixed rate plan.  Some carriers offer unlimited long distance calling for a set price that is a great deal if you do a lot of long distance calling.  On the other hand, if you do not do a great deal of long distance calling, look into the pay per minute plans.  While these are more expensive than a fixed rate plan, if you do very little long distance calling they will save you money on your monthly bill.

3. Work with your telephone provider to find the least expensive plan that will work for you.

• Many phone companies have economy plans for people that are trying to cut costs.  Give them a call and see what all they have.  This is especially true if you have a cell phone that you use to make many of your local or long distance calls.
• Do away with that second like that you use for fax or Internet.  If you have DSL you don’t need a second line to receive incoming calls and be on the Internet.  If you have dial-up, several free software packages are available to day that will allow you to receive a call while on the Internet.

4. Be sure and Check Your Bill – Reviewing your monthly bill can lead to some big savings.  Many phone companies charge for services that you are not aware of and unless you look at your bill, you will be spending money on things you do not realize.

• Paper Billing – In the new age of “going green” and the price associated with mailing out paper statements, many phone companies have started charging to send you a paper copy of your statement.  Eliminate this charge by going online or giving them a call and ask for an electronic version.  If you want a paper copy, simply print out the electronic bill on your computer.
• Renting Phones – If you are renting a phone from you provider, discontinue it.  You can spend very little and have a phone that has the same features.  Don’t get sucked into the sales pitch “If you rent the phone from us, we will replace it for free should something happen to it”.  It is not worth the monthly cost when you can purchase a very nice phone for under $20.
• Unauthorized Calls – It is very common to be charged for calls you did not make.  Review your bill and if you see a call that you are being charged for incorrectly, contact your carrier and have that charge removed.
• Check to see if you are being billed for maintenance.  This typically covers repair of telephone wiring inside the house if something goes wrong.  You can cut this charge out as it rarely goes bad and if it does, phone boxes and wiring is very cheap to buy at your local hardware store.  This is something you can do yourself.

Hopefully this article has given you a few ideas on how to pinch pennies and save a little on your telephone bill each month.

I discovered that I was making a few mistakes.  First off, I was putting hot drinks in the cooler and then putting my ice on top of them.  This was causing my ice to melt at a rapid speed.  To correct this problem, I just put the drinks in the fridge a day or so in advance ( Got them in the pantry because I buy them when they are on sale) and then put the cold drinks in the cooler.

The ice - I told you we were going to get to pinching pennies.  Although it probably doesn’t amount to more than $20 a weekend by the time you factor in the gas and ice for restocking the cooler.  But.. $20 is $20.

The Trick- We save water bottles or 2 liter bottles once we have finished drinking them.  These bottles are refilled with water and put away in the freezer.  Depending on what size cooler I am carrying, I put between 1-3 two liter bottles that have been frozen in the fridge in the cooler.  Then, I just empty the ice from our ice maker in the fridge and I am good to go.

Using this method, I can keep an entire cooler of drinks cold all weekend long.  Usually the cooler still has quite a bit of ice in it when we get back home.

Obviously, it would depend on the duration of your trip, but for a weekend getaway or a day at the zoo.  This is the way to go.  It not only saves you some money, your drinks will be ice cold.

My latest searching and trying to find some help lead me to an ebook website where they have several types of books for various types of things.  I ended up at the Living On A Dime website.(I know this was probably not a “frugal living” thing to do), but I read through the site and found a couple of books that I wanted to get.  They seemed reasonably priced to me, so I purchased a couple of them to try and further my education on the whole frugal living aspect.  I am not sure if I have mentioned it or not, but I am a computer nerd so typically eBooks (Electronic books delivered via download) appeal to me.

I may go back and order some of the others ( Depending on how my success goes with the two I bought).  I ended up getting Grocery Shopping On A Budget ($19.95) and a five book series Dig Out of Debt: Over 1000 of the best Ideas From Living On A Dime.($19.95).

Honestly, I have not put the practices into action fully yet so I can’t say if they work 100%.  I do like how the books are written and from what I have glanced over, they seem to contain quite a bit of information that I personally will find useful.

I will definetly share what I have learned as I dig deeper into these books while I contineu my journey of frugal living.

Planning out gifts, holidays on the calendar.  It not only makes sense, it will help the less organized – like myself keep things in order.  As we get older we tend to forget things like our best friend’s birthday or our parents anniversary.

Ok, let’s get started: 

Items Needed 

• Calendar  (I am a computer nerd so I use outlook for all my tasks)
• Writing instrument or computer
• Your monthly budgeting notebook or spreadsheet

The Planning Session

Part 1 – Birthdays & Anniversaries

• Mom
• Dad
• Brothers and Sisters
• Friends
• Other Relatives

Part 2 – Holiday’s and Special Occasions

• Christmas
• Valentine’s Day
• Thanksgiving
• Father’s Day  (got to have this one   )
• Mother’s Day
• Easter
• National Holidays

Filling Out The Calendar
Get our your calendar and start filling out those dates you worked so hard to create.   As you write the event on the calendar determine if you will need to buy them a present.  If you don’t usually buy uncle Bob a present for his birthday, write his name on the calendar and move on.  Once you get to a person or holiday that you will be buying a gift for, you will write their name down on the calendar and then open up your monthly budgeting notebook.  You will record that information here as well.  Since you will most likely not know what you are going to buy the person for the event, you just sent a general price range and leave yourself room to fill in possible suggestions as the year continues.

Allow yourself some extra spending on the holiday events.  You may be having a dinner and may need to bring food or drinks.  Just add a little cushion there so it doesn’t blow your budget out of whack.

Planning for the unexpected
It doesn’t matter how much time you spend on your holiday calendar, you will run into some unexpected expense.  Your child’s friends birthday party, a baby shower, etc.  To help offset this, make yourself a list of contingency occasions such as

• Birthday Parties (unexpected)
• Showers
• Weddings & Engagement
• Get Well Gifts

Using a gift calendar is also a great way to schedule out your year.  You have the year clearly laid out and will avoid that call from your best friend that slipped your mind saying ” Thanks for calling me on my birthday Yesterday “.  With this in place, your budget will avoid these pitfalls.
               

When we would go shopping for groceries we would do the typical thing.  Get chicken, lunch meat, ground beef and some other items we would plan on being our main dish for the week.  Most of the time we would at least open the ground beef up and make hamburgers putting the rest back in the fridge “to be used later” for some other meal.  That other meal never came a lot of the time.  We would either decide to go out and eat, didn’t feel like eating meat or one of the kids decided they wanted chicken strips on the night we had planned on eating the meat.  The result?  The ground beef would go in the garbage because it was no longer safe to eat.

In the beginning, when we first started trying to pinch pennies and live more frugal, we would follow the typical things you have seen if you have looked for frugal shopping.  We were now buying the “Value Pack” (5lbs or so) of ground beef and once we opened it up to make chili or burghers we would put the remainder in 1lb freezer bags and put it in the freezer for later use.  This kinda worked, but there was one large problem.  My hat is off to anyone that can make a hamburger patty from thawed meat you have had in the freezer.  It just will not hold together.  So, we were still wasting because we would have 3lbs or so of meat in the freezer, but we wanted hamburgers.  As you probably guessed, we would end up going to the store, buying a smaller package of ground beef (nullifying the savings) and make burgers.

I was discussing this with a friend and they made the most obvious suggestion to me.  I couldn’t belive I had not already thought of it as I am sure you already have.  But… just in case you are like me and it just isn’t clicking, let me explain what we do now and I am proud to say that we are no longer wasting ground beef.  We only buy it when it goes on sale and I feel like I have a solid win in this small category of frugal living.

1. We watch the papers for ground beef to go on sale.  If you have a Kroger in your area they will put it on sale at least once a month for a very good price, but they put a limit of 5lbs.  We have found that they do not usually enforce this issue.  If you tell them you would like 10lbs and it is not for resale they have always sold it to us.

2. Ok, so we have the meat… now it is type to prepare it for later use.  What are we going to do with all this meat?  We are going to make hamburger patties out of it… All of it.  We have a family of four and I am usually the only one that eats more than one burger when we grill out.  That said,  I put groups of 5 patties together separating them by wax paper.  Once I have 5 patties, I wrap them up nice and tight with the clear freezer paper and put them away.  I will do this with all of the meat.

3. Now my problems are solved… If we want hamburgers, I can just take a stack out of the freezer… thaw them out and on the grill they go.  If my wife wants to make chili or sloppy Joe’s and only needs 2 patties, she will take a stack from the freezer and put them in the microwave for about 20 seconds (just thaw enough so you can break them apart), wrap back up the extras and put them in the freezer.  See, it is so simple.  Once you have them frozen in patties you are able to cook anything with them, but saving it in gallon bags in 1lb quantities really limits you.

This method of being frugal with ground beef also saves time.  Give it a try if you don’t do this already the next time you buy beef.  Your meat will be fresh, your patties will already be made and the only thing you have to do is thaw and cook them.