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A Day in the Life of a Cheapskate

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I spent the weekend living like a cheapskate.  I didn’t try to.  I just kind of lived my weekend life as I normally do, and it turns out my brain kind of defaults to less expensive choices.

The highlight of fall weekends for me is watching Penn State football games on TV.  But I don’t have cable.  I do have an assortment of streaming services, but none of them were carrying this week’s game.  I usually subscribe to one of the “watch live TV” services at some point during the football season (and carry it through bowl games), but I was trying to put it off as long as I can.  I won’t be home for next week’s game, so if I could find a way to watch this week’s for free I would be good until mid-October.  So I signed up for a one week free trial for one of the services I’m not planning to use for the full season, but had the Penn State game.  The next day I canceled the service so I wouldn’t be charged.  I feel a little bad for taking advantage of the service like that….but not that bad.  I usually do this once a year, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

For dinner on Saturday I was thinking about getting a slab of barbeque ribs from the warehouse club.  But the $18 price tag made me rethink that.  I also thought about ordering a pizza.  But ultimately I pulled out my Instant Pot and made a pot of soup.  It was a lot cheaper than the other two options.  And likely better for me.  And we have leftovers.

I also needed to buy some jeans this weekend.  Apparently the Covid-19 pounds that I gained have morphed into the Covid 29, and now my pants don’t fit.  But I like the jeans I have.  I just need the next size up (until I can get myself back on the treadmill to get my weight under control).  Rather than buy new, I went to my favorite resale site, Poshmark.  I found a bundle of three pair in my new (hopefully temporary) size for a good price, so I bought it.  I like buying used clothes.  It’s less expensive to buy better quality that way.  And it’s better for the environment to reuse like that.  So much fast fashion ends up in the world’s landfills, so I just feel better about reusing an item somebody didn’t want anymore.

I guess I have the mindset of a cheapskate.  And I’m fine with that.  I can dress it up and say that I’m “choosing a frugal lifestyle” or something like that, but the reality is I’m pretty cheap in regular life.  And I’m pretty sure that’s a good way to be for this era of super high inflation.  If my default is to keep costs low, that makes it a lot easier to get to the next paycheck.

Do you default to the less expensive options?  Should you?

The Great Cord-Cutting Experiment: A Year Later

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Back in September of 2013 I decided to cut the cord.  No cable TV, no satellite.  Just internet.  At the time I thought of it as a temporary state.  A money saving measure.  It was an experiment.  I’d see how long I was ok without TV, and when money flowed a little more freely, I would get my cable back.

More than a year later, the great cord-cutting experiment is my lifestyle.  I have serious doubts that I’ll ever have cable again.  Comcast regularly tries to tempt me with deals that make it sound like for only an extra $9 per month I can keep my current internet service and add basic cable plus HBO.  And I keep saying no.  Because I know that the $9 per month will quickly expand into a much higher number.  There will be an equipment rental fee for the cable box.  There will be taxes and other fees.  There will be the looming temptation of DVR service and high definition picture.  There will be the higher electric bill that comes with having a cable box.  And the reality is I just don’t need it.  I’m doing just fine without cable.

Before I cut the cord, I was spending about $150 per month for my combined cable and internet service.  Now I spend $66.95 per month for my internet service.  That’s it.  No taxes.  No fees.  No equipment rental.  I know how much that bill will be, always, and it never bothers me to pay for that mid-range high speed internet, because it works well for me and I use it a lot.  I still have subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu+ and Amazon Prime (all things I was paying for before I cut the cord).  And I did pay $50 for a lifetime subscription to PlayOn and PlayLater (which makes it easy for me to watch CBS shows on my TV through my Roku box—I’ll never understand why CBS won’t play nice with Hulu!).

Live sports and award shows were the most worrisome point for me when I cut the cord.  But I’ve found that I can stream lots of games broadcast on ESPN3 through my Roku.  And many other events (e.g. the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards) stream live on the web, so it’s just a matter of connecting my laptop computer to the TV for those rare occasions.  Not a big deal.  I sometimes toy with the idea of adding an antenna to try to pull in over the air broadcasts on the major networks, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.

I think the future is going to move in my favor.  HBO has announced that they are going to start offering a stand-alone streaming subscription (no cable required!) in the near future.  And while I don’t feel a need to have HBO in my life, this excites me because other major players will follow.  My dream is to have a streaming subscription to ESPN and to the Big Ten Network…but right now these things are only available with an accompanying cable subscription.  But it’s starting to look like there is a possibility that someday my dream will come true.

I admit that I’ve had some weak points.  I paid about $25 each for season subscriptions              to Doctor Who and The Walking Dead through Amazon.  I visited with friends and with my favorite brewpub to get a look at a few Penn State football games that I couldn’t stream.  But compared to the $83 per month I’m saving by not having cable, I’ve come out way ahead.  It’s no longer just an experiment.  It’s a lifestyle.