Be More Efficient — 12 Universal Ways To Save Money At Home (1/2)
Hello dear,
Guess what?
I’m writing to you using a standing desk!
“What? Don’t those cost lots of money?” If you buy a fully assembled one, yes. But I bought this stand on Amazon for $39.99. Here’s why it’s worth it for me:
- I’ve lost 25lbs since January. One thing I noticed when you lose weight is you start working on improving other aspects of your physique. In my case, I shaved my beard (no need to hide the chubby cheeks anymore, yay!) and I’m working on my posture. Hence this desk.
- Back pain is the single leading cause of disability worldwide (which is a scary statistic for a tall guy like me since gravity isn’t gentle on us). While researching for last week’s letter, I listened to this interview with Dr. Kelly Starrett, who wrote a whole book on why you shouldn’t sit all day.
- One web company I really enjoy using wants to pay me $75 in Amazon credit to talk about their product for an hour (as user research). That’s more than enough for my desk plus some change! (this reminds me to reply to their e-mail, woops).
- I’m 6'4". So, of course the standing desk was too short for me. Do you think I bought something extra to make it taller? Ha, never. Instead, I used the box it came in to make it tall enough (as you can see in the picture below). It worked perfectly!
So, here we are. Typing, while standing.
Awesome!
Anyways, enough with sharing my excitement. Let’s get to the letter.
Today, I want to talk about ways to save money at home.
I started writing 12 ways, but the letter go too long. Therefore, I divided it between today and next week’s letter.
6 ways today. 6 ways next week. Got it?
Got it. Onward.
1. Cut Cable TV
For starters, I would cancel most of your subscriptions.
How? Of course there’s an app for that. I recently experimented with Trim (who saved their users more than $8million). I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was. All I did was enter my bank info and voila! Trim had a list of all my subscriptions and was ready to cancel those I didn’t need.
Anyways, back to cable TV.
I noticed how much of a problem it is because every single person I’m helping pay off their debt had a cable TV expense. Here’s the thing, that’s a big mistake!
If I were you, I would absolutely get rid of cable TV.
Here are several reasons why:
- It’s the 21st Century, you have a computer. A computer can act as a full media center (it has your TV, your radio, and your sports events).
- You should not watch the news every day. It’s a stress-inducing machine that’s more hurtful than helpful. The most common excuse I hear is “but I want to stay informed”. Trust me, watching the news is a horrible way of staying informed (don’t believe me? Watch the latest Vox video).
- However, if you’re anything like me, you want to be in on the joke when people talk about being dragged out of United planes. That’s ok, just know that there’s nothing CNN can give you that you can’t get from Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook’s trending topics. It’s the 21st Century! All you need is fast internet.
- You really want to stay informed? Read The Economist once a week (I do it every Saturday morning). It costs $3/week and will tell you everything you need to know.
- It’s not worth it. People will pay on average $50–$80 per month. That’s $600-$960 per year. If you have any debt, you can’t spend $1,000 on television! That’s assuming you can resist TV ads, which is unlikely since some of the smartest companies in the world are willing to bet $75billion a year on the fact you can’t resist all their ads.
“Cable TV in America has been perhaps the most lucrative business model in entertainment history. But its formula of adding channels and charging more no longer appeals. Seduced by cheaper, more flexible internet offerings, Americans have begun dropping pay TV at the rate of more than 1m households a year (live sports is one of the last pillars supporting this system).” — The Economist (February 11th 2017)
2. Stop Buying Water
This one’s a bit personal. I hate plastic water bottles with a passion.
I remember watching this TED video years ago when I was a kid in high school. The video and filter blew mini Richard’s mind. Since then, I’ve always owned a LifeSaver Water Filter.
However, like I said before, I’m a pretty tall guy. This tall guy needs at least a gallon of water a day. So the little bottle isn’t enough.
Thankfully, what I’ve owned for years is the LifeSaver Jerrycan 20,000UF. This bad boy can pump out 5,300 gallons of crisp, pure, and delicious drinking water. This means I only have to replace the filter every 14 years!
“But it costs $289!”
I hear you, and that’s an amazing deal. Here’s why:
How much does a gallon of water cost at your local store? Let’s say $1 (unlikely, but I’ll still make my point).
Let’s say you’re like me and drink a gallon a day, that’s $365 in water after a year! With my Jerrycan + my glass bottle, I’m saving $65.42 more than you the first year. Besides, my Jerrycan lasts 14 years. Meaning I’ll be at least $4,810.42 richer than you, only because of WATER (by the way, the real amount is even higher since a gallon of water at the store costs more than $1).
Besides, how much more environmentally friendly would you be once you stop throwing away plastic bottles every week? Dolphins all around the world will clap their flippers when you swim by as a way of saying “thank you!” (or, as a dolphin would say, “geeeee-geeree-geereegeeree!”).
Granted, many a friend of mine has joked about my doomsday-looking filter. However, if there ever is an apocalyptic event — A meteor impact, a nuclear war, or a major Facebook glitch — I’m ready.
Sidenote: I love my Jerrycan… But my girlfriend doesn’t.
If your significant other has any sense of style, I’m sorry. Chances are they won’t like the Jerrycan either.
This doesn’t mean keep buying dolphin-killing plastic bottles! If I were you, I’d buy a really good filter (I recommend this one), and a glass bottle. Your pocket (and the dolphins) will thank you.
3. Make Your Own Coffee
This one’s a funny topic amongst finance bloggers.
On one side of the ring, Mr. Money Mustache says making your own coffee can pay for you/ your kids’ university education.
On the other side of the ring, Ramit Sethi says cutting back on lattes is pointless.
My opinion? I think Ramit knows the math makes sense. But he also knows that the coffee example is very popular among finance writers. He knew if he wrote against it, he’d cause enough controversy to increase his popularity. Which is probably what happened.
However, let’s look at the math:
Say a cup of coffee costs $4 at Starbucks. You buy one every workday which adds up to $20 a week. $1,040 a year. $10,400 in a decade.
That’s a lot of money.
Ramit makes it sound like it’s a tough psychological challenge to say no to a latte. I say make your own latte and voila. Problem solved. Best of both worlds.
Personally, I learned to make coffee thanks to Tim Ferriss’ book, 4-Hour Chef.
Here’s what I use (Tim will teach you how to use it here):
- Aeropress Coffee Maker — $29.95
- Triton Digital Pocket Scale — $16.21
- Cuisinart Electric Kettle — $84.65 (you can get a cheaper one, Tim recommends this one)
- Hario Mini Mill Hand Coffee Grinder — $29.45
- Any beans you’d like (I love Death Wish Coffee because of this amazing ad. Any company that plays “Two Steps From Hell —Protectors of the Earth” in their Super Bowl Commercial is a great company in my books)
Total Cost: $180.25
Unlike a Starbucks habit, after 45 workdays, every sip will save you money.
I have been using this setup for the past 2+ years.
So far, my coffees have been stellar. Who needs Starbucks???
4. Cook Your Own Food
Ok, I have to sit down now. My lower back starts hurting after standing up for too long. Which is the point of the desk. This means my muscles are strengthening! Sweet.
Anyways, back to the point.
Everyone I’m helping pay off their debt had a “eating out” expense. I don’t get it.
Sure, it’s ok to hang out with friends for a birthday or some event once in a blue moon. But do you have to spend money at a restaurant every week?
I’ll talk more about this in a future post. But for now, if I were you I would research meal prepping. It can save you a lot of money, decrease your body-fat, and increase your health.
5. Get Cloth Napkins
If you’re like me, you use paper towels for everything.
And who can blame us? Paper towels can clean your tabletops as efficiently as they can dry your hands.
… Except that’s a terrible, terrible habit.
But as a good germaphobe, I never thought there was a better option.
That was until I started going through my notes for this letter. And noticed I had something in there about this magical thing called “cloth napkins.”
Apparently, they’re just as good as paper towels, except once you clean them, you can reuse them!
So, not only do you save money, you also help the environment. Wow!
Upon reading this, I rushed to Amazon, found the ones that had the right mix of price and good reviews, and clicked buy.
I will report back for duty once I’ve tried this new, magical discovery. In the meantime, I suggest you consider destroying your paper towels habit too.
6. Clean Your Own Stuff
This one baffles me.
If you have any debt at all, why would you pay someone else (aka a maid) to clean your stuff for you??
Trust me, it doesn’t take that long (think of how much time you’ll have once you remove your Cable TV habit!).
Even if you don’t have debt, it’s useful to clean your own stuff. You’ll be able to partake in one of my favorite activities: It’s called “clean your apartment every Sunday morning while listening to podcasts/ audiobooks”.
It’s my personal weekly reset button. You won’t believe how many great ideas came out of that habit (I think this blog was one of them).
And you’d pay someone else to do it for you? Estás loco ese?
This can go as far as cleaning your car or doing your laundry. Don’t pay someone to do those activities for you if you can use them to save money and learn new things.
Anyways, that’s it for today.
Today, we learned 6 ways to save money at home:
- Cut cable TV
- Stop buying water
- Make your own coffee
- Cook your own food
- Get cloth napkins
- Clean your own stuff
Next week, we’ll talk about 6 other ways.
See you next week (follow the series here to be notified).
Be well.
R
P.S.: I’m learning a ton by helping others improve their financial life. If you also need some help with becoming more efficient, e-mail me at richardreeze1@gmail.com. Of course, all my help is free. I’m actually really enjoying this.
Thanks for reading! 😊If you enjoyed it, test how many times can you hit 👏 in 5 seconds. It’s great cardio for your fingers AND will help other people see the story.You can follow me on Twitter at @richardreeze to find out whenever others just like it come out.📚 Do you like books? If so you might enjoy my latest obsession:
Most Recommended Books.📚
Since I write about finance, legal jargon is obligatory (because the guys in suits made me). Before following any of my advice, read this disclaimer.
