Category — Cost Cutting

Well, OK it’s Brooklyn, but still. How can a Broke Wall Streeter or recent college grad find a place for $100 a month? Pitching a tent in somebody’s backyard, that’s how. Three recent college grads have gone camping in their buddy’s backyard. It could be worse. They could be living inside the buddy’s 2 bedroom apartment which houses 6 roommates. Ahhhh, I remember sleeping in the park and eating ketchup packets 17 years ago. Those were the days. Read more here.

Volkswagen is set to release the world’s most economical non-hybrid car in China by 2010 (unconfirmed). The two-seater is capable of 235mpg and can reach a top speed of 76 mph. The body is made from a mixture of ultra-light magnesium, aluminum, and carbon fiber. The three-wheeled WOBL-1 was driven on the Autobahn 7 years ago, so why the heck did they keep this in the garage for so long? Well, the cost of production was way too high, specifically, the cost of carbon fiber monocoque production. The original launch date was 2012, but the costs have come down enough to build a few hundred of them.

It has a six-speed transmission and weighs one-third the weight of a Toyota Echo. It measures 11.4 feet long, 4.1 feet wide, and 3.3 feet tall. While the prototype has a one-cylinder diesel engine, the production vehicles will have a two-cylinder turbo-diesel engine. The cost will be in the range of $31,750 – $47,622 (20,000 – 30,000 Euros).

If you’d like to see some more photos of the prototype, click here.

I received an email from my local utility company, PECO, reminding me about their rebate program for installing a new ENERGY STAR qualified, high-efficiency natural gas furnace, boiler, or residential water heater. Here are the details:

$300 Rebate: High-efficiency natural gas furnace or boiler
• Furnace must have a 90% Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) rating or greater.
• Boiler must have an 85% AFUE rating or greater.
• Furnace or boiler must be ENERGY STAR qualified.

$50 Rebate: Residential high-efficiency natural gas water heater
• Water heater must have an Energy Factor (EF) of 0.62 or greater.
• Water heater must be ENERGY STAR qualified.

This rebate is great incentive along with the federal tax credits for consumers and builders. We can receive tax credits at 30% of the cost, up to $1,500 in 2009 & 2010 for existing homes. The PECO rebates are valid until the end of 2009. If PECO isn’t your utility company, ask yours if they have a similar rebate program.

Unfortunately, my equipment is fairly new and efficient, so this won’t help me. I did shut off the pilot light to my gas fireplace this weekend to save some on my gas bill. It’s still around 40 degrees at night, but not fireplace-worthy frigid.

I’m always looking for some good clean furniture to replace some of the ratty stuff from my college days, like the futon in the basement. I just found another site that lists free items, which was featured ina PC World article. It’s called FreeNapkin.com. You register like an auction site and bid on the free item. If you are the first to claim the item, you get the winning confirmation via email. You arrange the pickup time or shipping details with the current owner. The only caveat is they do not allow you to turn around and post the item on eBay.

There are other sites I use for free items. Craigslist is great, especially in NYC, but lately there’s been a lot of scams on there to filter through. Freecycle.org is another website, which breaks it down into local groups that you join. They promote that members also give as much as you receive, similar to the pay it forward idea. Garage sales often end up trashing the leftover items that don’t sell, so cruise those curbs in the afternoon and scoop up some goodies. Your local paper or supermarket bulletin board are other places you can find giveaways.

Not only do we get free stuff, but we can reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.

MoneyMonk left a comment on my latest Monthly Net worth Statement post asking how I have debt with a six-figure salary. Coincidentally, MSN just posted a nice piece on a couple who just gets by with an annual salary of $400,000 (tip: don’t have kids). It’s the same with anyone who has debt in any income bracket. We have (or had in my case) more expenses than income and either voluntarily or not, we had to compensate with credit cards or loans.

I didn’t always have a six-figure income. It’s only been a couple of years. In the 10 years prior, my average income was $47,000 or so. This takes into account three periods of unemployment in those 10 years, so my net worth statement back then looked really sad. To survive and keep my modest house, I did have to rely heavily on credit cards and a home equity loan. I amassed the bulk of  my credit card debt during this period. While my income is much higher now, my expenses have not remained the same level.

I work on Wall Street which is two hours away from my house depending on traffic. With the amount of hours I work (60-83 hours a week), I need to stay near the city or risk driving off the road snoozing during my 2 hour commute home. So I rent a small 12′ x 10′ room in New Jersey during the week. So along with my mortgage payment every month, my living expenses (excluding utilities) are now more than 43% of my net monthly income. I did have someone renting out half my home, but he moved out last month after being unemployed for 3 months. There went 15% of my monthly net income out the door. I don’t feel like selling my house in the current environment and losing the equity (excluding my original down payment) I have left. All other expenses have been cut down to the bone. I even cancelled Comcast cable completely on Friday.

FreeMoneyFinance suggests that we (those only getting by with large incomes) move to a lower cost-of-living city. Uh, I live in a small farming town on the border of a suburban area of Philadelphia. Any lower and I’d live in Valley Forge National Park among the deer and foxes. He suggests finding a job in the lower cost-of-living area with a 50% reduction in pay. If I could find a job here, it would have a starting salary of about $45,000 (even with over 13 years experience). That amounts to a 64% reduction in pay, but I would save some money from not needing to rent a room during the week. From my earlier statement, the job market here is not stable and very limited, so unemployment would have to be factored into the $45,000, not to mention it would be mathematically impossible to contribute to a 401(k) plan given my expenses and aggressively paying off my debt.

Accepting the offer for my Wall Street job was a no-brainer. I’m sacrificing my happiness and probably my short-term health, but it is the best chance I have to attack my debt load in the timeline I set. Sure, if I had a six-figure income nearby my low cost-of-living area home, I’d be clicking my heels while whistling Dixie, but I’m afraid even if the economy recovers, this won’t be likely. So I hope I answered your question MoneyMonk.

As a Broke Wall Streeter, the Subway $5 footlong is always at the top of my list of meal options. I noticed that they are running an online contest to win prizes like XBox 360s, a free year of DirecTV service, and a VIP experience with NBA player Tony Parker. With my luck at contests (in 10 years I’ve only won a Corrs CD and a pink Sex in the City t-Shirt which I promptly donated), I’m just shooting for one of the instant prizes. It’s a simple game of knocking down 3-pt shots in the allotted time using your space bar.

Score! This morning I won a $5 Subway gift card and a few more entries to play. You can get more chances every time you purchase a Subway 32 oz drink or on back of specially-marked Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili Chips bags. They also send you free entries if you forget to play every day. Give it a shot. Mmmm….meatball toasted with provolone on herb & cheese bread.

Here’s a CNN story about a couple who lived in Beverly Hills, but had to move to rural Oregon due to a layoff. They now spend their days shovelling manure, feeding animals, and landscaping. It’s a big change, but they are helping their parents out, living a frugal life, and they could grow to enjoy it. Sound interesting? You can try out being a farmer for a week at Vocation Vacations.

Here is a link to their blog.

KYW3 News, the Philadelphia CBS affiliate station ran a story last night on how not to get ripped off by your local auto repair shop. They featured three websites that estimate repair costs based on your car model, location, and if you went to the dealer or an independent shop.

RepairPal was fast and easy to use. I looked up my SUV and chose a fuel pump replacement as my issue. It quickly brought up an estimate range of $307-377 in the Manhattan area. It broke down the labor as $73-93 and parts as $234-284. A Google map of all repair shops in the area was also displayed showing names, addresses, and contact info. A synopsis of what to look out for and why the issue occurs is followed by recommendations on what other parts should be replaced at the same time. This info can be printed from a nicely formatted pdf file or emailed to you. If you have an iPhone, they have a free app to download. It was a NY Times App of the Week and an Apple Staff Favorite. The website also contains an auto repair encyclopedia, comparable to AutoZone. Speaking of AutoZone, they have a great troubleshooting site that I have used a lot.

DriverSide was also easy to use, but the performance was slower than RepairPal. To get to the final estimate of repairs, it took a lot more clicks and more pages to load. You also had the choice to see repair shops in your area with all the contact info and distance from you. It didn’t give a range for a fuel pump replacement, but an exact figure of $379.81. The estimated labor was 0.70 hours at $50.40 and the fuel pump at $329.41. There are other sections at DriverSide like a “What It’s Worth” section which shows you the current value of your vehicle, and a For Sale area that you can list or shop for vehicles.

Both of these sites are free, but the last one KYW featured was FairRepair. They charge up to $9.99 for each estimate report which will be rebated back to you when you go to the participating repair shop that will honor the estimate. They wanted my VIN number to proceed to Step #2 on top of the fee, so I didn’t even bother going forward.

In review, I would prefer using RepairPal as it was the fastest and easiest to navigate. The information was presented in a visually and printer-friendly format. I’m not that slick to have an iPhone, but that downloadable app feature is another plus. Don’t get ripped off by a greedy repair shop again. Do your homework, but it just got a little easier.

Happy Friday! I deserve a fun night out and with the temps hitting the mid 50’s this weekend, I’m going to start it off right with some good eats on the cheap. Who says you can’t find a good meal under $10 in NYC? I always use MenuPages to sort by cuisine, price, and neighborhood. They recently revamped their site and expanded to other areas: San Francisco, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and South Florida. They have customer reviews, directions, and of course, menus.

I also found this feature article on the Time Out NY magazine’s website listing cheap eats for every occasion. Now I know where all the starving artists and college students eat, and eat well.

If you are visiting our great Metropolis and need help with the public transit system, use HopStop for door-to-door directions using the subway, buses, and taxis. Use NYC Garages for live parking garage rates. They also have rates for Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.

The next MSN story in the Series called Mind over Money has been posted. It is titled Secret Millionaires: Addicted to Saving. Brent Kessel interviews compulsive savers that love watching their savings grow into fortunes, but on the flip side, experience great anxiety when their nest eggs shrink. These are not the people that live by the motto, ”he who dies with the most toys wins”, which I used to believe. Hopefully, the more people that see this story, the “saver” mentality will become more mainstream…and right now, this country needs more savers.

These savers are not to be confused with extreme savers, like America’s Cheapest Family, the Economides family. Their blog is here. They have been featured on ABC News and Good Morning America.

Hey, I’m going to become a millionaire. It’s a goal of mine I intend to achieve before I’m 50. The math is easy, bring in more money than goes out. The first major hurdle is to defeat the credit card beast. I keep a little sign above my monitor that says: “Money In, Not Money Out”. It sometimes keeps me from pressing that Complete Purchase button while shopping online. Every little bit helps.

MSN’s Mind Over Money