August 6, 2011
After nearly three weeks of frustrations, run arounds, failed attempts and unanswered requests, I finally managed to get a prescription filled at my local Kaiser pharmacy.
To add insult to injury, it cost an extra $10. I nearly said something but before I could, the clerk ringing up my order mentioned casually, “you know, it’s cheaper if you order online.”
Wait, what?
“Yes, I noticed that this was more expensive and was just about to ask about that since I normally always order online. This was just thanks to all the trouble I’ve been having in getting this particular order filled.”
Not in the mood to explain the whole thing, even though he asked to hear the story, I glossed over the details and got to the good part: why exactly was the online order cheaper??
He explained: to encourage people to use the mail order service, when they order a 3 month supply, one month of the regular co-pay of $10/month is discounted.
!! You mean to tell me that the price I’ve been getting when I ordered online wasn’t a regular price, it was a discount?? (You had better not tell me that they’re going to take it away at some point, either.)
Honestly.
I’m happy that my busy life + laziness has been saving me at least $20/every three months for the past couple of years but if they wanted to change behavior shouldn’t they have been trumpeting this little detail from the rooftops instead of handing out tote bags when people say they’ll try ordering with mail delivery?
Would a 33% discount plus the added convenience of having your medication delivered by mail be incentive enough to convert you if you normally physically pick up your own prescriptions?
And in this day and age of having groceries, baked goods, and just about anything else you can think of delivered, why on earth would you need to be incentivized to have your medication delivered?
Who LIKES sitting in a creepy pharmacy smelling of astringent and urine waiting for their prescriptions to be filled? (Maybe that’s just mine. But still. Every pharmacy feels slightly creepy.)
June 28, 2011
We finally did it.
We finally caught a phone deal at the right time and although I missed out on the “ideal” plan that I had in mind before, the one we settled on comes out a bit cheaper than the previous one so PiC and I have consolidated ourselves from a three service group (each of us and my parents) to one single carrier, upgrading him to a smartphone in the process.
Our two smartphones are free, and thanks to a corporate discount, the activation fees were waived ($35/each) and we get a 10% discount on the phone-only parts of the plan.
We have unlimited data, although only the first 2Gs are high-speed. After that, they throttle the speed, but so far, it doesn’t seem like we even come close to using a G each in a month.
It might have been a mistake to just go with PiC’s phone choice, though. He picked the G2 which was free with a 2 year plan and he liked that it came with the slide out keyboard. That’s perfect for him but with small hands and a very differently configured touchscreen in combination with the very thick phone and case, I still can’t adjust to either option and typing has become a huge chore. I’m frequently tapping away while walking and grumbling: “I hate you!” as I make mistakes.
Interruption: I caved. I found another touchscreen sans slideout keyboard option for free and quickly called for a buyer’s remorse exchange. Thanks to a quick on the trigger CSR, though, the order was put through without overnight shipping which I was willing to pay for at $12. Unless UPS works a whippy shippy by Friday, I’m traveling over the holiday weekend without a phone since this one has to go back by Friday. That’ll be a challenge to coordinate.
Ah well.
Back to the good stuff. We’re now paying, after taxes, around $150 for four phones, two with data, two without, unlimited texts for all, 1000 minutes between the four of us. We were paying something like $210 across three carriers for three dumb phones, all falling apart, and 1 smartphone that didn’t work 80% of the time. It’s not an enormous savings but it will add up and so long as I can get back to functioning, we’ll all be the happier for it. 😉
March 31, 2011
Let’s talk bonuses, windfalls, and irregular income.
Say you have the occasional gob of money come your way every so often that isn’t part of your usual cash flow. Birthday money, Lunar new year money, an annual work bonus, work overtime, what have you. The size of it doesn’t matter so much as the definition of money that is not part of your usual income.
Is that money budgeted into your cash flow in some way? Does it get directed into your emergency savings, towards paying down debt or into bigger savings goals? Or does it get spent on a treat? Does it depend on the size, timing or something else entirely? Do you plan for it, in the case of annual events?
I earned a modest bump in income outside of my regular income this year, and after taxes:
1. I put the first $700 in the insurance fund. It’s been looking bare and I know the auto insurance and renters will be coming due in April.
2. The second $700 was my first deposit into the wedding fund.
Thinking back, my modus operandi has pretty much always sent windfalls into existing savings funds because that brought me the most joy. Or satisfaction, really.
March 21, 2011
 |
The shape I might have picked (David’s Bridal),
minus the coked out look. |
The J.Crew dress has long-since been packed up and returned, a deal though it was; design properly simple and easy to handle though it should have been. (“Should have” because I still, as previously mentioned, had difficulty managing a basic zipper. User error, obviously.)
In its place, hangs a far far far fancier specimen. A proper garment, if you please. My “fittings, and tryings-ons,” were back in February, with all the grandiose moment of a new friend dropping in for twenty minutes followed by a handful of “whatcha think?” emails to a few good friends. The interested actually replied. The busy or disengaged didn’t bother. And thus, I have my wedding dress.
The story is better than that, actually.
At a dinner of PiC’s friends/coworkers, the hostess quickly judged me and said, we’re about the same size. If you don’t really care, I’ve got a dress hanging in my closet …
Two weeks later, she and her spouse dropped by with a huge foofy dress for me to try on. Lo, it pretty much fits me. It’s too long, as no four-inch heel wearer am I, but the owner is happy for me to have a seamstress take it up in length.
She also suggested taking in the sides for a more svelte look if desired if I was certain I wouldn’t put on any more weight before the wedding. But, breathing and eating are far higher on my list than looking more svelte or removing a rib to fit into a dress after alterations. I am not that bride.
It has a train. It has sparkles and ruching. It has all this other stuff I never would have picked considering the budget I was willing to pay. It literally forced me to HAVE a maid of honor instead of no one at all because I literally cannot do up the dress by myself. But it’s gorgeous in its own right, and came with the goodwill of a rather random friend of PiC’s and it was so unexpectedly pretty and lightweight to boot that I have no qualms at all about wearing this with every bit of good cheer and a bit of excitement as anything I might have picked for myself.
PLUS: That woman saved me from the jaws of dress shopping. And saved me the price of a dress on top of alterations. I could nominate her for a special kind of wedding sainthood. Instead, I think I’m going to have to dream up a wonderful thank you gift for her, starting with cooking them dinner.
So I was really happy back then. And then I let it sink in a bit, and I’m still happy about it. Not just the savings, either. The time (now to be spent trying to pick a photographer) and the money (now to clothe my groom) saved are huge, but the lack of anxiety about a subject I really don’t like: what I’m going to wear – most excellent.
Collective karmic hugs for PiC’s friend, please?
January 23, 2011
We’ve been paying what I’d call an outrageous amount for cell phone services.
PiC has an outmoded phone with lots of talk and messaging, no data, with Verizon and pays $63/month with the occasional overage;
I have the legacy iPhone with unlimited data and pay $63/month;
MY PARENTS have a family plan: two phones, 700 talk minutes per month, and I pay $67/month.
Total: $193
My goals:
1. Consolidate our three services onto one service;
2. Replace both our phones as PiC’s ready to have a phone that doesn’t have an antennae that breaks off and my iPhone maybe works 60% of the time;
3. Save Money.
Any non-legacy data plan with the usual Verizon/AT&T services will cost at least $20, more likely $30, per phone so I wasn’t particularly hopeful about our outlook but I was determined. ‘Cause that’s all it takes.
My parents are already on T-Mobile and so far my research bears out that they offer the best plan options for our needs: Combination talk, text and data family plans for 2 lines with the ability to add up to 3 more. In this case, adding my parents as the additional lines with talk and text only as they definitely don’t need data would keep the cost down between $5-10/line. I’d researching Sprint options but they are all inclusive for all lines which is great for the wholly techie family but not suitable for our hybrid needs.
PiC and I were happy with the special deal being touted on Twitter as good through January 20th for the free after rebate G2 Android phones, but apparently T-Mobile’s idea of what January 20th meant didn’t extend to 6 pm PST.
Once known for their top-notch customer service, in my experience, I was less than impressed by the current state of their service now. Aside from their shoddy response to the inquiry regarding the miscommunication or mistake or whatever you’d call the issue of an offer yanked before the stated end of the promotion, I had to get my parents a pair of replacement phones and change their account to my responsibility for easier access since I pay the bill anyway.
Every department’s aim was incredibly siloed and tightly focused and this didn’t produce more efficiency. Rather, it meant that I wasted almost two hours on the phone with each representative explaining what I needed every time I got transferred. And honestly, the majority of the reps were simply neither bright nor competent and failed to completely note their actions for the next CSR I was transferred to. It gives me pause whether I really want to give them any additional business. At the same time, I figured that if the savings outweighed this initial aggravation and I rarely had to deal with them again, perhaps it’d be ok.
The sticking point that kept me from pulling the trigger was the activation fees for the new phones for PiC and me now that we’d missed on the really nice two new phone deal.
Searching on Fatwallet, I found that you could sign up for the Freelancers’ Union for free (and I do freelance work, so it’s legitimate) and reap the following benefits with T-Mobile:
-No activation fees (savings: $70)
-10% off talk, text, data plans monthly (savings: pretty much taxes/fees)
-Discounted equipment (might be better than what you can get online, might not be)
We could potentially pay $100 for the G2 that PiC still wants, find a free one for me, and switch to 3000 minute, unlimited text and data family plan for $170/month (including two lines with talk and text only at $10/each).
Since the monthly saving is only $20/month, it’d take us 5 months to break even on that deal. I’m not thoroughly impressed with this, on balance, so I’m going to take a minute to call and see if the Freelance Union discount on equipment does us one better on the online pricing and then double check if being an AT&T Premier member actually does me any good. 😉
Squeezing money out of stones is hard work, but darned if this isn’t going to be satisfying when I finally strike the best bargain I can find!
November 20, 2010
There’s an idea PiC and I have been floating, kicking around, actually, for the past several weeks.
A friend is going traipsing about across continents for several months and has been prodding us to jump in for a bit of that trip sometime in the spring. We’d previously half-promised to join a pair of PiC’s friends in Greece “sometime in spring” but that couple has already decided on a week on Greece and another in Italy and at a time that may not work so well for us.
Leaving aside the question of whether I can save enough vacation time, there’s still the actual cost to get there and back, and fill my ever-starving belly! A very rough estimate of an acceptable budget: $2000-3000.
It’s a pretty crazy thought.
But.
So Delicious.
I hit FlyerTalk and Fatwallet to confirm my suspicions and sure enough, there had been a fantastic promotion for the British Airways Signature Visa months ago – 50,000 bonus miles after a first purchase and a $2000 spend in three months, but the current promotion on offer was pretty anemic at only half that so I held off. It’s nothing like the one from last year offering twice that, for a total of 100K miles, though. *dramatic sigh*
Lo, when I tried to book my travel for work, Chase/BA ambushed me with the premium offer, only if I were to apply right then and there and pay for my travel with that very same card.
Pacing back and forth, assailing PiC with demands for his assessments of our usual spending that goes on credit cards for the next three months, I found myself, after two hours of obsessing, applying for the card. What I did not notice, shame on me, was that a waiver of the annual fee wasn’t part of the promotion. I’d taken that for granted as a normal business tactic for all the new cards. And they get you right up front, too! The charge hit my card two days after I got it in the mail.
As a bit of emotional solace, though it’s hardly a real offset against $75(!), I just found out that this card no longer charges a foreign transaction fee. So there’s that.
The 50,000 bonus miles will pay for one transatlantic flight, so that’s one of us taken care of. Perhaps it’s worth $75 for PiC to pick up his own card after I’ve completed my $2000 spend so we can combine costs on his card? I don’t want to be spending above need just for the sake of getting bonus miles, of course, that’s silly and wasteful. But I am planning to pay things like car registration earlier to get it into the three month cycle for this card. We can do that for a number of things like Costco gift cards (which are another story entirely).
I don’t know if, when or how this trip will happen yet. There are still a lot of issues (hi, family problems) to be settled between now and then so it might be completely unrealistic to try and go away for such a big trip. But I’ll just keep squirreling money and miles away. Just in case.
August 9, 2010
My high school service award was a $500 savings bond for college.
Our lovely Kiwanians, however, hadn’t really looked carefully at the terms of the bond, or the kind of bond they were buying, and 10 years later, the Series EE bond has only appreciated to a grand total of $374. It’s the sort of bond that takes thirty years to accrue to full value, you see, and so was probably the worst choice for a college fund.
I can’t really decide if it’s worth waiting another 20 years for that bond to mature. Why not cash it out at $374 now and invest it or just put it toward one of my mid-term savings goals?
