Those are all great tips so far! I have a few:
-Use a digital camera instead of the film type. >2 years ago I purchased a refurb’d 1.3MP Olympus camera for $75 (probably worth $25 now), and it easily paid for itself in both time, film, and developing costs. Instead of spending >$100/year on photos I now spend $0 even though I take about 4X as many photos (digital allows that ;D). I also don’t bother to print them, as the web is the best media for sharing photos!
-Instead of spending $100/year on CDs (compact discs) now, I check out them from the library, and save only the songs I like in MP3 format onto my computer. (it helps that my computer is hooked up to the home sound system and I have an MP3 player in the car) I also did this with my entire CD collection, after which I donated them all to the library, which not only frees up space but gives a nice tax deduction. ;D
-Instead of specifying a long-distance phone carrier on my basic home phone plan, I specified nothing and use a calling card (I use onesuite.com) that charges just 2.9cents/minute to anywhere in the U.S., at any time. I store the 800- number in the phone’s memory so it is not a hassle to dial it.
-When I had cable (now I just use rabbit ears since I hardly watch any TV at all, except for The Apprentice ;D) here in CA, I subscribed to the little-known “basic basic” package ($13/month), as opposed to the “basic” package ($29/month) which many of my friends have since they didn’t know about the “basic basic” plan. The cable salesman warned me that with the “basic basic” package one only gets, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and a few others, but I was getting like 40 channels?
-For dial-up ‘net access I use all2easy.net, for $5/month, instead of the more popular $10 Netzero or $20 AOL plans, with good results (been using it for 1.5 years with no connection problems…)
-I almost never buy electronics new anymore, avoiding instant depreciation and sales taxes. Usually buy used off of Craigslist, eBay, or half.com. Also, I see little need to buy the latest and greatest equipment when something 3 years old often is more than adequate and gave its previous owner lots of satisfaction when he bought it brand new…
-I had to LOL when someone wrote something like “with gas prices the way they are, we may have to start bicycling to work” since I’ve already been doing that 3X a week… in fact I was driving my 2 cars so infequently that I think I only had to buy gas once a month, and hence I never really noticed how high gas prices had risen until all of a sudden: “Woah! Gas prices are like 40 cents more than when I last got gas 5 weeks ago!”
-frugal felix ;D