Frugal living for a debt-free life

Inbox Dollars Runs a Scam

lukasavr — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:45:28 +0000

I’ve been writing on here for over a year about how I got sucked into “reading” emails sent to me by Inbox Dollars and how I refused to give up to give up until I hit the minimum of $30 it required for them to send me a check. In October I finally hit that amount and requested my check. I’ve been patiently waiting for it to arrive, meanwhile not wasting any more of my time by reading emails.

I went into the site a couple of weeks ago to find out when the payment was coming and noticed that my account was inactive. I reactivated it, checked my payment history, and noticed nothing was there. So I wrote in a comment to customer service to make sure it would still be processed. Here is their response:
“This was clearly stated on your Payment Request page when you requested your payment. Your account must stay active in order to have a payment processed from your account.”

So, after all that time I will not be receiving my money. I hope that no one ever uses Inbox Dollars in the future as they are clearly running a scam. Sure, it’s my fault that I assumed they would pay me for the work I put in. But they should be holding up their end of the bargain by paying me the money I earned.

Cheap or frugal?

lukasavr — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:33:56 +0000

I’m not quite sure if I would be defined as being cheap, or being frugal. Tonight I decided that maybe my money saving tactics are a bit over the top. I had two candles I wanted to light, but realized that my large lighter ran out of fluid. I refuse to buy a new one since many restaurants hand out matches for free.

I dug around and found small box of matches on hand. The candles I wanted to light were in two different rooms, and since I thought I should conserve the little quantity of matches I had, I brought one candle near the other so I only had to use up one match.

I really don’t like to buy things that I know I don’t absolutely need. So, while a lighter would make my life easier, I’ll stick with the matches.

No more emails!

lukasavr — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:41:32 +0000

As you may know, I signed up with a company to “read”, aka click, on emails for money. I got $5 for signing up and about two cents per email. When I started, I figured that I’d at least get five bucks out of it. What I didn’t realize at the time, was you can’t request a check until you $30.

Of course, I didn’t learn this until I already had about $10 in my account so I figured I would just keep clicking on emails as I got them. How long could it really take to get to $30? So, despite the colossal waste of time, I wasn’t giving up.

I am happy to announce that a few weeks ago I reached the $30 minimum to get my check. I was so excited that after over a year I had gotten through over 500 emails so that I could get my money. When I went to request the check the rip off company then tells me there is a $3 charge to get it out.

There was no way I was clicking on anymore emails, so I forfeited and said to just send $27. I still haven’t received the check so I guess I won’t believe it until I see it. But you better believe that $27 will be going straight toward my loan. And I will never do something so stupid again.

How much do you live on?

lukasavr — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:23:30 +0000

I do some of my best thinking when I’m either riding my bike or walking. Most of the time I’m scheming for ways to get out of debt quicker, to make more income, or plotting out whether it will be possible to pay off my loan before September 2009. Today while I was walking I got to thinking about how much money I actually live off of (what I bring home minus what I pay on my loan). It will be really interesting to look at this when a whole year has gone by, but here’s what I have so far for 2008:

The amount I have taken home minus what I’ve paid on my loan leaves me with $15,702.26. Oh, and I’ve also given away $3,353 so far this year, which means that I’ve really lived on $12,349. That’s pretty good, considering I live in Boston which is a pretty expensive city.

Next time one person tells me that they can’t live on less than they make I’ll remind them about all the ways they can make it happen.

Big Spender

lukasavr — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:36:17 +0000

Okay, not really. But I think I did finally pick out a computer. I’ve had my eye on a Gateway for quite some time, but it’s $599.99. I’ve been waiting and waiting for it to go on sale because I’ve saved just over $600 and I didn’t want to spend all of that.

Finally this week there is a Compaq on sale, normally $649 for $449! What a great deal, right? It doesn’t have everything I want (volume on the machine itself) and it might be a little slower than the Gateway, but for $150 less I think I can handle that.

It’s funny, because I feel like I’m making this huge purchase, like a house or something. I’ve done all this research, found the best deal, know what I want, and now I can buy. And pay cash. It’s a very satisfied feeling.

Now I just have to go through with it and will probably spend the weekend setting it up and transferring all of my files. At least I won’t have to sit at this folding table anymore, with the monitor sitting on a cardboard box. It has been a long 3 months or so.

Connecting with Friends

lukasavr — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:38:54 +0000

It’s hard to be on a budget when the only opportunity to reconnect with friends is done so by spending money. For instance, meeting up for drinks or dinner. When I email friends to see how they’re doing and ask if they want to get together, it seems like it always involves one of these two things. I only budget $50 per month for dining out, so I have to be mindful about where I’m spending my money each week.

Last night I met up with two friends for dinner. We choose a place that is a bit on the expensive side. The actual dinners were $20 and up. Luckily, they had a section of sandwiches that were more moderately priced and I choose the grilled cheese at $9, which was still very good.

The one thing I do is I always check out the menu ahead of time so that I’m never surprised. The other thing I do is try to is choose places that are more affordable. I do have one friend who every time we meet up we go for a walk. It’s a great way to get exercise and catch up. In fact, on Monday we met after work and walked 6 miles. I’d prefer that over dinner any day.

Occasionally I’ll invite friends to my place and I’ll cook dinner. That’s also a great option.

Crunch Time

lukasavr — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:25:21 +0000

Saving up for my new computer is killing me. My goal each month is to pay $1,500 toward my loan, but I haven’t been able to do that since I’ve been saving for something else. I missed it this month by $60 and last month by $271. I’ve been watching the ads for computers for the last few weeks, now that I have $590 that I can spend on a computer. I really want to only spend about $500, but that is proving difficult.

I’m thinking about truly canceling my gym membership to be able to save that amount of money each month. It’s coming down to crunch time, with only 14 months of payment left. I’m getting worried that I’m not going to make it. The official loan total right now is $27.480. Without bonuses and a possible tax refund, I would have to pay $1,962 each month to pay it off on time. And that’s without any interest accruing.

Intolerable Gym Charges

lukasavr — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:38:07 +0000

I dislike my gym, I really do. I think that the $72.45 a month they charge me is way too much money for what I get. The only reason I’ve justified it is because I’m a health nut and working out is important to me. I also like how the gym is less than 2 blocks away; I never have an excuse not to work out. But today put me over the edge.

The way my gym works is that the monthly fee I pay gives me access to a “home gym” of my choosing. I can go to that gym at any time, and go to other gyms in the network during “off peak” hours, which are from 8:30-12, 1-4:30 and after 8:30 pm. So although Boston Sports Club has a location in my building at work, it’s not my home gym and I can’t go there whenever I want. I could pay $92 per month to use any gym, but that’s even more ridiculous.

Since I’m moving in August I need to switch my home gym to the one in my building at work. I went in there today to have them do so and they told me there will be a $39 fee for changing it. Okay, really? $39 to switch something in the computer? That’s just ridiculous.

I asked if they could waive the fee. They said no. So I said I wanted to cancel. And they said okay! They would rather lose a customer than lose their precious $39 fee. To me, that’s bad customer service. So that’s how frugal I am – I go to the gym 4-5 days a week and I just canceled my membership over $39.

My rationale is that I can save the $72.45 from one month of forgoing the gym, then use that toward a $59 activation fee and start back up again, thus pocketing $13.45. I was pretty bummed out thinking that I no longer have a gym membership, but when I got home from work today the guy had left me a message. I guess he talked to his manager and they can lower my monthly rate to $65 per month, but keep the $39 transfer fee. I’m going to let them sweat it out a little more and see if they lower it later in the week.

Freecycle

lukasavr — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:37:37 +0000

I love Freecycle. It’s such a great way to get rid of stuff you don’t want but can’t sell and also to get things you might have had to pay money for. In case you’re unfamiliar with the program, you sign up for the freecycle group in your area and you get emails (you choose the frequency) that people in your area send either looking for stuff or looking to get rid of stuff.

I mainly use it for giving stuff away. I hate for things to go to waste or to contribute to the landfills, so I will always post to freecycle before tossing. What you do is send an email to your group’s email address with either offer: or wanted: in the subject line along with the item and your specific location. People can then contact you if they want or have your item.

People are so gracious when they come by to pick up things you’re giving away – it’s a great feeling. Things go quickly on the site so it’s hard to get your hands on something that someone is giving away. But if you can, it’s a great way to save yourself from buying items.

The first thing I ever received from freecycle was toothbrush heads for my electric toothbrush. These things cost about $15 for 3 of them so when someone posted them I was really excited. I emailed the guy to tell him I was interested and he ended up mailing them to me (6 in total!). What a great deal.

The other thing you can always find on there is moving boxes. I can’t believe that there are some people who actually go to the store to purchase these things. Almost every day there are people giving away moving boxes – this could be because Boston is a city full of college students. Since we’re moving I posted a wanted: moving boxes and two people emailed me to say that they have some for me. We’ll be going tonight to pick up boxes from someone who purchased them from a moving store so they could move 4 blocks. They’re also throwing in packing supplies.

My Paid Email Gig

lukasavr — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:47:56 +0000

Awhile ago, I wrote about how I signed up with a company to get paid to read emails – not the smartest decision I’ve ever made. I received $5 for signing up and thought I got $.05 for every email I read. Turns out it averages out to about $.02 per email. I have now “read” (and by read I mean clicked on) 723 emails and earned $26.84.

Also unbeknown to me, I can’t get the money I’m earning until I’ve hit $30. I think I’ve been doing this for about a year now. $30 for a years worth of work is not worth my time. However, I didn’t come to this conclusion until I had earned about $10 and I wasn’t turning back.

Maybe within the next two months I will finally have clicked on enough emails to earn my $30 check. On a side note, I have been selling basically everything that is not nailed down in preparation for our move. I’ve made $160 in the past couple of weeks when I thought I didn’t have anything I could get rid of. I guess it just goes to show that we all have some junk we can get rid of.