Comments on: Trimming your freelance/personal expenses with a mind to indie business

By: alison

alison — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:45:51 +0000

Oh, I did talk my piano teacher into an hour lesson at the half-hour fee. On the upside, I have offered to do free resumes for anyone at my church who finds themself unemployed. Not entirely altruistic, just hoping they remember me if they need paid work done.

By: alison

alison — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:41:38 +0000

I’m trying to keep up with the piano lessons, even though financially I shouldn’t. Since I play the piano for church, there might be some way I can deduct the expense.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:20:09 +0000

We are about to cancel our land line and go to a naked phone line since we both have cell phones (only for dsl use). I clean my house (it’s good exercise), cut our own lawn and started drinking starbucks brew at the house instead of buying it. We also canceled our security service (the dog is working out well for that), installed a HD antenna where the dish used to be and watch Hulu.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:54:29 +0000

Get rid of your contract phone! You’re paying way too much, unnecessarily! When I switched to prepaid from my contract service, my bill decreased about 30 dollars a month, which is incredible. I was very pleased with the results because I saved so much money but was still able to do everything I had done with my contract phone. I could make phone calls…local and long distance…text message, and even take pictures. I would recommend this to anyone who is in need of a price cut on their phones bill.

By: Luna

Luna — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:21:15 +0000

Give up your expensive “Super-Size” postpaid cellphone service and pick up the prepaid plan instead. You’ll be saving on avega $60 a month. Go to WalMart and buy a regular, no frills cell phone (Tracfone has some pretty nice ones w/ camera and all), buy the prepaid card that should last you a few months and there you go, frugal connectivity.

By: 3243

3243 — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:49:23 +0000

I apologize for misspelling your handle in the above post, cymk.

By: 3243

3243 — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:47:47 +0000

cmyk, I would advise you to stay away from Vonage. I have a family member who tried Vonage’s services, and the experience was a nightmare. Her Internet service wound up being messed up due to technical problems with Vonage, and it also adversely affected her regular telephone service. It took her about a month plus two or three phone number changes to finally get her phone and online services back to normal. Not only that but when she tried to send back Vonage’s equipment to them, they continuously sandbagged on helping her out with information on how and where to send it back, then they were sluggish about refunding her her money.

And lots of people have had problems with Vonage. For example just go to the Better Business Bureau website for further research.

If you want to save money on phone calls, you could try MagicJack. My aforementioned relative uses it and it works fine.

Good luck to each of you.

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:16:29 +0000

When my employer started laying people off in January I began to mercilessly cut expenses and make quiet preparations to go into business for myself. I’m still employed for the moment but not taking anything for granted.

I had no remorse cancelling my cable TV service a couple of months ago, but I had to think twice about letting go of my cleaning person because she’s self employed and this is her livelihood. If I’m laid off I may have no choice, but I would give her enough lead time to find a client to replace me.

By: Paula G

Paula G — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:32:40 +0000

Great article…I recently wrote about this & wish I had seen this article beforehand. I would say some things just aren’t worth cutting. If they bring you joy, wellness, or free you up to do more important things in your life or business they are worth the expense. In moderation of course — while I consider a monthly massage a necessity (otherwise I end up injured from my athletic endeavors and pay through the nose for rehab anyway)…I wouldn’t say do it every week unless my income provided for that easily (even then….).

Reviewing & cutting things you don’t need or paying less for things you do is great as long as it is done consciously and you don’t pinch pennies at the expense of your business or your life’s quality.

By: cymk

cymk — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:13:00 +0000

I love your blog and your column, and this is my first time commenting. This has been a top priority of mine lately – being a part-time worker, freelancer and spouse of a self-employed contractor. I’m really getting into the game of driving down our regular expenses, and have tasked myself with living on a smaller grocery budget rather than sacrificing my cleaning lady (that ahhh moment is just too precious). Remember that you can always negotiate a better price with a service like cleaning – just tell them you’re trimming your budget but you’d like to keep their service. An honest conversation can be very effective – and believe me, you won’t be the first person they hear it from.

Also, I may switch my home phone to Vonage – they’ve got a screaming deal right now and if I switch we can save $354 a year!

Here is a quick list of what I’m doing this week to bring down our expenses:
1. Review our health insurance plans and possibly pick one with a lower premium and higher deductible (while balancing the needs of a healthy family with two wee ones)
2. Try to live off $200 in cash for groceries, including take-out
3. Switch phone service or seriously consider canceling home phone service all together
4. Take a flyer or ad for my gym in and ask them to lower my rate to what a new person could get. It never hurts to ask. This is my only “What have you done for me lately” mission.

Now that I think of it as a game, it is actually quite fun to see where I can trim. It is a fun and free new hobby for me.