How we cut expenses by $120+/month

Looking for ways to cut expenses? Here are three things we did to cut expenses by $123/month, every month …

Spending less than you bring in is critical to achieving financial independence.

The two ways of doing this are (a) cutting expenses and (b) increasing income.

This article focuses on three things that we did this past year to cut our expenses.

We cut our cable and internet charges

We hardly ever watch TV, so it's a small wonder why we kept paying for it as long as we did. Actually, I know why. I like watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve and watching the Super Bowl. But that's really it. In 2016 we watched the Olympics (my daughter is a swimmer, so we watched Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky kick some butt.)

Our cable TV and internet bill, combined, was $112 per month. After we got done slashing things we were down to $58/month. Here's what we did:

• We got rid of cable TV completely. We at least were down to basic cable, but we decided to let that go. Canceling that, and returning the box we were renting, brought things down almost $50/month. I'm now in the process of figuring out how to install this secret device called an antenna that would allow me to get some TV channels without the monthly charge. Hopefully, I can get that up and running before the Super Bowl.
• We quit renting our cable modem and bought a better one. Somewhere along the line, I got in my head that cable modems were these fragile pieces of equipment that malfunctioned all the time and got zapped. I think this happened once the entire time we've had cable internet. Over that time we probably could have bought a new modem every single year. So, we quit paying the $7/month and bought one (a Zoom 5345) outright for about $40.

Ongoing savings: $54/month

We cut expenses by ditching our landline and getting an Ooma

Our landline is mostly a backup phone — something separate from cell phones. We were paying about $40/month for a single line, with no extra services. Most of the calls were robocalls, telemarketers, charities, or collection agencies looking for someone else.

We were long past sick of this and got a refurbished Ooma Telo, which works great. The latency is very low, and we get caller ID along with a whole bunch of other services to boot. (Here's a full post on the Ooma setup experience.)

The outlay of equipment ($60) and the purchase of a year of Ooma Premier for $120 (which got us a free phone number port to our old number, so we didn't have to change our records with a gazillion people, and lots of other goodies) is less than the cost of five months of our old phone service. Ongoing taxes are $5/month.

We did this a couple of months ago, so the equipment is already “paid back.” Our ongoing savings will be $25/month if we continue with Ooma Premier, and $35/month if we don't.

Ongoing savings: $25/month

We switched cell phone plans to Republic Wireless

Our last phone company was AT&T. Our part of the phone bill (we had a couple of add-on phones for my wife's parents) was about $90/month.

I had an old LG dumbphone that was barely able to make calls anymore, so I switched to Republic Wireless first earlier this year. I got a Moto G4 Android phone for something around $200 and a 1-GB plan for $23/month. Later my wife got a Samsung phone and the same 1-GB plan.

For out and about, the phones work all right. We have a few issues at home picking up calls, but we've always had issues at home, even with a booster, so it's a toss-up whether or not it was any good ever at home.

Here's a full post on how my Republic Wireless unboxing worked out. I'm pretty happy with mine. I'll probably run it into the ground.

So, no more AT&T bill, and no more contracts!

Ongoing savings: $44/month

Your turn: How do you cut expenses?

How have you cut out a good chunk of change in your expenses? Mention in the comments!