The Frugal Goose

Recently I had a hmm moment realizing how much of my monthly expenses were really going toward services, some that I didn’t need. You have things like cable, cellphone, perhaps lawncare as your bigger expenses. Then it starts trickling down to smaller services, for example netflix, an online photo service like flickr, music subscriptions, etc.

The internet has tons of niche web based services available to people amounting to a mutimillion dollar business. The real question is what did people do before the internet? Do we really need some of these services we’re paying for?

 True, they may be a convienience but this is the first place to look when trying to fix your financial leaks. You may overlook that $5 or $10 subscription to whatever but it’s going to add up, so get rid of it unless its absolutely essential to your everyday life.

This brings up another point I was thinking about and thats why we feel a need to do so many different tasks often simultaneously on a day to day bases. You’re in your car, you’re talking on a cellphone, you’re listening to the radio, you’re DRIVING, you’re eating a sandwhich or drinking something, you’re putting on/ checking makeup (applies to most girls and some guys). This is one common example of what I’m refering to.

But is it really necessary? Are you really getting the most of out the million tasks you hope to accomplish? Back on the example in the car, what youre doing is not really driving because its unsafe and could lead to an accident, eating  or drinking fast on the go could cause some health issues, and trying to have a conversation like this really ends up not being very meaningful or concentrated, so whats the point?

I think we often subscribe to some of these services because we feel they help us to accomplish some task or fill some small void we think needs to be filled and the financial trade off is really not much.

You can get more important things done by concentrating your energy on what really matters and eliminating a lot of the unnecessary things like the microservices. You will also notice you have more money to accomplish the more important things and do so better.