I have been officially unemployed for 28 months. I occasionally trade labor with friends and neighbors, but the vast majority of my time is open to personal projects and hobbies. There are MANY things that made these 28 months possible - including but not limited to my intersecting privileges and the resourcefulness I learned growing up in a low-income single parent family. My incredible mother taught me skills that I leveraged to save half of my income each year during the five years I lived in Boston, the fourth most expensive city in the country. One major money saving decision was to limit monthly bills like my cell phone.
Have you ever calculated the financial burden of your cell phone? The average American spends $580 per smartphone (the actual phone) and $73 each month to keep it connected. This comes to a WHOPPING $1,069 each year for those who replace a phone every 3 years.
I switched to Republic Wireless in 2014 - 8 full years ago (note: I have no relationship with the company and plan to switch to a new provider next month). If I paid the American average of $1,069 per year during those 8 years I would have spent $8,552. However, with Republic Wireless, I have purchased 2 phones for a total of $265. My plan, with all taxes and fees, cost an average of $13.29 per month, only $159.48 per year (I pay for the annual plan - buy 10 months, get two free). That means, over 8 years, I have paid a total of $1,540, a total savings of more than $7,000 compared to the average cell phone user in the United States.
Of course I do need to make some adjustments to live with such a cell phone plan. For example, I download Google maps so that I do not need to use data, and I often look for WiFi in public spaces. But most of the time I do not notice the difference. My phone can take pictures, call and text with my loved ones, and when I switch to a new provider next month I will even have data (gasp!).
$7,000 may or may not sound like a lot of money to you. However, consider this: the $7,000 I saved over 8 years on my cell phone bill could have paid for my entire 28 months of unemployment, including trips to Jerusalem, France, Italy, Romania, and Cyprus, and the cost to build my 8x10 tiny house. Here is how I did it.
Every year I took the $875 I saved compared to the average cost to a cell phone user and invested it in a stock mutual fund. Even a common S&P 500 index fund would, over the last 8 years, have doubled those savings from $7,000 to over $15,000. And I have only calculated the savings from my cell phone - think about how much I have saved by making choices to limit my cable/streaming services (which often cost $100 per month or more), having roommates instead of living alone, or cooking my own food instead of take out. My point in writing this post is not to make a moral judgement - some people want to have a highly capable phone that has advanced photo/video editing capabilities, love to watch TV, or enjoy restaurant food, and that is OK. My point is to show that, for some people, it is possible to save enough money to quit your job, travel, spend unbound time with family or friends, pursue new hobbies, or whatever else you want by making little choices that add up to serious money.
If you are interested in saving money on your monthly bills or want to talk about personal finances, please reach out to me at evanchartier@gmail.com. I am excited to hear from you!
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