Simplifying Our Life - Getting Rid of "Frills"

I've been thinking for a while how did we ever live without cell phones.  Then it occurred to me that we did live without them!  I started to really examine my cell phone use and realized we barely used 300 of the 750 minutes we got a month with our Verizon plan.  I will call my hubby and a friend but I usually do this from home - so I could have called them from my HOME phone lol.  So why pay $90 a month for something that is just a frill?  I can tell you I would rather save or invest that money in our future or use it to pay off medical bills.  So we have decided to get rid of our cell phones - shocking I know!  If we continue to pay the $90 to ourselves instead of Verizon - we will have $1,080 a year.  In 5 years that will be $5,400!  That is a used car folks!

Since I'm on this frugal kick again (yes I'm an addict) - I thought, why are we paying  about $95 a month for high speed internet and home phone?  That seems way too much to me.  So a call and determination resulted in lowering our bill to $65!  One phone call saved us $30 a month today.  That is $360 a year we don't have to pay for what we already would be using.

So total savings today for the year is - $1,440 and in 5 years it will be $7,200!  If that doesn't make you feel good, I don't know what does?

Simplifying is good, its freeing and you realize what you value and what you are willing to pay for.  Do you want a cell phone or do you want to pay cash for a car one day?  When you look at things in the long run you begin to see the "frills" you could do without it.  Why have it just because you can?  So what if you can afford it?  Doesn't mean you should do it!  Invest, save and plan for your future and your children's - then having money to help others should also be a goal and we have found the more we help others - the more God blesses us! 

"The chains of habit are too strong to be felt until they are too strong to be broken"- Samuel Johnson

"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship"- Benjamin Franklin