What About Your Lifestyle/Habits Saves You Big $$$ ?

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So you are able to buy a car directly from the manufacturer and skip the dealership? I would be interested in that.

As far as I know you're mostly building and pricing online but then you take it to the dealership for the actual ordering.

An update we're at a dealership now looking and a Telluride is about a 6-8month order/delivery process right now but he said generally Tellurides get sold before the dealership gets it so hard to just buy it at the dealership. This matches what another dealership said near our house where the only one they had was already sold. The only one this dealership we're at right now is also sold already.

 

[MillauFr]

As far as I know you're mostly building and pricing online but then you take it to the dealership for the actual ordering.

Thanks. I thought since Tesla is getting away with ignoring the dealer franchise laws that other manufacturers were doing the same.

 

[Friendly Frog]

I mainly go camping and hiking. The biggest cost here is replacing my trail runners every 6 months. I'll usually buy a couple of pairs when they go on sale when the new version comes out. I'm still using my original sleeping bag. My inflatable pad is still good. I have warrantied my tent fly once, so I'll probably have to replace it soon. I'm looking at new tents. Camping equipment lasts a long time.

I go to Disney parks when new rides come out. Disneyland was on my list for last year, but I had to cancel. I don't go every year.

I typically own my vehicles for ten years. The last one lasted me 12. I usually go with a 4 year note at the lowest interest rate.

We cohabitate to keep our taxes down. My significant other received stimulus. I did not. We both can itemize when filing single. Together we would be cap out at the $25k standard deduction. Instead, we end up claiming close to double that in deductions. She is also in a lower tax bracket. Once we marry, we'll lose about $15k in deductions, and she will jump a tax bracket. We plan to get married soon, so that we can knock out the 10 years required for survivor benefits with social security. We saw even more benefits cohabitating before the last tax cut. By maxing my HSA and my 401k, I can also lower my self a full tax bracket with my current itemized deductions, which is a big deal since I move from the 32% bracket to the 24% bracket.

We don't tithe.

We don't get oil changes every 3000 thousand miles. We follow vehicle recommendations. I also get conventional oil. I see no benefit paying up for synthetic.

We get our gas at Costco.

We don't own bonds that pay less than our mortgage rate.

We tax loss harvest during equity downturns.

We use the camelizer app to see price watches for items we want to buy at Amazon.

How do you find anything to invest in that even comes close to your mortgage rate?

 

[RamblingMad]

How do you find anything to invest in that even comes close to your mortgage rate?

There are a lot of things I can invest in that return more than 2.8% a year.

 

[dez1978]

Doubt doing it through the website let's you cut out the dealership. They need those people for the paperwork and stuff. Unless you want to order from Volvo or bmw for one of their Germany based factory pick ups and even that may not avoid it completely.

I I know GMC requires you to go thru a dealership to actually order it. You can price it out on the site but the dealer has to order it.

 

[tasha99]

We only own one car that was bought new and paid for with cash. It's 5 years old now, and I don't expect to replace it for 5-10 more years. I tend to save for my next car while I have one, so that I don't need an autoloan, and I pick cars that are cheap enough to do that with. I did have a loan when I was younger, but it was on a really inexpensive used car to keep the payments low and the term short.

We eat in almost always now. After over a year of no restaurants or takeout, we got takeout for 3 days in a row. It wasn't nearly as good as home cooked, and on day 3, my husband ended up getting sick. He thinks it was a burrito that tasted a bit off to him (but he somehow ate anyway . . . smh). Even for special events, we are likely to continue eating in. Turns out, you can get almost anything mail order--we got live lobsters once, wagyu beef for Japanese bbq twice, and fish for sushi twice during the pandemic delivered right to our doorstep. Yes, it was expensive, but still cheaper than the same meals in a good restaurant.

I've started using the library. I used to buy a lot of cookbooks. There is almost no demand for older cookbooks, so I've been able to keep some for almost 6 months at a time. A lot of the books I read for entertainment can be downloaded for free onto my Kindle.

 

[808blessing]

Yes to the Kindle + your library. I have the Overdrive app and Amazon account and it is somewhat easy to figure out.

 

[dez1978]

My husband and I are really talking about building a car. I know for some people it's like this fancy thing to do (we know someone who loves to brag about custom ordering vehicles) but it's not like it used to be. It's a lot simpler than in the past and not completely uber expensive either. Some of that is really just because of what we want and what we don't care for or what we don't necessarily have to have. We did discuss that yes it means dealership deals may not be there. The down side is with the chip shortage who knows if ordering will be forever and a day. But we weren't intending to get a new vehicle until the end of the year so we have a bit of time. One of the dealerships thought they may get a tiny bit of relief in August but he was more banking on spring. Right now it was more about weeding out cars we didn't like not only in how it looks but features and for me seat comfortability is important. Sat in a Ford Escape and was like 'nope' but the newer Explorers are nice except they have this weird built in tray on the floor in between the captain's chairs in the second floor that has cup holders and stuff and that's almost a deal breaker for us since it's fixed and can't be removed. We haven't looked at it but we were going to see if you could build one without it.

My husband is really talking about the new F150 Lightning which is one our list (and is the only truck others are suvs). The thing I did caution him is because right now it's like spring of next year and who knows if that will be the actual timeline plus he's been really considering it because of the price and tax credit but my caution is will that price point actually stay that way (brings back Tesla horrors). If it gets too high it's out of our comfort zone. He did put down the $100 refundable deposit before we went car shopping and a few of the sales people were like that was a good good choice to do that.

We knew about the chip shortage (Ford and GM plants are shutdown in our metro due to it) but man oh man we didn't know just how bad it was. People mentioned rental cars and there's been shortages there too for different reasons. When we went to Vegas in March our rental vehicle from Avis was actually a vehicle Avis was leasing, that was a first for us.

This is what we have run into. I'm looking at a GMC Yukon, but I want a diesel engine bc better MPG and all. It took me 3 weeks to find any yukon in the state to even test drive. I wasn't even looking for a specific trim or engine. Just one to drive so I could see if I was ok with the size. Finally found one about 2 hours away they were willing to let me drive. So now my only option is building one, which means by the time it starts production it will likely be a 2022 model since they usually start producing those in the summer. The deal hunter in me hates this bc right now with the shortage, the dealerships or manufacturers don't need to make a deal to sell something to you. You are likely paying sticker price, vs being able to negotiate closer to the dealer invoice price. On the plus side, I will be able to get exactly what I want and not pay for a higher package bc thats what is more popular. Like my kids have ipads so I have no need for a $2000 rear entertainment system that we'll never use. And those seem to be included on all the yukons I've seen. So at least if I'm going to pay a ridiculous amt of $ for a vehicle it will be the color I want and all that. The dealer said 4-6 months if we order

 

[shawthorne44]

We eat in almost always now.

I've wondered if the restaurant industry will have long-term harm from the people that just don't go back to eating out like they used to. I live in an exurb now, but in the big suburb we lived in before every person (including kids) there averaged around 4 restaurant meals a week. Then those people went without restaurants for awhile. New habits have been formed.

 

[AndreaDM]

I'm curious about those of you who say you rarely if ever eat out. Now, I'm a good cook and I enjoy it, so I find our eating out is mostly a social thing, not because we don't want to eat at home. The last 2 weekends we went out to dinner with different couple friends, and last night I met up with a friend for dinner and drinks. Do you not go out with other people at all or do you have other ways of socializing? Oh, just remembered, we played tennis with some friends on Memorial Day, and stayed for lunch afterward. It's easy to stay home and eat if it's just us, but it's hard to say no when friends ask to meet up, especially after not going out much at all for over a year. I'm all for doing other things with people, but it seems there is always food involved somehow.

 

[DLgal]

Eating out isn't really that much more expensive than just buying groceries. I find that if we eat out more, I need less groceries, so it kind of evens out. I don't buy cheap groceries, though, so maybe that's why it's like that for our family.

 

[DLgal]

I'm curious about those of you who say you rarely if ever eat out. Now, I'm a good cook and I enjoy it, so I find our eating out is mostly a social thing, not because we don't want to eat at home. The last 2 weekends we went out to dinner with different couple friends, and last night I met up with a friend for dinner and drinks. Do you not go out with other people at all or do you have other ways of socializing? Oh, just remembered, we played tennis with some friends on Memorial Day, and stayed for lunch afterward. It's easy to stay home and eat if it's just us, but it's hard to say no when friends ask to meet up, especially after not going out much at all for over a year. I'm all for doing other things with people, but it seems there is always food involved somehow.

We consider eating out to be part of our entertainment budget. We rarely do other things like going to movies or bowling or things like that, so for us, eating out at restaurants is a social/entertainment thing.

 

[dez1978]

I've wondered if the restaurant industry will have long-term harm from the people that just don't go back to eating out like they used to. I live in an exurb now, but in the big suburb we lived in before every person (including kids) there averaged around 4 restaurant meals a week. Then those people went without restaurants for awhile. New habits have been formed.

I think it def will have a long term effect but for several reasons. 1 is def that people aren't going out yet as much as before. Our restaurant has been open fully for about 6 months. We are still down about 50% per week from 2019 sales. 2, staffing. We (and other places) can't get people in the door to work. We pay a decent wage for the area and for the type of restaurant it is. But even at $4-5 over min wage, we can't get anyone to work. Its a horrible cycle that will be hard to get out of. Without sales, you can't pay more, and most franchisees have used most of what they had set aside to make it this far so there aren't reserves to dig into. Without staffing you either can't offer everything you did before (this is why lots of places are still drive thru only, can't staff the dining room)or the service suffers in another way, costing you sales. How do they break out of that? Especially when the number of people willing to spend their money to begin with has gone down. 3, the cost of goods has gone up. Covid has messed with the whole chain of things from production to transport and delivery. Utilities are more. But you can't raise prices to cover this (or wage increases) bc if you do you are labeled as greedy, or the customers just don't want to or can't pay more for a variety of reasons. And while it's easy to say it all boils down to pay, no one has a realistic solution to break out of this mess.

Please note, I am not debating that restaurant employees should get paid more, bc I know, they def should. It's hard work. But when so many are barely getting by, its hard for them to come up with a way to do it. And most owners I know would love to be able to pay everyone more, but they also have bills to pay both business and personal, and didn't go into business to lose money. And at some point, when they are trying to do all the things and losing money, they will just close and everyone loses then.

 

[MrsPete]

I've started using the library. I used to buy a lot of cookbooks. There is almost no demand for older cookbooks, so I've been able to keep some for almost 6 months at a time. A lot of the books I read for entertainment can be downloaded for free onto my Kindle.

The library is a great resource! When the kids were small, we used to check out audio books before trips /play them during the drive. It's not just things you can check out -- the kids' summer programs are great, and you can reserve rooms for meetings, etc.

I've wondered if the restaurant industry will have long-term harm from the people that just don't go back to eating out like they used to.

I think restaurants will completely bounce back. If they were counting on me to keep the restaurants going, they'd be in trouble, but a whole lot of people used to eat out multiple times a week and have really been missing it. Within a year, I think restaurants will be "back to normal".

I'm curious about those of you who say you rarely if ever eat out. Now, I'm a good cook and I enjoy it, so I find our eating out is mostly a social thing, not because we don't want to eat at home.

I'm also a good cook, and I very much enjoy cooking -- but sometimes I just don't feel like doing it.

Eating out isn't really that much more expensive than just buying groceries. I find that if we eat out more, I need less groceries, so it kind of evens out. I don't buy cheap groceries, though, so maybe that's why it's like that for our family.

Disagree. I cook mostly from scratch, and that's pretty cheap.

Take-out is the in-between option. Two things make it cheaper: you don't have to buy drinks (which are very expensive compared to at-home drinks), and you tip less. We do that more often than eating out.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I'm curious about those of you who say you rarely if ever eat out. Now, I'm a good cook and I enjoy it, so I find our eating out is mostly a social thing, not because we don't want to eat at home. The last 2 weekends we went out to dinner with different couple friends, and last night I met up with a friend for dinner and drinks. Do you not go out with other people at all or do you have other ways of socializing? Oh, just remembered, we played tennis with some friends on Memorial Day, and stayed for lunch afterward. It's easy to stay home and eat if it's just us, but it's hard to say no when friends ask to meet up, especially after not going out much at all for over a year. I'm all for doing other things with people, but it seems there is always food involved somehow.

Thanks to Covid, we have a monthly (sometimes 2x/month) virtual roleplaying game night with friends around the country. It used to be in person, but now that we've added friends from the south and west, we're keeping it virtual.

We do see 1 set of friends in person (since Xmas) for board games/boxed escape games and dinner once a month - they always cook, and they don't let us bring anything (they have even more allergies than we do), and they don't let us chip in money b/c my spouse GMs the monthly game night, so they see it as payback for his efforts. B/c they have allergies, they never eat out, so we are eating well, but not expensively (think meat and potatoes, but sometimes in the form of chili or beef stew, etc)...

We are planning to do a monthly date night with 2 groups of friends this summer, but we're again looking at escape rooms or trivia night (for "beverages") or something similar b/c both of these friends have food allergies like me, so it's easier to do than find something to eat that fits (b/c we have differing allergies)...

We eat out as a family roughly 3x/month (with my friend's dinner covering the 4th weekend) when not vacationing, and we eat out 1x/day on vacation. When you have allergies, it's sometimes not just incredibly cheaper, but it's easier and safer, too...

 

[AndreaDM]

Take-out is the in-between option. Two things make it cheaper: you don't have to buy drinks (which are very expensive compared to at-home drinks), and you tip less. We do that more often than eating out.

I agree that it's cheaper, but again when we are socializing, we don't typically order takeout, part of the whole experience is going to restaurants together. Also, I've found that a lot of food just doesn't hold up well to takeout/delivery. We got Mexican a few weeks ago and the tacos were all soggy and falling apart.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I agree that it's cheaper, but again when we are socializing, we don't typically order takeout, part of the whole experience is going to restaurants together. Also, I've found that a lot of food just doesn't hold up well to takeout/delivery. We got Mexican a few weeks ago and the tacos were all soggy and falling apart.

Takeout works for some foods, and not others. McD (and any fast food) fries are just no good after 15 minutes in a bag, so I've taken to getting apple pies on the few times we've gotten food there...

Same for Italian and Mexican - best takeout is usually Indian (b/c it's all sitting in sauces) and non-fried Chinese (especially the soups) - although I've also had some takeout Poke bowls from Japanese places that are awesome...

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Take-out is the in-between option. Two things make it cheaper: you don't have to buy drinks (which are very expensive compared to at-home drinks),

That really depends on what you order and where you're ordering from. Combo meals or deals (which are very common through apps) are often cheaper with drinks than getting just a sandwich and a side. Doesn't mean you're always getting them but it doesn't always make it cheaper by default. We'll sometimes not do drinks but share fries for example. Now if you're talking restaurant take out that may depends on coupons or you may just see the price difference for adding a drink not a huge amount but I'd agree more if we're talking restaurant but less so if we're talking more fast food/places with combo meals as they are often priced better with the sides/drinks.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We got Mexican a few weeks ago and the tacos were all soggy and falling apart.

I'd say that's more the place you're getting it from either how they are cooking it (does the meat have a ton of grease for instance) or how they are packaging it. We've gotten tacos all the time and they rarely are soggy. That said some of the breakfast places around us have been super popular with pickup or delivery with the pandemic and I've held off on doing that because I'm trying to envision how my eggs (even though they are just scrambled) and my potatoes and my toast will last through the drive. People are doing it a lot so either they must not mind or it's working out food quality-wise so I may eventually give it a shot but I've held off thus far for the same reason you were talking about.

 

[MrsPete]

I agree that it's cheaper, but again when we are socializing, we don't typically order takeout, part of the whole experience is going to restaurants together. Also, I've found that a lot of food just doesn't hold up well to takeout/delivery. We got Mexican a few weeks ago and the tacos were all soggy and falling apart.

Socializing with food is a whole different topic.

When I mentioned take-out, I meant like last night: I worked super hard for an extra-long time, and I just wasn't in the mood to cook, then to clean. So we picked up hoagie sandwiches. When we do take-out it's (usually) not about socializing at all -- it's about wanting something tasty and filling with no effort.