We pay $80/month for 4 lines with t-mobile and don’t have a land line.
In the 1980s, I often paid more per month for international calls which are now free with Skype. While I may upgrade my iPhone 6S in two years, from a technical perspective, it should last at least 4 years. So the upgrade is discretionary.
We pay $12/month for netflix and don’t have cable, plus $46/month for internet.
This is about $20/more than a basic cable package 15 years ago. Again, this is a choice to add more channels.
Solar panels can be leased for less than $100/month. I’ve put them on five properties and while I paid cash, financing still allows a zero down user to realize over 50% reduction in utility bills.
I drive for Uber part time and usually earn about $300/week for about 10 hours of part time work and can definitely say that passengers are thrilled with the lower cost of transport. My car gets 50+ Mpg so the benefits get spread around.
As far as losing my Uber job, if they can make transportation cheaper than it currently is, then I’d benefit from that as well as I might not need two cars any more or 3 or 4 when my kids start driving. Most drivers do this part time as a side job. So don’t really see that being a huge drag, plus it would be phased in over a few years at least.
So the points I’ve outlined if done correctly would allow a family to save several thousand dollars/year if the right choices are made. With interest rates as low as they are, I currently pay 12K/year on a 417K loan (30yr fixed at 3.1%).
So while I appreciate the counter points, perhaps I should qualify it by saying a family that makes deliberate choices to realize the savings potential can more easily fund a home purchase with savings from these items.
