SmartPhoneFrugal #2

SmartPhoneFrugal.com article #2

So.  I found out recently that to be smart phone frugal, you must have a smart phone.  I’ve always regarded cell phone insurance as one of those things that only a sucker would purchase.  Then, I did an endo off the front of my road bike because my cell phone decided to act like a spoke decoration.  I have always been careful with my technology.  I figure that if I spend that much on something, I better make it last.  Luckily, my last phone, the HTC incredible, was sitting on my counter begging to be reinstated.  It would cost $640 to buy a new Droid Razr Maxx without a new 2 year contract (which, for me, as my Maxx was 2 weeks old, was a long time coming).  As much as it hurt to have to downgrade, at least my HTC was functional and not bent around the spoke on my bike wheel.  

Lessons learned: the $3 insurance from Verizon would have been smart.  Even a $36 a year charge is a good guarantee that whatever new technology you buy will last until it’s outdated, not until you do something dumb.  

Groupon: If you’re into extreme couponing and trying new things, this is the way to go.  They constantly have restaurants that I haven’t tried (and probably wouldn’t if I didn’t have at least half off).  You have to be careful that you don’t just go on a spending spree because they’re such good deals though.  I sometimes buy a ton of coupons because they’re so cheap, but then have them expire on me because I’m too frugal to actually go to the restaurants.  If you are good about buying them and then using them, and you order conservatively (or were going to go out to dinner anyway) it’s a good app for your phone.  It will save you money while goading you to try new things out.  Be careful, however, to read the fine print.  Sometimes restaurants will not let you use the coupon on prime dining nights (i.e. Friday or Saturday) or restrict their menu.  Others put a minimum order in so that you have to order the prime rib or 3 desserts in order to make it over their goal.  The good: you get to try fancy dining which you might be too cheap to do otherwise.  The bad: if you’re not careful, you might still spend a good amount on dinner.  I also should mention that they don’t just do food.  Groupon also offers goods and adventures - I’ve seen river tubing, snorkeling masks with video capability, and all sorts of wild and wacky things that I might not normally consider.  Again, this is a danger sign - I almost bought the video snorkel mask, despite the fact that I haven’t been snorkeling in over a year.  It just seemed cool.  As long as you reign in your impulses (or your significant other has some sense!!!!) this can be used as a money saving, not spending, tool.

TouchPal keyboard: Though it doesn’t save money directly, it does make you more efficient, thereby (hopefully) saving you some long term time.  As you all know, time (can be) turned into money.  I mean, with all of those clicks you save, your extra time could now be spent browsing craigslist free instead of all that hunt and peck typing.  This keypad is basically designed off of swype technology, but it improves a bit on the droid original.  For instance, the autocorrect gives you more options.  Instead of doing it word by word, it will try to make sense of a phrase.  For instance, right after my bike accident (mentioned above) I invited a friend over and asked him to bring gauze.  The TouchPal keyboard came up with nine different phrases for what it though I said, the funniest being, “you can come on over and bring girls for my room”  (I said, “gauze for my wound,” for the record).  However, the voice recognition is not what makes this app shine.  I have big fingers, and trying to type on an android sized screen is cumbersome.  However, if I slide my fingers close to where the right key is, most of the time the TouchPal app will select the right word after 2 or 3 letters.  When it messes up, I have to type it the old fashioned way, but this is no worse than if I didn’t have TouchPal, and most of the time it doesn’t mess up.