Month: February 2016

I like how this School of Life video reframes what a drug is and encourages us to embrace the drugs that make our life better.

And that got me thinking about which drugs I enjoy. When I was younger I liked some which for several reasons we won’t mention. My needs are tamer now, I can think of

1. Hot sauce, particularly sriracha and Tabasco.
2. The sound of an intensely distorted electric guitar.
3. Tickling my kids.
4. My wife’s kisses.
5. The light and sounds and smells of the Adirondacks and the beach.
6. Moisturizer.
7. A great pair of jeans.
8. The sleepy, relaxed feeling from staying up late.
9. Coming in from the bitter cold to a warm home, a glass of bourbon by the fireplace, and my cold face tingling as it warms.

In my continued quest to simplify my life and reduce expenses, I discovered the MVNOs like Ting and Consumer Cellular that lease infrastructure from the big carriers have come of age. They have straightforward pricing plans that are a fraction of the cost, better designed websites, and better customer service as reported by Consumer Reports.

Although I like Ting better as a company, our GSM-network iPhone 4s’ would have slowed down on their network. By going with Consumer Cellular I stay on the AT&T network and cut my bill in half ($45 vs $90) for two phones. That’s even $10 cheaper than Ting.

The process is easy. Order online, swap in the free SIM card they send, and give them a call to activate service. There was a bit of fidgeting to get voice mail re-setup etc. but now it’s working just as it did before, but cheaper.

And here, in a single screen, is what makes them different. I hear usage alerts are available on AT&T. I’ve read articles about them. I’ve seen links to that effect on their customer website. But I (a software designer) was never able to set them up. But here’s what they look like on Consumer Cellular:

Not only is the design clear as day, they default the alerts to ALL ON. They’d rather you be in-the-know and have plenty of notice before you go over your plan so you can decide to pay-per or change your plan. Love that.

By contrast, the number AT&T displayed on their website to cancel their account was only for new accounts. And when I tried to use the online chat instead I get this:

And that number is actually only for reseller agents. I’d tell you how it all turned out but I’m still on hold with them.

OK, there’s not much info on the web about this so I can confirm that yes, you can run iOS9 (9.2.1 in my case) well on an iPhone 4S. It’s not slow, it’s not weird. That wasn’t always the case with old iPhones and new OSes. For me it’s the same speed, and some of the ‘new’ features are quite nice.

I was an iOS7 holdout for a while, because it worked and I had no reason to upgrade. Then my phone began spontaneously rebooting, and taking a long time to do so. I thought maybe the battery was fried, but Apple’s online wizard says to do a full restore. I was inspired by Rob Rhinehart’s How I Simplified My Phone to rethink how I use my phone. First off, I hold onto my phones until the hardware fails for minimalist and environmental reasons, so that helps me stay simple.

Software-wise, I thought it would be good to wipe the phone, start fresh, and only install stuff I need and stop falling into the abyss of the phone (love that phrase) with social network stuff, games, news, etc.

How? Follow the official advice: backup phone (to iCloud), then do full restore while plugged into a computer using iTunes. Only my music got screwed up, but I think I can just re-sync to fix that.

Last year we refinanced our home mortgage and saved a bunch of money, but at the time it didn’t occur to me to refinance my auto loan.

In preparation for replacing our second car I was reading The Biggest Lies Car Manufacturers and Dealerships Tell to Sell You a Car and I recognized one: You Don’t Have to Finance Through the Dealership. With our first car that’s exactly what I did, not realizing I had the option to shop around. So as preparation for finding a new loan, I decided to refinance the loan we had and in the process find out how it works and who has the best rates.

My current loan is with TD Auto Finance at 3.99%. Not horrible, but I’ll save a bunch if I can get down at least .75% on a 48 month loan. Here’s what I did:

1. Contacted TD via secure website message to see if they would refinance me. They responded, “Unfortunately, as an indirect lender, TD Auto Finance is unable to offer a refinance option at this time.”
2. Asked the local bank where we scored an awesome home mortgage rate, but they don’t offer auto loans.
3. Tried LendingTree and received four “quotes” — two lenders that wouldn’t give me a rate unless I called them, one that gave me a range of rates, and one (CapitalOne) that gave me an actual rate of 2.99%. For the amount of personal information I forked over, the results were disappointing. Still, I was happy to get one rate in my green zone.
4. Talked to Chase where we have our checking account. I don’t have any great love for Chase, but operationally they work, there’s a lot of branches near me, and there’s a convenience to both myself and them of paying the loan out of the checking account. I walked into the branch hoping for a better, high-touch service, but their rate using the quick calculator wasn’t great: 3.64%. They offered to submit a loan application to see if their actuaries might do better, so we did. The next day they offered me 3.09%. I asked if they could beat Capital One’s rate. They asked for some more information about the car and then offered me 2.84%. I accepted, and stopped by the branch to sign the documents in about 30 minutes.

The upshot is now we’re saving $60/month on the loan. Yay! I’m paying $85 in fees to the state for transferring the title, but I’ll recoup that in less than two months.