How can I explain my absence and lack of consistency lately? I have been trying to blog based on new inspiration, or out of a desire to blog, instead of out of the need to blog. I don’t know how often you can expect a post from me, but please stay tuned, and hopefully you will find encouragement when I post about recent life events and financial quandaries. Follow me on twitter if you want to converse more frequently.
Today’s blog post is about areas in life where it is better to pay more now in order to save more later. There have been two instances lately where I was given the opportunity to pay a little more upfront in order to save a lot later. The initial payments were painful, but the savings in the future just made perfect sense.
In the first situation I bought four new tires for my truck, and it was going to cost me $59.99 for alignment. The serviceman said that if I paid $160, I would receive lifetime balancing on my truck. For as long as I own my truck and I returned to this service center, I could get free balancing. My truck is only 5 years old, so you can imagine how many balancing appointments I will have in the future. I do realize that this particular business has essentially guaranteed my business for the lifetime of the truck, but I could technically just come in for balancing. In this case, I paid $100 more, and saved possibly $1000 over the lifetime of my truck.
The second situation has to do with my cell phone. I recently was promoted at work, and part of my new positions responsibilities is the need to be On-Call after hours. In order to fulfill these responsibilities the company provided me with a cell phone. Last November my wife and I signed up for new cell phone plans, so I wasn’t close to a new upgrade or cancellation. So in this case my predicament was keep paying for a cell phone I didn’t need, or pay the cancellation fee. Turns out it was $320 to cancel my phone, which would save me $70 for the next 9 months. Again $320 is tough to swallow at first, but the savings over the next 9 months far out weighed the initial $320.
What about you, what is one situation where it made logical sense to pay more now, in order to save later? Would you rather pay the cheaper price, or wait things out, in order to avoid paying the large amounts up front? I look forward to your responses.
-Matt
Some salons will give you a better price if you pay for multiple appointments up front. The more you pay upfront, the lower the per-session cost. We’ve also paid to get out of a phone contract when the phone became unnecessary so we could save each month. We calculated that after 3 months, we would break even, so for the next 9, we would be saving all that money every month.
Great post! It’s not something people think about all the time, but it’s important to think long term, and to have a cash reserve so that you can afford to pay the upfront chunk. The same thing applies, on a much larger scale, when buying a house and taking out a mortgage. You save tons on interest and PMI the more you put down. Congratulations on the promotion!!
Exactly Jacey! A home loan is another great example of paying more upfront in order to save a ton of money later on. Thanks for the comment.
I didn’t know you got a promotion… Congrats!!!!