Unlike Individual 1, I love the failing New York Times and have a digital subscription to the tune of $15 a month. If I had to be super-frugal, I probably wouldn’t subscribe, but my retirement goal was more about being moderately frugal. So far, so good.
Aside from all the news and opinion I can possibly digest, I love the daily mini-crossword and try to do it in under five minutes before I even get out of bed. It’s going to be a great day when I do it in under a minute.
By the way, I know this is not normal.
NYT Cooking, which is excellent, is another favorite section of the paper. It used to be included with the basic subscription. I could save recipes to my recipe box, but suddenly most of them are grayed out. That’s because there’s now a fee, and I must upgrade my subscription for full access.
This bugs me. I try to be smart about how I spend money in retirement, and I’m reluctant to shell out more for something that used to be free. But they do provide a service I enjoy very much, and I suppose it’s not unreasonable to pay for it.
I finally looked it up. It’s another $5 a month. Food and cooking is a big part of our lives, even more so in retirement. I like to cook, and I like to read about food almost as much as I like to eat it. We don’t go out to restaurants often, so think of all the money we are saving! And who doesn’t need a little culinary inspiration?
Obviously, I’m trying to talk myself into it. But $5 is $5. I know there are retirees who can’t or won’t have cable or Netflix because of the expense, and certainly I would cut back if I had to, but I’m hoping that will not happen until they pull the remote out of my cold dead hands.
When you are planning for retirement, you tend to think about the big expenses such as healthcare, transportation, etc. But little things add up, and you do have to be prepared. I had cable before I retired, and I had a digital subscription to the New York Times before I retired. My preference was keep them in my life once the paychecks stopped.
Sure, I read all the retirement advice about maintaining your standard of living … multiply your current salary by some astronomical number and that’s what you’ll need to live on. We were actually living on a good bit less than we made, hence the retirement savings, so it was a gross exaggeration to assume we’d need the same income in our later years.
But the basics of our pre-retirement lifestyle have not changed. Decent cars, good quality sheets, great food, wine and beer, cable, Netflix and the New York Times. I’ll pass on the exotic travel, but when we had enough in savings to keep the creature comforts, I knew retirement could work.
So, $5 for NYT Cooking? Maybe. Probably.
You can get the NY Times for free, from your library. Check it out. Most libraries offer the NY Times over the internet, again, to be read for free. As for the recipes, you can google them and also get them for free, over the internet. The NY Times will eventually gather a book together and publish most of them inside that book. Guess what? You can get the book, for free out of your library.
In retirement, we have to be careful NOT to be nickled and dimed to death.
You’re paying $180 a year for the NY Times and now they want another $60 for their recipes? Wouldn’t you love to have $240 cash in your hand right now?
The little mini puzzle is free. I do it each and every day on my iPhone, every night, after 10PM when it’s updated. I can do a puzzle in 1minute 57 seconds.
You go girl!
As for the big puzzle, it gives me a head ache. Check out the little mini puzzles. You can get a bunch of them weekly, for free.
FREE is the code word.
Good luck!
PS: you can read every single magazine, on line, from the library, for free too!
Wow, thank you for sharing this. I love what you said about being nickel and dimed. That’s it in a nutshell. You’ve convinced me! Free is good, and I’m going to scrap my paid subscription. I use the library but didn’t know this was a service. I’m on it! Thanks again. BTW, the big puzzle is usually too hard for me. Mondays are the easiest, and they even publish books of Monday-only puzzles.
If you want to save a few $$ in the NYT just call and say you want to cancel your on-line subscription. I did and they offered me a special deal for $8 per month. I did finally cancel it as I decide to just stop reading any news due to all the political stuff that was driving me crazy. Kept me from over dosing on the chaos.
Hi Bob — that’s a great idea. Maybe one can even negotiate for free NYT Cooking! I agree about the political chaos, and sometimes it does get to me, but I still want to know.