Lazy Man and Money

I Feel Scammed by Red Pocket Mobile (Cell Nightmare 1)

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Sometimes trying to saving money is an extremely difficult job.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about this Red Pocket Mobile Deal. In short it was unlimited cell service on AT&T Network (5GB LTE) for a year at $240. That’s $20/mo. for those who are math challenged. I’m paying $35 a month for similar service at Cricket Wireless.

Who wouldn’t want to save $15/mo., right?

It looked to me that Red Pocket Mobile is one of those resellers who run on very thin margins, which is what leads to the low price. I’m used to going with the frugal option and giving up customer support. My view is that typically once you get service up and running on reliable network (AT&T) it’s smooth sailing.

One thing concerned me about the deal, the return/refund policy. I’d need something very solid if I’m committing to buying a year’s worth of service. Hidden away at the bottom of the Ebay store listing is a tab of “cancellation/refunds.” Clicking it gives you their policy, which is:

“We want you to be delighted with your purchase of this prepaid service. If you are not satisfied with your service and it is within 30 days of receiving your starter kit, we will refund your purchase in full. However, if you have consumed more than 30 minutes, 30 texts, or 30MB of data, it will be considered buyer’s remorse and a refund will not be available.

If you do not contact us to cancel the plan within this 30 day period, or if you consume more than 30 minutes, 30 texts or 30MB of data, your purchase will be considered buyer’s remorse and you will no longer qualify for a refund.”

Okay, if it’s within 30 days, they’ll refund… great. Oh wait, if I talked to someone for 30 minutes, received 30 texts, or used 30MB, they’ll consider it buyer’s remorse and not give a refund.

This scared the hell out of me. I took to Twitter.

That last request drew a wise response by @MLM_Police:

I followed up on DM and asked the same questions that I did publicly. On April 20th, they said escalated the request. By April 23rd, I reached back out to them, as it had been 4 days and I feared the deal would be removed or sold out before I received my response. On the 24th, they got back to me and said that they hadn’t received a response yet.

I decided to take a chance and buy, mostly because I believed that paying $20 for AT&T service is better than paying $35 for AT&T service.

I ordered my sim and it sat a few days while I found the free time to focus on getting it installed and activated. I started the process on Friday, May 4th early in the day. I decided to port my phone number because some of my dog sitting client text me directly. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea.

Here’s the number portability section of the Red Pocket Mobile’s activation website. I highlighted two interesting sections.

Let me tackle the second highlight first. It’s very strange that a pre-paid phone company would ask for your Social Security Number. This Forbes article covers it a bit. In this case, Red Pocket Mobile doesn’t require it, which tells me they don’t need it. They’d like to have it. I remember thinking, “Hmmm, you escalated my question about the return/refund policy 2 weeks ago and I haven’t gotten a response yet. I’m not sure I’d like you to have my Social Security Number. Thanks!”

The other highlight is the “Account Password” of my (then current) carrier, Cricket Wireless. I used the password for the Cricket Wireless website. Big mistake.

This is the first time I’ve ported a phone number in years. I had read it takes a couple of hours. Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about porting your phone number. You never get notice (such as an email) about the completion of the port. And you have to reboot your phone for the new activation to take effect. So you fill out this form try back in 3-4 hours and hope for the best.

When my service wasn’t activated in 4 hours I called Red Pocket Mobile. They said that the PIN didn’t match. I said, “Of course it isn’t going to match my PIN… your website asked for the password. If you wanted the PIN you should have asked for it.”

I gave them my PIN and they submitted the new request to port my number. Four hours later, I still didn’t have service. Time for the second call to Red Pocket Mobile.

After one person disconnected me when they went to investigate, I got one who would work with me. She said that the PIN was denied. I asked what she had for the PIN information. She read the same information I submitted from the website hours ago, not the information I gave in my last call. It seems as though the call that I had four hours ago never happened.

Four hours later, I still didn’t have service. At this time, it’s getting late, so I decide to resubmit the activation and port request with the correct PIN from the website. My theory is that it can’t hurt. Maybe they are only allowed to go off of what is submitted through the website?

The next morning I call back and the customer service representatives tell me the PIN was denied again. Once again, she reads me the same password that I originally submitted and not the PIN that I’ve now corrected twice over the phone and once online. After I explain to her that I seem to be caught in a low-budget, direct-to-video version of Groundhog Day 2, she puts me on hold to investigate some more.

She comes back and says that it should work now! And amazingly it does! I can make a phone call! She painstakingly reads me through at least 10 APN settings to get the mobile network configured. Near the last one, my phone inexplicably erases the previous 9. I thank her and tell her that I’ll just do it through the Red Pocket Mobile app as the company intended.

It works without a hitch. I decide to take my dog on a short walk around the block while I check up on some news, Twitter, and email. (We were off the “beaten path”, so not this “phoning and walking” wasn’t really a danger.) Everything seemed normal and great with the LTE coverage.

I got back and it was time for the kids soccer practice. My wife drove the mile (maybe 1.5 miles) down the street. I don’t know why I had my phone out for such a short trip, but I noticed that I didn’t have LTE coverage. I only had “H” coverage and pages were slowed to a crawl. Uh oh. It’s panic time!

I looked at how much data I used. It was at 28MB. I had 2MB of data to spare before I had wasted $240 on cell phone service that I wouldn’t be able to use. In a panic, I quickly put my phone into airplane mode.

When I got back home, it was time to call Red Pocket Mobile again. I asked if they’d waive the 30MB requirement like I did in all the Tweets. Instead of promising they would, the phone person jumped to “Let’s see what we can do about this coverage. Turn your phone off airplane mode and we’ll get started.”

It seemed that he couldn’t understand the position I was in. If I turn the phone back on, it could get email updates and get over the 30MB limit. In order for Red Pocket Mobile to attempt to troubleshoot my problem, they’d effectively be demanding that I waive any right to a refund.

We went back and forth like this for what seemed to be forever. It was unfortunate, but I feel that Red Pocket Mobile put me into a corner where I couldn’t be their customer.

Finally after number calls over the 24+ hours, I decided to give up on Red Pocket Mobile. My wife was quite relieved.

I called up Cricket Wireless and said, “Please let me come back!” Their customer service representative said, “Sure, no problem. We’d love to have you back.”

Oh there were problems! We’ll continue that story in Cell Nightmare 2…

Red Pocket Mobile Conclusion

Like everything in this article, this is just my opinion based on my experience. It’s quite possible that the service is good and that I freaked out due to the refund policy before I had the chance to get a good feel for it. However, their lack of customer support and that policy really made it difficult for me to fairly review the actual phone service itself.

If you are thinking of giving Red Pocket Mobile a try, I’d recommend porting your number to something like Google Voice and then using that to route a new Red Pocket Mobile number to that Google Voice number. This has worked well for me in the past, with the exception of people getting confused when their caller ID gives them the underlying carrier number instead of my Google Voice number on outgoing texts and calls.

Reminder: Libraries Can Save You Hundreds of Dollars

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Last weekend, my son told us that other children in their school have watch Star Wars. I thought 5 (almost 6) might be a little too early, but even if a lot of it goes over his head there’s not much harm there.

Dog Book - library
The library doesn’t bite, but interrupt me again and I will!

We went through the age-old question of which order to introduce the movies. Fortunately, my wife and I both agreed on the chronological order of release date meaning that we started with the 4th movie.

There was just one small problem. How do you watch Star Wars nowadays? I couldn’t find it streaming on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Star Wars isn’t there. Amazon and Google Play were willing to sell me the digital movie for around $20. We were simply looking to rent it for the day and maybe explore buying a collection in the future.

We went down to the local Blockbuster, but strangely they only had pizza and subs there. I looked online to see if it was at my local Redbox kiosk. That was a dead end as well.

My wife was going to start calling up random friends and co-workers, before she came up with a better idea, “Why don’t we go to the library?”

This may sound strange, but we had never gotten library cards. For whatever reason we’ve been running around from one thing to the next or simply enjoying all the books, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video that we already have at home. We were long overdue to become members and reap all the benefits of our taxpayer dollars at work.

Libraries: Much More Than Books

Of course the Library had all the Star Wars movies. We grabbed episodes 4 to 6… even “upgrading” to Blu-Ray for A New Hope. I put upgrading in quotes because it was the same price of “free” as the DVDs. They also had a bunch of new releases in Blu-Ray as well. While it isn’t a new release, I never got around to seeing Deadpool and that caught my eye.

We watched the Star Wars movies and my kids picked up some of the large plot ideas. Show off my ability to talk like Yoda did I? My kids didn’t know that Dad was good friends with Yoda. (More accurately, his college linguistics class analyzed such sentences and how we still what he’s saying.)

When I returned the movies, I noticed that they had a section of kids movies. There we found the original Pete’s Dragon, which is something my wife and I wanted to introduce to our kids. It’s been very hard to find that on streaming services as well. Next, I spied a real treasure: School House Rock: Multiplication. I grabbed that just to watch my kids’ heads explode at Three is a Magic Number. They only know the Jack Johnson version from the Curious George movie Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Multiplication is not typically taught to a 5 year old (much less our 4 year old), so my expectations are zero. However, the songs were fun for everyone. Any math that stuck is a bonus. (Note: There should be a much more extensive post about my planned “Summer of Math” with the kids coming soon. Don’t worry, we got them in camp and soccer – stuff that some silly kids think is more fun than math.)

Beyond books and DVDs, libraries have a number of very cool things. My library even has few fishing poles and tackle boxes that you can borrow with a library card. That’s the most unusual thing they have.

There’s one more huge benefit of my library (and I bet your library too): Free digital content. Last night I signed up with < a target="new" href="new">Hoopla, which has videos from The Great Courses. I grabbed the one on chess and was watching it in minutes like it was Netflix. (I don’t think Hoopla and Chill is going to catch on, especially with my chess video.) I grabbed an episode of Mr. Wizard’s World and the first episode of the 4th season of Octonauts (which I don’t think has made Netflix yet.) My library limits me to 6 pieces of content per month, so it’s not going to replace Netflix, but it’s a very good supplement.

There’s a similar service for free music via a company called Freegal. I haven’t looked at that yet. There’s also something called Mango Languages, which is normally $20/mo.

The library also a 3-D printer and 3-D classes. I think the only cost is the plastic for the printer itself. We’ll probably explore this sometime in the near future.

I realize that this article fits squarely in the “But Lazy Man, I already knew all this!” area. I had an idea that most of these things were available, but I had simply forgotten them. I’m going to have to start a spreadsheet of things like, “Rainy Day activities”, so that I can remember to take advantage of all the awesome stuff the library has.

We have an affiliate relationship with one or more of the companies linked in this article.

Still Saving Money in Aruba

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naturalpool.jpg[Note: While this article is focused Aruba, there’s a lot of universal tips that can be used on many vacations.]

Thank you for your patience over the last couple of weeks. Due to the kids’ school vacations, the best week for us to go on vacation is right before Christmas. That leaves us, as Bill Belichick would say, doing our Christmas shopping “In a two-minute drill with no timeouts.”

We spent the week in heavenly bliss in Aruba. It’s my favorite place on earth. There’s zero competition. Aruba has perfect weather, perfect dining, and relatively affordable luxury accommodations (more on those later). Lastly, since a few airlines fly directly from Boston for relatively cheap prices, there’s always a lot of Red Sox and Patriots fans there. That makes it what my wife likes to call, “South South Boston.”

Let’s back up and explain how I discovered Aruba. A college friend invited me down in or around 2000 or 2001 as he got to use his father’s time share. That’s where I learned how awesome Aruba was. Another college friend when down there and ended up buying a Marriott timeshare around 2003. After a few months of dating my wife, a friend had an open room and invited us down to use his timeshare. While down there, my wife-to-be decided to buy a timeshare at the same place for $19,000. (I joke that the timeshare was my dowry.)

Since then, we’ve either used, traded, or sold the week. I’d say that I’ve probably been to Aruba around 8 times now. It was difficult a few years with living on the west coast and pregnancies. Still, my 3 year old can say he’s been to Aruba 3 times, which is an absurd amount of privilege.

Back in 2007, I wrote an article on how to save money in Aruba. I added a few more tips in 2009. Today, I’m going to try to combine both articles with some new thoughts from my most recent trip last week. It’s a journey over 10 years so some things may not be as relevant as they once were. For example, we’ve mostly avoided the casinos as it isn’t a place for young kids. (Random thought: Casinos are really missing the boat in not providing kid care. Even my wife’s gym has that.)

Let’s get started…

Save Money in Aruba

You are going to need a few basic things in Aruba… or any vacation. For example:

Aruba Timeshares/Hotels

I might as well start with the Marriott timeshare because that’s what I know most about. The timeshare can be used to sleep either 8 people for one week or 4 people for two weeks.

I’m on the fence as to whether the Marriott Vacation Club is a scam or not. A number of other people seem to be too as the article generated 110 comments. I’m going to defer to whatever I wrote in that article, but I haven’t reviewed it in a number of years, so I can just say it was my opinion at the time.

To understand how my opinion has changed, in 2007, I wrote:

“Before this trip, I considered the timeshare as an AT BEST a break-even venture. I would have recommended it to anyone. However, the same week now sells for $30,000 meaning that if my wife wanted to sell, she could make money (even though timeshare resales tend to depreciate). I’d say that $30,000 and maintenance fees are too expensive for the average person now.

In 2017, my view is very different. A few years ago, Marriott stopped selling weeks and instead sold “points” that you can use at any of their various properties. The unit we have would cost 3500 points nowadays according to this point chart. We didn’t do the sales presentation this year, so I don’t know how much they are selling weeks for now. However, I did find this information showing that it costs $13.84 to buy a point. Thus, to buy the same “week/value” today, one would have to spend $48,440 (3500 x $13.84).

It would seem like my wife’s $19,000 investment in the timeshare returned around 7.5% compounded interest over the last 13 years. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly the case. We can’t sell our week (or points) back to Marriott for $48,000 or close to that (as best I can tell). That same friend who bought and invited us there decided to buy a different timeshare and talked to me about getting rid of it earlier this year.

That may sound crazy, but it’s not. The maintenance fee in 2004 was $811 if my memory serves. Today, my wife says it is north of $1800. That’s around 6.5% compounded annually (by my rough math). The US government’s calculator of inflation seems to show that $811 has the value of $1047.92 today. So there’s a difference of around $800 (maybe less) a year. To make that even worse, we bought the property new – when presumably maintenance costs should be at a minimum.

So while Marriott sold my wife on “vacation ownership”, it feels to me like it was closer to “maintenance fee ownership.” I think that’s why my friend was looking to get rid of it, but I admit to being a little too Lazy to review the email conversations.

This is a long-winded way of suggesting that you should be very careful about timeshares.

Here are my tips to save money staying in Aruba:

  • Rent the Timeshare – Redweek.com has great deals on the very same timeshare that we have. You don’t have the upfront costs or the maintenance fee. We usually sell the smaller part of the unit of our timeshare on Redweek. It used to cover the maintenance fee, but it doesn’t come close now (hence the math rant above). If we sold our entire timeshare we might make $1000 a year or “break even” in 19 years. Of course if you bought now, you might need closer to 48 years of selling it.
  • The Mill – We had a reason to stay an extra day once and snagged a stay at the windmill property. I think it is called The Mill, but they don’t seem to have a website on a quick Google search. I believe it was around $100 and it included a full fridge and a few other things. It’s a budget place, but a great value for the price.
  • Take the Timeshare Pitch – If you are really good at saying no, then take the timeshare sales pitch. If memory serves, you will get gift cards that you can use at various restaurants around the island. However, I think some friends were able to use it to get a couple nights’ stay.

Aruba Food

You are going to want to eat on your vacation. Aruba has some of my favorite food. The Argentinian beef is the best I’ve had outside of Wagyu (too pricey for me). The Dutch cheese is simply amazing.

Groceries: Breakfast and Lunches

If you have a timeshare, like we do, you have a full kitchen. On the first day we always go shopping for a week’s worth of food. For many years we’ve been going to the Ling and Sons grocery store, but we had sticker shock this time around. Between prices in Aruban Florins (AWG) and weight in kilograms, it was a little difficult to shop. Fortunately, most items had some prices in US dollars, which made it a lot easier. Still, apples were around a $6 for a small bag. We ended up opting for carrots and oranges, which were closer to $2.

In the past, we’ve been able to get 2-liters of “Basic Soda”, which is a generic cola for around $1 or $1.50. This time they only had real Coke or Pepsi for $3.50.

It was a real exercise to find the items that were priced close to what he had home. Striking the balance between “We are on vacation” and “Wow! This hurts my wallet” was difficult. Still, at the end of our shopping trip, we ended up spending around $225. In the past it was closer to $150 and we got better quality food.

I don’t know if this pricing is everywhere on the island, but we’ll try something else other than Ling and Sons in the future. In any event, $35 a day for our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, drinks, alcohol, etc. is a bargain. Buying a 2-liter of soda at the resorts can be $6, so you really want to avoid that if you can.

It’s interesting to compare with what I wrote in 2007:

“If you have a timeshare rental like I mentioned in hotel section, you’ll have at least a small fridge and a microwave and other things necessary to cook your own breakfast and lunches. You may even have a small stove and some cookware as we did. Take the Arubus to Ling and Sons and stock up for the week. We spent around $60 for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. We didn’t do any major cooking (it’s vacation after all), but cold cuts and bread is not exactly work – even if you are as Lazy as I am. I saw a lot of people spend $5.50 on a two liter of Diet Coke in the hotel’s shop, but it was only $1.25 at the store in town.”

We haven’t taken the AruBus in years, but I remember it being a very good value and very easy to use. I can’t believe we only bought $60 of groceries back then. I seem to left off the alcohol back then.

Restaruants: Dinner

You can certainly cook dinner and many people do. However, a sizable part of the Aruba experience is the restaurants. My wife and I agree that the two best places are El Gaucho and Texas de Brazil. We usually try one or two new restaurants during our stay. This particular stay we tried two. One was a tremnedous win. We will go back there every year. The other was tremendous loss. I can’t imagine going back.

Winner: Bavaria

This German restaurant was great. We loved everything and the kids loved the big fresh pretzels. There aren’t a lot of German restaurants around Rhode Island, but I’m tempted to try to find some more.

Loser: BLT Steak

My wife was able to get us a reservation which I guess is difficult to come by. I’m not sure why. We made the mistake of going here the first night after a long day of travel. The two kids weren’t on their best behavior which created stress from the start. That’s obviously not BLT Steak’s fault. However, the service was extremely slow. It might have been good for a leisurely date night, but when the kids are crazy 20 minutes before the main meal has arrived, it’s going to be a long night. Additionally, I wasn’t feeling well myself due to the travel. Again, that’s not on BLT Steak.

The pricing of BLT Steak was banana-pants crazy. The kids meal was $21. That consisted of pasta with butter and cheese and french fries. They had a hidden prix fixe sunset menut that my wife had to ask for (she did her research). For around $60 she got 3 courses, which a smaller entree. I decided to just get the $65 steak, which came with no sides. Sides are extra of course. I’ve had better steaks for $25. My 9 ounce local beer was $10 (or was it 10 ounces for $9?) Either way, I remember thinking, “At about a dollar an ounce, even ballpark prices would be cheaper.” I wasn’t particularly interested in the $17 glasses of wine.

The only way I see anyone getting value out of this place is if they wanted to show a date that they had plenty of money.

Where you decide to go for dinner it’s always best to get reservations. You can set many of them up online before you travel.

Aruba Transportation

Because we’ve been to the island so many times we don’t really need to drive around to see all the sights. It’s a desert and there isn’t too much after the first couple of visits.

In the past we’ve been able to rent a car for $40 a day. That’s a very small car. With our family of four and our luggage we need something bigger now. We also need car seats which is more money. One thing we’ve realized is that the cars are always are smaller than you think. Even our mid-size car was like a Honda Civic. My wife spotted a deal on a pick-up truck and we are considering that next time. It’s crazy enough that we might just do it.

On arrival, we always get a rent-a-car from the airport to save on the cab costs. That car is also necessary for getting groceries on the first day. There are a few good places to eat dinner that are far from the main resorts on Palm Beach. We like to schedule one of these dinners while we have a car. My recommendation is El Gaucho.

Aruba Gambling

There are quite a few casinos on the island. We can’t go there anymore due to the kids. Before the kids we’d go quite a bit (and gamble very small amounts of money).

The casinos compete heavily with each other, which means there are usually a lot of “match play” deals in coupon books and such. So for example, if you place a $10 bet with the match play on a roulette wheel (always bet on black), you’ll either win $20 or lose $10. You can do that at a few different casinos that are close together. With those odds we’d typically make $50 from the casinos. It’s not a lot, but it’s fun and essentially free money.

Final Thoughts

Aruba used to be a lot of cheaper than it is now. I know you can say that about a lot of things, but I’m usually able to limit the effects of the inflation monster. With some smart shopping it’s still possible.

In a few more years, the best way to save to money in Aruba might be to just try to make more money in other areas of your life and say, “Hey, it’s vacation!”

Some parts of this article originally published on Nov 21, 2007

Save Money on Drinks with SodaStream

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I’ve been a fan of SodaStream for years. All the way back in 2010, I named SodaStream my “Product of the Year.”

That almost didn’t happen. I read about SodaStream in SkyMall (remember that?), which usually served as a great list of things that I didn’t need. I researched whether it would save me money and came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t. I put it out of my mind. However, a friend had talked a lot about it and he said all the right things. Bed, Bath, and Beyond made a big marketing push and I decided to impulsively give it a shot. I was fully prepared to sell it on Craigslist after a month as a failed experiment.

Today, I’d like to look back on what I’ve learned over the last 7 years. Be warned, if you don’t already have a SodaStream, you’ll probably want to go out and buy one. You should also know that SodaStream has not sponsored article, but I may make a few dollars if you decide some products from the links here.

What is SodaStream?

Many of you are already familiar with SodaStream. If so, you might want to scroll down to “Does SodaStream Save Money?”

For the rest of you, here’s a brief introduction. SodaStream a kitchen appliance that is used to make your own soda at home. That was the concept that interested me when I first heard about it. I have a little Diet Coke addiction and usually making food at home is less expensive than buying it. The interesting thing is that its not new. It’s actually a product that’s been around since the 70’s. Check out this fantastic commercial:

It’s hard to imagine that this isn’t in everyone’s household with a slogan like “Get Busy with the Fizzy” and the cool grandma sealing the deal at the end. That commercial is entertaining enough to justify this article itself, right? Well, fortunately it isn’t just marketing. J-Lo better look out because SodaStream is the rare product that is a quadruple threat.

SodaStream can save you money, promote healthier habits, save you time/energy, and help the environment. (If only it got my kids up and dressed in the morning.)

However, let’s start with what’s probably the big question on your mind:

Does SodaStream Save Money?

Like many questions the answer is yes and no. It really depends how you use SodaStream. Let’s run through three scenarios:

All-in on SodaStream

It’s probably most common for people to buy into the whole SodaStream package. It’s easy and convenient. You buy the SodaStream machine, the carbonation, and the syrup. The initial cost of the of the machine can vary based on features, but years ago I paid $99 and that still seems to be the most popular one. You can probably save some money with the cheaper versions, but in the long run the majority of the expense is going to come from the carbonation and syrup.

The SodaStream carbonation canister is good for 60 liters of fizz. Refills are typically around $15. You might be able to save $5 by going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and using one their $5 coupons. The syrup is $5 and it makes 9 liters. When you break down both of those costs, it is about $0.50 for a two litter of carbonation and $1.11 for a two liter of soda syrup. That’s about $1.61 for 2-liters of soda. (Note: When I wrote about SodaStream in 2010, you’d get 12 liters out of a bottle and it was only $0.80 for two liters of syrup.)

I typically buy generic soda for $0.68 at Wal-Mart. Additionally, the Dollar Tree near me sells 3-liters for $1 (#CaptainObvious) for an average 2-liter price of $0.67 cents. Sometimes, you can get Diet Coke or Pepsi for $0.99 near me, but it doesn’t seem fair to compare SodaStream syrup to Coke or Pepsi. In either case, I simply don’t see how the everyday use case of SodaStream saves you money. However, as a shareholder of SodaStream stock I recommend that you go all-in on SodaStream. (I’ll go into the investing case later in the article.)

Hacked SodaStream with Generic Syrup

Let’s pretend that you didn’t want to support SodaStream’s stock price. You can save a lot of money by buying the SodaStream machine and using third party syrup and carbonation. I’ll cover how I do that in the next section, but for now, let’s just look at cuttind down the costs of the syrup.

I did a quick search on the web to see if I can find some bulk soda syrup. The first interesting thing I found is this listing for Fox’s diet soda. I don’t know this store at all, but I did see other flavors available.

Let’s run the math on this:

There 4 bottles of 1 gallon syrup in this $27.49 case. That’s 4 gallons of syrup – #mathBabySteps. That’s a total of 15.1416 liters of syrup in the case (obtained by Lazily asking Google, “how many liters in 4 gallons?”). It is one part syrup for 5 parts water. That 6 total parts or a total of 90.8496 liters. We probably don’t need 4 decimal places, so let’s just call it 90 liters. That’s 45 of your typical 2-liter bottles. If we divide $27.49 by 45 we get $0.61 for a 2-liter bottle.

If we are still paying $0.50 for carbonation, that’s going to be $1.11 for a 2-liter bottle of Fox’s diet soday. There may be shipping costs with the case of Fox’s diet soda. I didn’t explore that. I can’t compare taste because it’s very subjective and I’ve never tried Fox’s diet soda.

For fun, let’s imagine that the Carbonation Fairy gave you free carbonation. In this scenario, you’d spend just the $0.61 for the syrup and it would be a minimal savings over my Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree costs. Unfortunately these is no Carbonation Fairy giving out free carbonation. Fortunately, I possess Carbonation Fairy-like magical powers that can make your carbonation very, very close to free. I’ll cover this in a little bit.

Hacked SodaStream with True Citrus

In the next section, I’m going to show you how to easily modify your SodaStream to almost eliminate the costs of carbonation. For now, let’s invoke the magic of our Carbonation Fairy like we did above and presume free carbonation.

Let me introduce you to a product called True Citrus. It’s crystalized dried fruit designed to be a flavoring to add to water (or cooking seasoning). True Citrus has four flavors that are zero calories and no crazy chemicals that you can’t pronounce. In my opinion, they are a much healthier option to diet soda.

On Amazon you can buy a 500 bulk packet box of Grapefruit, Orange, Lemon, and Lime for about 5 cents each. I use one packet per liter most of the time. Sometime I go CRAZY and use two packets.

So instead of paying $1.11 for 2 liters of SodaStream syrup or $0.61 of 2 liters of Fox’s diet cola syrup, I pay $0.10 for two packets of True Citrus flavoring.

You might be thinking, “But what about the caffeine in soda? I need my boost!” I got you covered. You can buy caffeine pills and powder for pennies.

I believe that for most people a modified SodaStream with True Citrus will save them 90% of their overall drink costs. I don’t know how much you drink, but I think a family could easily save $500 a year. We can use Financial Mentor’s Latte Factor Calculator to figure out the lifetime impact of this one change. I hope to live to 90 (especially since I’m cutting down on soda now!) so this $500 savings carries for 50 years. At the recommended 8% interest I’d have $318,545.16 because that money would have earned $293,545.16 in interest.

So who wants $318,545.16?

Hacking Your SodaStream for Cheap Carbonation

It’s time to unmask the Carbonation Fairy. This SodaStream hack is where all the magic happens. There’s no need to pay $0.50 to carbonate two liters of water.

When I first wrote about SodaStream, several commenters suggested that I get a FreedomOne from Co2 doctor which allows one to use CO2 tanks from sources other than SodaStream’s custom tanks.

While I recognize the savings, I was hesitant to buy into it. My wife wouldn’t want a big CO2 tank hanging around in the kitchen. I wouldn’t want to go to the basement to make the SodaStream from a tank. I didn’t know if the CO2 that I’d buy from my local welding shop is really the kind of thing I want to consume. And there’s the risk in using pressurized gas incorrectly.

However, all these concerns proved to be overblown. I’ll explain, but first here’s my SodaStream set-up:

My SodaStream Set-up

Let’s start with the CO2. That 20lb tank came from a local “indoor plant growing” hobby shop. I think that’s code for Weed-R-Us. I thought I’d be the only person to go in there for carbon, but beer enthusiasts get CO2 for their kegerators. It’s definitely a consumable grade gas.

Second, the design of the CO2 Doctor is very safe and the instructions were easy. It probably took about 5-minutes. I think the warnings are just to cover the manufacturer’s butt in a legal sense.

Third, my wife is a fan of this new set-up. I found that it fits under the sink in the bathroom. Now the SodaStream doesn’t sit on the kitchen counter. I don’t have to go to the basement to make it either #LazyWin.

How Much Money Can You Save with the Hack SodaStream?

That’s what you are here for right? Okay, let’s dig in.

SodaStream’s canister is filled with 14.5oz of carbonation and it is estimated make 60 liters of carbonated water. My 20lb carbonation tank (320 ounces) is more than 22 times bigger. It will make around 1,324 liters of carbonated water. I pay $20-25 to refill that big 20lb carbonation tank.

When you do that math, I pay about 1.8 cents a liter. So for around 3.5 cents, I get a 2-liter of unflavored seltzer. That’s a lot better than the $0.50 that two liters of SodaStream’s carbonation costs me.

I’m not a true Carbonation Fairy as I couldn’t pull off free carbonation. However, with the True Citrus above we are looking at a cost of around 14 cents for 2 liters of great tasting flavored carbonated water. My wife and I can’t tell the difference between what I make and Fresca. We certainly aren’t getting caught up in overpaying for some fancy LaCroix fad.

I’ve glossed over one important detail: the start-up cost of the system. This one-time cost shouldn’t be ignored, but in the long run, it doesn’t amount to much. The tank itself cost me $125 (it’s kind of a deposit) and the FreedomOne was another $100. That’s a combined cost of $225 in addition to the machine and bottles. It might sound like a lot, but this is going to pay off year after year. If you are anything like me, you probably saved all those costs in the first 9 months, giving you a long time to realize that $318,545.16 in savings and interest.

Bonus Hack: Saving Money on SodaStream Bottles

Perhaps I should have mentioned this above, but the bottles that you make SodaStream in expire in 2-3 years. It’s a safety issue. Since you are pressurizing gas, you want a strong container that isn’t going to explode. Every 2-3 years, I have to buy new bottles that are in date. I bet some people out there just throw out the bottles. I use the bottles that are still in date to make the carbonated water. Then I transfer it to one of the expired bottles. It’s the same principle behind the standard soda bottles that you buy in the store. The factories don’t carbonate soda in those cheap plastic things. Instead they carbonate before and pour the carbonated product into them.

At this point, I have 9 bottles as they are generally sold in groups of 2 or 3. Now that I can make 9 liters of water at a time, I can do a few days in just a couple of minutes.

Four Non-Money Reasons to Buy a SodaStream

Maybe the first 318,545 reasons are not enough to convince you. I understand. While I write a lot about money here, let’s dig into some other reasons why you might want to buy a SodaStream:

Health

I don’t know if too many people out there believe that soda is good for them. Maybe there are a few of you. If that’s how you feel, you can make soda with a SodaStream. However, by making carbonated water, you can be more mindful about what you are adding to your drink for flavor. The True Citrus that I use is only one example. I’ve added orange juice, pomegranite juice, etc.

Consider SodaStream as a gateway to making drinks that are more interesting than plain water, but not as bad for you as soda.

Additionally, I don’t know what kind of water is going into the diet soda that I buy, do you? We use this Pur water filter which is great.

Laziness

I still have to spend a couple of minutes making all the carbonated water which certainly is not “the Lazy way.” However, the alternative is carrying a bunch of two-liters and going to recycle the bottles later. My Aldi doesn’t even sell bottles of diet soda, so I’d have to get it from somewhere else.

Environmental Impact

Beach Dog
See how happy I am when you help keep the oceans clean?

I touched on the environmental impact in the last point. Recycling bottles is good. The only thing better is not using them in the first place, right? I think I’ll get more than a decade out of my SodaStream plastic bottles. The True Citrus packages create some waste, but you could probably fit a few years worth in kids-sized shoebox. Or you can buy bigger shaker bottles of True Citrus that will last years and use very little plastic. Additionally, a half gallon of orange juice provides enough flavoring for a long, long time.

My dog Jake (see photo) appreciates you doing whatever you can to help keep our oceans clean.

Investing in SodaStream Stock

I fully intended to cover this in the same article, but as you can this article is already very long. I am a shareholder, which I wrote about here. I believe that people are looking to make smarter decisions about their health. SodaStream appears to be leading that movement (even though they have some unhealthy options).

For now, I’ll leave this as an exercise for the reader, but maybe in a few months, I’ll revisit the investing case.

Rich Cow, Poor Cow

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This is this year’s third, and likely final, installment of a series of humblebrags frugal grocery shopping wins. Some readers probably saw this coming after Rich Chicken, Poor Chicken and Rich Pig, Poor Pig. The titles are a parody of a financial book you may have heard of. The idea is that the rich shopper is mindful of the deals, often loss leaders from grocery stores. The poor one is not. There are always exceptions and some extremely high earners might be better off spending their time at their job. This is a generalization.

Rich Cow, Poor Cow

Before I dig into the details, I need to apologize for not having a meatier financial article (pun intended!). I understand that the “save on” articles can be disappointing especially when you can’t join in. (There’s still time if you live near a Shaw’s in New England.) I’m stretched quite thin with my wife (finally*) deployed for hurricane relief and the annual FinCon conference later this week. I now have an idea of what single parents go through. If you are a blogger going to FinCon, I’ll be the catatonic guy in the fetal position in the corner of the room. Please stop by and drop your business card. I’ll get back to you around mid-November.

On the right, you can see my receipt. One theme here is that things seem more expensive than they should be, but with the sale the price is back to being a deal. Here are the items I bought before we get to the main course:

  • Buy One, Get One Free Pepsi – I don’t think I’ve seen it at $1.99, but at around $1.00, it’s a decent deal.
  • Campbell Chunky Soups – . These were on sale for $0.99. Does anyone actually pay $3.29 a can for 260-280 calories of high-sodium soup? Seems like 99 cents should be the everyday price. I got a few because my wife likes soup and I’ll need to score points with her for what’s to come later in the receipt.
  • “Red Comm Bakery – These were marked-down (older) reduced-calories wheat hamburger buns. For 60 cents you can’t go wrong.
  • Smartfood/Tostitos – You can see I hit all the healthy food today! The popcorn is good for the kids’ lunches and they seem to be in a nacho phase for dinner. Again, I don’t know who pays $3.99 and $4.29 for this on a regular basis. Even at $1.99, I’m probably paying a little more than I would at Aldi. It’s convenient so it’s worth the extra quarter or two.

Bring on the Meat

The next section is the big deal. Somewhere around 15-20 years ago, I set a rule that I wouldn’t typically pay more than $1.99 a pound for meat (including pork and poultry). There were plenty of good deals to be had at that price. For the last 5-8 years, I’ve had trouble finding red meat at that price. Due to inflation, I should have just raised my target price. However, it’s tough to justify when you can score chicken and pork even cheaper than $1.99.

The top round London broil and the top round roasts were on sale at $1.99/lb. I’d say it is a once every 18 months kind of deal… maybe even more rare. Keeping with the theme of overpriced retail prices, I’m not sure $6.99/lb. is what people really pay. As you can see, I loaded up on around 17.5 pounds of meat. Once again, having a chest freezer (or 2nd freezer of any kind) saves money.

This is also where I offer my wife the soups as penance for having stocked up on too much meat. She thinks I get a little carried away with these deals, and she’s not wrong. However, before this shopping trip, I cleaned out the fridge and freezer. I re-organized it so that we can focus on eating down the older food first. I even started in on that process while she’s away.

There are a couple of other notes on the receipt. I earned some gas points. Until recently, there wasn’t a participating gas station near me, so these meant nothing to me. Now, I’m going to have explore this. That 1% back isn’t exciting. I get 6% back with my Amex Blue Preferred card. They are additive, so the extra 7% in total is nice.

Finally, you’ll see a $5 off of $50 coupon. Shaw’s mailed that to my house a little while ago. I usually do 90% of my shopping at Aldi, so I didn’t think I’d get to $50. This is another reason why I bought the soups and chips.

In total, I spent $48.80 and “saved” $119.18. While it may look like it took a ton of planning when you read this, I just glanced at the first page of the weekly deals and found four items that caught my attention. I was in and out of the grocery store in about 15 minutes. Cutting and freezing the meat took more time than that.

The biggest savings will come from cooking at home rather than going to a restaurant. If we eat 8 ounces of steak a meal, that’s 35 meals at a dollar a piece. I’ll have to make some side dishes, but those are usually even cheaper. While cooking at home vs. going to a restaurant is always an unfair comparison, this deal gives us variety which is another reason to stay home. Sometimes we just want something different than chicken and pork. One trip to the restaurant might be more than this entire shopping trip.

* It was a 6 week process of waiting by the phone for a call that says you have to be at the airport in 4 hours. It’s great to get closure of the standby status. Now we are moving forward in the process and even have an end-date of the deployment.

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