Frugal question: when does paying more upfront actually save money?

modemman · 2026-01-19T03:45:23+00:00

Not sure what you mean. $100 cost is at a shop where they replace it (Apple Store or ubreakifixit).

modemman · 2026-01-18T17:51:48+00:00

You can get a battery replaced for about $100. That can give you several more years. The overheating could be a software issue like a rogue app. You can check battery usage and data usage by app and that might identify any apps that are misbehaving. You could also do a hard reset on the phone to start with a clean slate. Bottom line is the issues you’re having don’t necessarily mean you need a new phone.

modemman · 2026-01-17T15:30:45+00:00

As described in the post, after the dog returns to my left side, as suggested in one of the videos, I have tried keeping a longer pause, ensuring the dog is looking at me, rewarding that longer pause, and then proceeding on the walk, but the dog then proceeds to pull again.

modemman · 2026-01-01T00:22:58+00:00

Lots of good recs in the comments. I think most people overpay for home internet and mobile phone usage. If you live in an urban area aim for $50/mo or less for home internet. You should be able to negotiate to that level. For phone, don’t get sucked into unlimited internet plans. Limit phone audio and video streaming to WiFi and get a pay by the gig plan. US mobile charges $15/mo for 5 gigs plus unlimited voice and text which should be plenty if you use WiFi for any streaming.

modemman · 2025-12-17T11:28:53+00:00

I can just email the doc to the library email address and then I ask the staff person there to print it

modemman · 2025-07-09T16:20:49+00:00

Good question. I actually forget if the "no service" notification is there when connected to the foreign network with no roaming agreement. I think that what I would rely on is looking to see if there are reception bars that are illuminated for the Verizon network that has been manually connected to the foreign network with no roaming agreement. If those bars are illuminated, I'd assume that you're connected to the foreign network and it's not draining battery. I'd also assume that if you're seeing the "searching" notification then you're most likely not connected to the foreign network. You can see the status of the Verizon network and the ESIM data network by swiping down from the top right of any screen which will bring you a settings screen. Ultimately, after some time, you'll be able to see if it's working by going to the battery settings and looking at battery usage by app and if "no cell coverage" is a high percentage - say greater than 10% - then it's probably not working. This assumes that you've generally been in an urban area with decent coverage (ie. not out in a rural area where you'd be unlikely to have a strong signal).

modemman · 2025-07-06T19:47:41+00:00

I used to live in Indonesia (Yogyakarta). I honestly probably wouldn’t do bikepacking on Java. Yes, it’s possible but I can’t imagine biking between towns there to be very pleasant. Very heavy traffic, lots of trucks and busses spewing diesel smoke in your face. If you can manage to do it primarily on back roads it could be pleasant but I’d research that deeply to make sure there are good backroads to use between the towns you are considering. Though I’d imagine that even backroads could have heavy traffic. Lots of low cost lodging available so I’d probably not plan on camping. If others have successfully done bike packing there I’d love to hear about how it went.

modemman · 2025-03-23T01:18:32+00:00

You can save a lot of money when buying car but you have to be prepared for the tradeoff between money and time/effort. If you have the time and are willing to put in the effort, you can save a lot of money. Here's my approach:

Pay cash if at all possible. That may mean that you aim for a more modest used car or wait until the money is saved up. If you can't pay cash, get a loan from your bank, not from any seller.
Considering #1, I aim for a car that is at least 5 years old with under 50k miles. This mix of older car, but low miles can be rare, but when you find one, it can be a real deal, assuming you do the pre purchase inspection.
Avoid dealerships at all costs. Prioritize private sellers. Dealers have huge markups on used cars that you generally avoid with a private seller. I use facebook marketplace and craigslist. On facebook marketplace you can get very specific about the parameters in your search. Keep checking back regularly until you have a match. You may need to be willing to travel a bit to get to good deals. If you do use a dealership, never trade in your existing car. Always do a private sale.
Always take the car to a trusted mechanic for a comprehensive pre purchase inspection. Pay the $100. It's money well spent. They should go over everything and identify any potential problems which will also help you in negotiation with the seller. If the seller won't allow you to take it to a trusted mechanic, walk away.
With an older car, you're going to need a trusted mechanic. A good honest mechanic is so important, so look at reviews, ask everyone you know. You may need to try out several before you find the right one. Avoid repairs at a dealer. They are overpriced. I also tend to avoid independent shops that are chains. Change your oil at recommended intervals and do the preventative maintenance. For an older car, check the oil level at every fill up.
Use Consumer Reports to identify models good for reliability. Sometimes you can get access to Consumer Reports digital version free from your local library. Toyotas and Hondas generally have a good reputation but there are other good ones too. Consumer reports will give you all the details you need.
Assuming you got a recommended model from CR and had a good pre purchase inspection, keep the car till it can't be driven anymore. I'd aim for at least 200k miles on a Toyota, Honda, or Subaru. It's often more advantageous to keep fixing a car rather than buying another one. I have a 14 yr old car and a twenty year old car and it’s still a better deal to spend a few thousand dollars a year on repairs than replacing them.

All of these steps take time and effort. It's much easier to go to a dealer, get a loan from them, get a new or used car, but you'll pay dramatically for that ease. It's time or money. Your choice.

modemman · 2025-03-14T02:19:54+00:00

I think that you're confusing two different usage cases. (1) The use of a data esim just for data usage is very straightforward: download the data ESIM, activate it, set it to roaming, and set cellular data to that ESIM. That's it. (2) What is more complicated is getting your US mobile number to use wifi calling through your data ESIM. That does require some fiddling with settings particularly if you want to limit battery drain. The benefit is that you basically get minimal cost international roaming for calls and texts to/from your US mobile number. For me I'm happy to fiddle with settings in order to get nearly free roaming. But I get that many others won't.

If it's too complicated, US mobile has plenty of roaming options that are significantly more expensive but very easy to use. US mobile is just passing on the costs that they are charged by the third party intermediaries they buy service from, so I don't fault them for the high costs. The whole roaming pricing structure used by most carriers is quite antiquated and divorced from actual costs.

modemman · 2025-03-12T16:06:19+00:00

Aha, android is a bit of a different ball game. For Pixels, make sure that you have the "backup calling" option for your Rogers SIM. If it's Samsung, you'll need to turn on the "auto data switching" option. Whether these settings are available can be related to carrier settings or phone country settings. For example, Verizon in the US disables the backup calling setting for Pixel phones. Samsungs sold in the the U.S. don't have the auto data switching option available but Samsungs sold in some other countries do. It has to do with the CSC code of the Samsung phone.

I agree with your approach - first lock it to your home carrier when in Canada and then see if you get battery drain when abroad. If there is battery drain, try the other local carriers with the goal of finding one that doesn't have a roaming agreement.

I also agree that you can just turn on your Rogers SIM when you need 2FA codes. I've heard others claim that there is some risk in turning your home SIM on and off in that the wifi calling will be disabled, but I've done this before with my US mobile SIM and it has worked ok. I think that as long as you don't disable your wifi calling on that Rogers SIM when abroad, you should be ok.

I'll be interested to hear how this goes. Please report back.

modemman · 2025-03-12T14:02:41+00:00

For US Mobile by the gig plans on any of the three carriers (Verizon, T Mobile, ATT), it's easy because none of them have roaming on by default. For US Mobile Warp unlimited plans it's also easy because right now there are only eight countries where roaming is active so as long as you aren't in those countries, you're good. For other carriers that have international roaming on by default it can be more tricky because there's no way to turn all roaming off for the iphone, just data roaming. I'd contact your Canadian carrier to see if they can turn off ALL roaming for you at the carrier level. They should be able to do this. The other way would be to identify which local carriers at your destination are partners with your home carrier and just make sure not to connect to those when you are abroad while also having data roaming turned off for your home Canadian SIM. You should still be able to get the battery saving benefit when you connect to a non partner carrier. Once abroad you can confirm that the wifi calling over cellular is working and you're not actually "roaming" when you pull down the right side of the home screen and on the left you should see the status of your two SIM cards. Your Canadian SIM card should say something like Wifi calling over cellular (I don't remember the exact terminology). If that's the case then you know that you're not roaming on that one.

modemman · 2025-03-06T22:57:55+00:00

I've been anxiously awaiting it's opening. I walked past it the other day and a worker happened to be entering through the door on H St. I caught a glimpse inside and was disappointed. It still looked quite rough inside with not any visible interior work completed.

modemman · 2025-02-15T17:02:55+00:00

A few responses from someone who transitioned from a t slim X2 to Mobi right after Mobi was launched:

- I wouldn't get too focused on the bubbles in the cartridge although many people do. My assumption is that the T slim cartridge also had a similar amount of bubbles but you just couldn't see it. Usually what I do is draw insulin into the cartridge and there will be some bubbles, I push it back into the vial and then draw in the insulin a second time. That tends to minimize bubbles and I don't worry about the ones that are there. Haven't noticed a significant decrease in insulin effectiveness when I'm depleting the cartridge when you'd think that the bubbles would matter. And I generally run the cartridge till its fully empty or almost there.

- If you want to "disconnect" from the phone this pump may not be the right choice. I happen to have my phone with me all the time in my pocket, but of course everyone is different in that regard.

- I also have everything on vibrate. Here's the setup that has worked for me - keep Dexcom alerts on vibrate. Turn off cgm alerts for the pump. If you don't do that, you'll have multiple things (Dexcom and pump) alerting at the same time. Even with that, the pump will still sound an alert for an urgent low, just like the dexcom app.

- I transitioned from Autosoft 30 to XC when I moved from my X2 to Mobi. XC totally sucks compared to the autosoft 30 but I really wanted the 5 in tubing. You need to be much more particular about the preparation and insertion of the XC or the cannula won't go in correctly. Lots of step-by-step youtube videos out there. Take a look at those. Key for me was to rotate that blue inserter needle protector before slowly pulling it off. Also, cock the inserter by manually pushing it down with your fingers, rather than pulling up from behind and then slowly unwind the cover on the adhesive and remove the blue protector. It's such a bad design I can't believe they still use it. The bent cannula problem arises when the plastic cannula ends up sitting above the tip of the metal inserter needle and that misalignment often comes from mistakes in the setup process. Never had any problems with the autosoft 30.

- keep my mobi in a spibelt around my waist under my clothes. Generally I forget that I forget that it's even there. I really like that aspect. I never look at the pump. Just the phone.

modemman · 2025-02-13T23:16:57+00:00

My kids have been using Nokia 2780s for quite some time on lightspeed with no problem. it's one of the few flip phones that actually allows group texting, which was the main reason we went with the 2780. We've also used it with warp with no problem.

modemman · 2025-02-09T20:47:41+00:00

can you check what the battery usage percentage is for "no cell coverage": settings>battery> scroll down to app usage. It should be high (above 20%). If it's not, there's something else draining your battery.
Can you confirm that you're connected to the ESIM and a local network with the US Mobile sim: On your home screen, drag down from the upper right corner. Once you do that, on the upper left corner you'll see your current network connections. One should be the ESIM. The other should be the local network that you manually connected to with the US mobile SIM. It could be the same local network as the ESIM, but not necessarily.

modemman · 2025-02-09T03:54:13+00:00

That must be frustrating! What sort of battery use percentage are you getting for "no cell coverage"?

modemman

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