Day 8: Favor a-la-carte purchasing over subscriptions.
Ramit’s tip for Day 8 is to cut subscriptions that force you to buy something every month- even on the months you don’t use it - and instead buy things as you need them. Here’s a few of his suggestions for things to cut down on, and how I was able to tackle them, along with some of my own:

• Netflix - I already have the cheapest plan at $5/month. I could probably cancel it altogether but it’s literally the only way I see movies, ever, and I do make use of my 2 movies a month. So I’m keeping it for now.

• Tivo, Rhapsody, Audible etc - I don’t have any of those.
• Cable - basic cable is included in my homeowners’ dues, and it’s plenty for me. So nothing to cut back on, but nothing I’m directly incurring a cost on, either.
• Magazines - I cancelled the New Yorker, which I’d been meaning to do anyway. I just don’t have time to read a magazine twice a week. When I was flying a lot they were nice as I like the art and architecture features, but even then I couldn’t keep up. They were very cool and issued a pro-rated refund. Powder I “failed to renew” last year as, even though I loved the photo annual, every third issue was wrapped in “LAST ISSUE EVER! RENEW NOW!” and I got sick of constantly feeling pressured to send them more money. Especially when, according to my cancelled checks, I should have paid for enough subscriptions to last me until 2013.
• Second Life - I stopped paying $5/month for the privilege of owning virtual land. It bummed me out a little to sell it as it had a sweet (fake) ocean view, and I think it would have been worth quite a bit more in the future based on the way the game’s economy is going. It was my pretend ski lodge vacation dream home that I built with my own two virtual hands. But I still doubled my money (real money) on it in a year, which is pretty good for any real estate market, even a fake one. And I lowered the real-life subscription fee to $0.
• Webhosting - I cancelled two domain names I wasn’t going to use for anything and didn’t have a legitimate reason to hold on to. Savings: $24/yr
• XBox Live - yeah, I need that. It saves Clint and I fortune on phone calls.
• AAA - yeah, no way. I used it as recently as Monday. And I have to pay extra for the Premium service - my car needs a flatbed. No compromises.
• SmugMug - I just signed up for SmugMug this week, and committed to paying $40/year to let them help me digitally cherish my photos forever. I thought a lot about this and deemed it cheaper in the long run than continuing to pay more for web hosting as my photo library grows, and a better all-around solution. I feel confident in the cost-benefit analysis I did on this one, so I’m keeping it.
  

So, $64/yr saved + $5/month saved, + $40/year spent nets out to $7/month saved, for a total monthly savings so far of $187/month.