@smartbudgetsheets One trap worth adding: the per-unit comparison only works when both packs hold the same product. Grocery stores sometimes change pack sizes (a 454 g block one week, 500 g the next, a 'family pack' with fewer sheets per roll), so the unit price quietly moves without the sticker changing. In the UK, 3-for-2 promos often just revert to the regular unit price rather than a real discount - checking the unit figure the store prints and comparing against last week's receipt catches both.

$400 is like one whole day of rent in NYC.

That's not even an unreasonable price. Especially in NYC. For something like that I would've quoted around 1.5k and I live in northern europe.

Based on the article, it looks like she spent about $1600 in total between the blocks and other items - not much savings there. Creative, sure, but I don't know how practical it is for most people.

Also, the article mentions that she wasn't allowed to install anything that had a door or reached to the ceiling. To me that sounds like a fire safety thing rather than a random rule (although I'm not an expert, so who knows), which makes this block wall questionable at best. I get wanting some extra space, but is what she got worth the safety and/or lease violation risks?

This is an Advertorial. It’s an ad made to look like some kind of story.

Part-time has nothing to do with the compensation amount, it's right there in the name! Typically, full-time is working 40+ hours, part-time is anything less than that (usually around 20). Though it may vary in different parts of the world...

Sure, it's why most substantive fiber buildouts stopped 10+ years ago. There are still large swaths of land where even the range of a tower it still doesn't make sense financially as there aren't enough very rural customers per tower.

What kind of games are you playing to use that much data? Games don't really use much normally. Or are you downloading massive new games every few days?

Still using 4G, at times I could appreciate faster downloads on steam but other than that its fine.

My provider doesn't need to know what I use the SIM for, it just so happens that my router can also make unlimited texts along with having unlimited data.

Now I kinda wonder which of those "unlimited" claims is easiest to push over.

Surely towers are cheaper than a wired connection to every house?

UK here, been using this sort of thing for a few years now and still on 4G. 5G routers barely existed when I got it, probably should upgrade sometime now. Not sure which routers are good though.

So much home networking I keep putting off buying and some of it isn't even that expensive tbh. Better access point and ethernet for a few things. Current set up is good enough I haven't bothered improving it.

Or, as I saw this morning IOTs, apparently having a thirrrsty Keurig: https://i.ibb.co/wZwpMs57/2107284088247689290.jpg

This. Yes, it's Unlimited* on 5G, but often you have to be on UWB 5G, which you aren't getting unless you're in the city or in a dense urban area that has a UWB tower close by... If you're in the sticks, you're getting the 700mhz band 5G, which is only double the speed of 4G on the same fre, and has different bandwidth rules because it has much less bandwidth available, which is shared by everybody on that tower, and when it gets busy, there is network contention.

Thank god the service providers here ditched data caps on their plans like 15 year ago.

Quick maths gives that 1 TB equals to just over 3 Mbps if spread over every second of a month. Just a speed test (5 seconds at full speed) at 500 Mbps eats about 15 minutes of that. A game download (60 GB) would eat almost 2 full days worth of data.

I got my companies mixed up. Thanks for the catch, I updated my post. Everything else was correct though. It is a unlimited mobile 5G hotspot through T-Mobile.

yes. tower capacity also includes how many devices can connect.

a couple of tv watchers and a gamer in your house can easily hit 1tb in a month.

i'm far removed from urban areas. for most of the county and neighboring ones, it's either cellular or satellite. in town has choices--shitty ones, and even many of those users are opting for cellular at present. cellular coverage sucks ass, but towers here are packed anyway from those who can get a signal. everybody gets throttled soon as their 'gigs' are up.

You and Op are both right; for my example Mint's home "internet" is unlimited data but in the fine print it's a 1TB cap per month after which your data/traffic may be shaped, slowed, deprioritized, etc. Obviously only a marketer would call that "unlimited", though I doubt most average users would hit 1tb in a month unless hosting, massively to renting, etc. which is not the mandatory use case for most on Frugal.

Also, the cell towers have fiber run to them so wouldn't they have the same theoretical bandwidth to the tower as a fiber line? Obviously from the tower to your wireless 5g gateway you've got signal strength and normal degradation, but I'd guess the actual "limit" to a 5g tower and the number of simultaneous connections it can handle is probably not an issue for the majority of sites not in a densely urban area.

If you qualify (meet one of 3 criteria, and no they don't check), you can get a $14.89/mo Computers 4 People Shield plan.

Not that kind of Mint, they're talking about a cell provider. Cachy is a pretty good OS though.

it's most definitely a cap.. the throttle speeds i've seen from all three the main carriers (which provide the towers for everybody else, too) is basically unusable and designed to get you to upgrade your plan or buy more 'high speed' gigs.

towers have finite capacity in terms of devices connected and of bandwidth each can handle. cellular literally cannot provide a truly unlimited service without caps or throttles or some other service degradation to manage the network, and will have something (usually baked-into their terms somewhere) that allows them to slow you down or cut you off if you 'use too much' by whatever metrics they utilize.

I was traveling for a while and did not want to give any money to the Musk for starlink, but I did find calyx.org cachyos which served this exact purpose. Not sure about other countries, but after the initial fee it came out to be about $60 a month for unlimited data. I did have to pay for it up front so a steep entry fee, but I have been very happy with the service over all and would recommend it to anyone who travels a lot. I used it in campgrounds from Florida to Nevada so far and it has been pretty flawless.

Edit: I confused the name of the company. It is calyx that offers the 5G internet service through T-Mobile.