It wasn’t all that long ago that mobile phones were a relative novelty; now it is the exception, not the rule, for anyone who goes anywhere on a regular basis not to have a mobile phone. For those considering or re-considering their mobile phone needs, the options available can be confusing.

For those who do not make or receive very many calls, it is worth considering a prepaid phone plan. Prepaid plans charge a set amount per minute, typically US$0.20/minute in the US as of the time of this writing. Some carriers offer discounts for night/weekend usage. Some offer discounts for loading more than a certain amount at a time (i.e. US$60 worth of minutes on a US$50 reload).

The catch with prepaid plans is typically that one must reload at least once every 30 days, sometimes longer for larger reloads. If it is important that one keeps the same phone number, one should keep enough cash on hand to buy one reload of the smallest denomination just in case. The possibility of buying a bunch of minutes at once and then using minimal reloads to keep the phone number active may be worth looking into if it is a good fit for one’s usage pattern. Keep in mind, with prepaid service, if an account expires the minutes/amount remaining on it are often lost.

The next step up is a monthly service plan. Many mobile phone providers offer a contract service where the month is paid for in advance instead of given on credit, with a side account used for overages, ringtones, premium downloads, etc. similar to a prepaid phone. Except for the fact one pays for the service in advance, these function almost identically to a standard post-paid plan.

The catch with monthly plans is that often one must commit to at least one, often two years of service, with a quite substantial (US$150 to US$200 being typical) cancellation penalty. This is typical with the case of buying a new phone from that carrier. With GSM phones (AT&T and T-Mobile in the US), if one already has a phone and it is unlocked, a carrier switch is usually as simple as swapping out SIM cards (a smart card which is used by the phone to identify each account holder and telephone number). Other carriers typically require you to buy a new phone for their network, as other types of phones embed the subscriber information in the phone itself in a non-user-servicable form.

One may choose to pay the full cost of the phone up front instead of signing the two-year contract. This may make sense for those who know they will need service in excess of an amount to be financially viable for prepaid, yet for less than the contract length.

The rationale for requiring the contract is that the true cost of a wireless phone handset is more in line with the non-contract price, and wireless phone companies subsidise some of the cost to get more customers, in exchange for loyalty over the contract term, making the money back from monthly fees. The wireless carrier will easily make back the subsidy on a “free” phone over the two-year contract.

Another surprise with monthly plans, is it’s easy for one to fall prey to a slick salesperson who will gladly sign one up for a 1000-minute plan, when a, say, 300-minute plan is actually a better fit. A good rule of thumb, the one I would use, is that you should ideally be using between 75% and 100% of the minutes on a plan every month, except for unlimited plans.

There is also a slightly more nerdy way of figuring what the difference between two monthly plans would buy you as an overage fee, and add the number of minutes to the lower plan. Example: 600-minute plan for US$70, 1000-minute plan for US$90, US$0.20/minute for overage. The difference is US$20, or 100 minutes, implying that even if one regularly goes over the 600 minutes in that plan by small amounts of less than 100 minutes per month, it’s still a better fit than the 1000-minute plan where that US$10 is being paid every month and most of it is not being used. This is the only way to gauge whether or not an unlimited plan is appropriate, and you should compare unlimited against the most expensive limited plan available with a price less than the unlimited plan.

Now, it should be no big surprise that what the wireless carriers are banking on is that those with 600-minute plans will go over by much more than that. The moral of the story: check your minutes remaining, and check it often, especially after long calls during peak usage hours.

Text messaging is another way to wind up poorer than expected, and should be checked in a similar way to voice service usage. If you plan to text often, you should definitely sign up for a text message bundle. Roughly the same rules apply to messaging bundles as voice usage.

I wrote an article in my personal blog back in 2008 December about the huge discrepancy between what it costs wireless carriers to provide text messages, and what is charged. I consider it especially important to not run up a huge bill by text messaging for this reason, though it is far from the only costly mistake one can make with a mobile phone. (Due to the fact I often use Twitter via text message, I have an unlimited plan; it’s not an appropriate choice for everyone, for most people who either don’t use Twitter via SMS and don’t do all that much texting, one of the smaller bundles, typically 500 or 1000 messages, is usually sufficient.)

For some of us, we’re coming up on that time of year again, Renaissance festival (or faire) season. All things considered, I find these some of the easier events to budget for once the basics are known. My numbers here are what can be expected at the Texas Renaissance Festival; others may vary a bit, particularly when it comes to food, drinks, and admission. They are also from the standpoint of an all-adult group (TRF considers adult to be ages 13 and up) so I am only mentioning adult ticket prices.

TRF has three discounted admission days: both days of opening weekend, and Thanksgiving Friday (which was a relatively recent addition). The cost for advance tickets bought for any one of those three days will be (in 2009) $12. (Opening weekend tickets are only valid opening weekend, and Thanksgiving Friday tickets will only be valid that day.)

The price of tickets goes up as you move to other days, from advance to regular discount tickets, and finally to tickets purchased at the gate. For advance discount tickets during the rest of the festival dates, the price is $16; regular discount tickets, $19; tickets bought at the gate, $23. Again, it pays to buy in advance.

My expenses this year will probably look something like this, based on my actual expense records from three prior TRF visits:

• Admission: $12
• Food: $7 to $10
• Drinks: $10 to $25+
• Performer tips: $8 to $12 (see notes)
• Merchandise: highly variable
• Other stuff: up to $20
• Total: $37 to about $100, not including merchandise

Note this is for just me, and does not include camping nor transportation expenses. I don’t camp at faire, yet, and if I could predict fuel prices, I’d probably rather focus my energy predicting the winning lottery numbers. (Wouldn’t you?)

I’ll go through the rest of the items and explain in more detail how I arrive at each figure. We’ve already covered admission, so I’m skipping that.

Most food items are right around the $5-7 range. The reason sometimes this goes up to $10 is for snack items before or after lunch. One certainly may choose to forgo snack items. At least for TRF, the food prices are not overly marked up, and are comparable to a decent meal at a fast food restaurant. Other festivals may vary.

The same goes for drinks, however note that the profit margin is much higher on drinks than food. Three sodas and a hot chocolate will cover the $10 end of the range. The time I ran the total over $25, that included a beer and to be fair about it, I could afford to splurge on that trip. I might also add that if one considers getting drunk the high point of your trip back to the 16th century, one should almost certainly consider $25 the starting point for expenses rather than the upper end.

The tricky part comes to performer tips, and this is the part that is also going to be highly variable for different people. The figures I have listed are honest figures taken straight out of my records. I’m not particularly proud of the fact these figures are that low. I urge those who can afford to tip $5 or more per performance and/or buy merchandise, please do so. I will add I don’t think there is a valid excuse for not tipping at least $1 per show, unless it was a truly bad show. Many performers actually make their living at Renaissance festivals/faires. The first time I planned one of these trips on my own, I was kind of caught by surprise at this, but I did throw in a cushion of about $10 “just in case.” This turned out to be one of my wiser decisions, in fact the rare decision for which I have no regrets.

One certainly can forgo purchasing merchandise at all. I include this as “highly variable” because I don’t buy merchandise on every trip, and what I do get varies.

The same goes for the “other stuff” category, which is where I lump other diversions such as the games, face painting, fortune tellers, etc. This category, also, can be completely forgone if one chooses.

The best way I can think of to avoid running afoul of outspending one’s budget is simply not to bring money over the amount budgeted and spend only cash. I can understand some may not feel comfortable with this option at all and/or find it infeasible; the next best choice is to keep a running total of what one has spent over the course of the day and from where (cash, credit card, debit card). I do this anyway even though I use only cash, as I categorize my expenses for my records, or I would not have had the numbers to plug in to write this post.

I recently attended a music festival, specifically the Houston Press Music Awards Showcase held downtown this past Sunday. I learned a few things I’d like to share.

First things first, I took advantage of an “early bird” discount. Tickets were $5 if purchased on or before a given date about three weeks prior to the event. (I think it was July 9, but I’d have to double check.) Tickets purchased the day of the event are $10.

The caveat with “early bird” discounts is you must plan further ahead. For large events like this, if one knows one are definitely going, if it is a “can’t miss” event, then the discount is often a good deal.

The format of this event is five live shows from the top of the hour to about a quarter till the next hour, starting in the early evening. There were 50 different bands playing at 10 different venues.

(There was also a VIP portion of the event but I’m not sure of the details on that. Plus, these are higher cost tickets anyway.)

I happened to plan my day such that I only had to change venues twice. The bands I wanted to see were playing at one of two different venues: Martell’s and Isis.

One cannot sit through five hours of music without getting thirsty or hungry. I happened to have had a decent meal before I left, so that pretty much limited my requirements to drink. Sometimes, getting the most bang for your buck involves swallowing a little pride and asking the bartender what the cheapest beer they have is. As it turns out Martell’s had a bottled national-brand beer for $2 per bottle.

By the time I left the second show at Martell’s I was only in the mood for soda. From my previous experience playing a lot of poker in a bar/pub poker league I am used to paying up to $2 per soda at these types of venues. Sometimes one is able to take advantage of free sodas intended primarily for designated drivers and/or a liberal refills policy for sodas. If this is an actual requirement, I officially discourage dishonesty to take advantage of it, but the reality I know of is that few places actually ask.

Finally, if you do plan to purchase merchandise, be sure to factor this into the budget as well. Many bands’ CDs and T-shirts can be purchased online. Another recent event intended primarily to promote one band’s CD release had CDs on sale for that band for about half the usual prices. It may make sense to carry about an extra $10-20 in case such a deal is offered.