Does Vodacom Think We're Dumb - and smart ways to save money on your next cellphone contract

So Vodacom has just released its June/July catalogue. Not bad, but no iPhone in sight. Sorry.
Before we look at it in finer detail, here's a primer. In their most recent televised ads Vodacom show a silly, bald white man who doesn't make much sense ("trees grow on money" etc), and then a hip young black chap who is wise to all the latest tech-know-how. The young guy humors the bald dope, patiently, and in good humor, showing him how things work. And at the end, the white guy imparts his 'wisdom' clumsily to an attractive brunette (also white), who walks away with thinly bridled contempt. Moral of the story: old white guys are stupid. Young black guys are where its at. Whether you want to take this with a pinch of salt or not, this is the psychology Vodacom is peddling right now.

Having been involved in advertising, my gut feel is that this patronising ad (it's patronising to the black diamonds they're so desperate to build market share with) was conceived by white okes. The wordplay is very white. Do young black men need to be played up against stupid white farts to prove they're smart? I don't think so. I think there's another way to be funny, and clever. Couldn't we see young black actors playing the part of spies (carrying their web-enabled phones) and basically kicking butt in a future-paradigm - in other words, no racial undertones, just a rendering of web/mobile savviness that is leveraged by a super-sleuth type persona. I don't know about you, but I'm guessing we're grown up enough and sophisticated enough to enjoy that over Vodacom's current toilet humor silliness.

That said, my Vodacom contract is coming up for renewal/termination. I'm renewing, but I'm going to make the decision to save as much as possible on the package that is going to take me up to 2010. My expenses each month are, in order of bank break ability:
1) rent
2) communication (mobile + internet)
3) Food
4) Transport
5) Entertainment

4 and 5 possibly trade places, but I'm guessing 4 is going to be chugging up to rival the number 2 expenditure pretty soon.

So having looked at their bundles, here are a few pointers, do's and don'ts.
1) FREE* isn't free. The * refers to terms and conditions, and that shiny new handset is paid for, each and every penny, in your subscription fee over 24 months.
2) Look carefully at your subscription. Anything over R200 is going to hurt you over the next to years (if you're middle income like me, at any rate).
3) If you like to talk a lot, think of a Business package, that allows a cheapish rate 7 days a week, and at any hour of the day.
4) Don't be tempted by Wii players, Camcorders and all the rest. They may seem like a steal, but you're paying much more for these extras than you would if you just went to the store and bought the damn things in a one of purchase. Vodacom are cleverly offering nice Mac-books at "incredible" prices under R1000 a month. Here's the catch - for 36 months. I'm not sure how much Mac-books cost, but hazarding a guess it's got to be a lot less than R36 000. And anyway, I wouldn't be interested if it was more than a third of that price at this point. Yes, you can get good new computers for around R12 000. Be smart.
5) If you have the internet at home, and can access Facebook at home (and at work), don't bother with Facebook enbaled phones. Also watch those upfront fees. Thing about what you really need, not what you want.

My cellphone bill has fluctuated from R900 to almost R2000. I need to get it in the R500 - R750 ballpark. If I continue with a subscription of over R400, that's not going to work. Remember, your subscription is important to lower your overall costs, but the proportion of your subscription can also raise the overall costs, so be careful with your sums. I am going for a lower subscription, probably R185. Business Talk. I like Samsung, so I might get the Samsung i560 or the GPS enabled Samsung i780 (pay in R900) - for geo-blogging, or the Sony Erickson K850i. I have an idea it's between the two Samsung's, and probably not the i780. I've already indicated that I want to blog less than I am. I also want to call less than I do.

It is when these sort of contracts expire that we have a choice: repeat our mistakes, or continue to buy more things we don't need? I'm going to err on the side of less is more, because we know to expect less and less, and by exercising a choice to cut back, I think we have a better sense that we can handle the increasingly tough times ahead. I hope more will do the same. It's the logical way to live.

Here's a final quote to send you on your way - from the seminal Jim Kunstler:

The trouble in the United States is we’re driving incessantly. We’re driving every kind of car there is, incessantly. And we’ve got to find a way out of the incessant motoring and a way to live without it, and a happy way to live without it—not a punishment way to live without it, but a way to be happy and do it. And it means, really, a completely different paradigm for everyday life.

I can hear you saying: 'what does that have to do with buying a mobile phone?' Everything. Energy prices have everything to do with everything, and we can start changing everything we do, by examining everything we do. I sincerely hope that if you read this, you will begin to respond, by critically looking at what you consume, and internally accepting that we need to consume less. Then, when it comes time to exercise your needs and want, perhaps you (and I) will choose to exercise our demands a little less.

Set Your Money On Fire: 3 Great Ideas

1) On the way home yesterday I stopped at a Caltex to buy some water, and lo and behold, there it is. VOSS bottled water, sparkling and still, imported from Norway, for the bargain basement price of R25.00. Not for 1 litre, for a small bottle. Comparable local products cost R6.00. Now let me ask you, do we need to import water all the way from Norway just to get 'pure' water?

I'm also an advocate of not drinking bottled water, but we face a bit of conundrum. The water at home tastes a bit funny; when I did the shoot with Roxanne, she and her mom both took a single sip and then asked for juice instead. Now I'm less inclined to drink it too. I mean...there are rumors now of radioactive contamination, sewage leaking into our water system, and of course, recently in Bloem they found dead bodies floating in a large water tank. That's enough to wean people off tap water for a long time.

It's de rigeur in countries like Britain and Korea to not drink water straight from the taps. In Korea even bathing in the stuff really dries out the skin. The water in Korea is said to be contaminated with heavy metals. They also discourage boiling veggies with tap water. So what other option is there except buying big barrels of water. There are filter systems of course, but millions of bachelors like me are going to take a while to adopt these new behaviours. Here's more background on why drinking bottled water is dumb, and we need to graduate fast to a more efficient (but clean and healthy) system to hydrate ourselves at home.

Drink Bottled Water, Help Wreck the Planet

2). Buy a house in Bantry Bay for R25 000 000. Seeff is advertising a property right now. Here's what you get for R25 000 000: A sea view. It's a summary, obviously I'm not going into details like automatic garage doors and other gob smacking luxuries. The point is, you can find a habitat for a fraction of that price and live happily ever after. Are bricks and mortar and a balcony over looking sparkling water worth 50 Mercedes Benz motor cars? Some inner city apartments in Jeppe Street Johannesburg are going for less than R300 000 today. If you really want a beautiful sea view, and you're far more 'on the beach' than you can even hope to be at Bantry Bay (and even there the sea is cold), you can buy an island or a cottage in the Philippines for less than a brightly colored cave in Jeppe Street, and enjoy unsurpassed peace and tranquility from here to eternity.

3) Head swivelling styling like Chrysler's HEMI may have made sense (still not a lot though) once upon a time, for about half an hour when a small flock of pretty girls emerged out of a nightclub as you drove by on a random Saturday night...by mid morning the latest Merc had been unveiled, and that was the car to watch: the Mercedes SLR McLaren.

Expect to fork out R3.5 million ($450 000). The SLR has a supercharged 5.5 (5439cc) litre dry sumped 90 degree V8. It produces 466.8 kW at 6500rpm (626 hp) and 780 N·m (575 ft·lbf) torque at 3250 - 5000 rpm. That's a little bit like being an attractive eleven year old girl with the most beautiful breasts in the world. It's nice to have that power but in a sick kind of way - you can't use it and even if you could, you shouldn't be using it.
For a list of the world's most expensive cars, go here.

So if you had the cash, you could by this car, or you could buy 12 apartments in JeppeStreet (maybe a quarter of the whole building).
Alternatively you could buy a small second-hand Yaris - a brilliant, wonderful car to drive, and with your change you could resurrect Zimbabwe's economy.