Yeah, that was my doubt going into it. It seems that the 10MB is indeed just about 4G high speed. To me the most important is not being completely disconnected (i.e. still being able to receive a WhatsApp message). Don’t really care about high-speed on the go, and if I do, I can always cough up 4.90.- for a full month of high-speed data (or 500MB, whichever comes first).
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There is another hack for mobility that I have done. If you become a lifetime member of mobility you don’t ever need to pay the yearly subscription. Basically you buy a share in the cooperative for 1000CHF (which is fully refundable if you ever want to quit mobility) and then you never have to pay the yearly subscription. Unfortunately there is also a one off 250CHF enrolment fee (I joined last year and did not have to pay the fee so it is a new thing). The hourly and km rates stay the same.
You can see the details in the following link.
https://www.mobility.ch/en/private-customers/solutions/solutions/cooperative-members/
It worked out nicely for us. Invested 1000 CHF and saving 150/200 CHF a year (plus I get my 1000 back if we ever leave Switzerland).
Note: just saw that @ElMago had posted this info already but hey, worth repeating in case someone missed it.
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I tried to compare the m-budget prepay and mini one abo (the latter i currently have) in an attempt to save me some money.
i came up with this sheet
or this graph
pointing out that if you restrict yourself to WIFI (as some users here promote) a can actually save some money.
if i assume the myCountry option (i don’t really get it - a no-cost reduction in per minute cost???) that sets the minute price to 3 Rappen, this is actually really cheap!
any suggestions? Opinions? Experiences?
myCountry gives you the same prices for all Europe.
You can compare with Sunrise or Swisscom that both gives prices per calls, but then you have to check what happens if you do a lot of short calls. (Swisscom is weirdingly better than Sunrise since their prices are by the second with a maximum amount of 60cts, while Sunrise after 5seconds goes straight to 49cts. People do a lot of <60seconds calls, which makes Swisscom better)
You can try Lebara, but it weirded me out because it shows Roaming all the time. I suppose it might be a problem if you want to disable roaming.
Life hack about Internet: Check offers now. For example ticino.com (totally unknown outside Ticino) has a special offer valid for a year and it’s available everywhere. 39.90 for 50mbit + phone (10more for tv).
Trick 2: if you have some big company’s abo, call them to cancel their abo. They will usually make you a counteroffer.
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Besides Mobility, have a look at Sharoo, too. I was thinking of joining Mobility again, but then I am finding myself super happy with Sharoo and I think it’s cheaper, too. Actually, given that I could park my car for free where I live, I started to think into buying a cheap second hand car and rent it out using Sharoo. But I still need to do my research and understand the details of having a car and renting it out via Sharoo.
Hi Grog
Re: Cablecom. They sent me the Verwaltung/Regie invoice out of the blue. After talking with them they did not only waive it but told me about the “connect 40” offer, that helped me save 5 Francs per months with more bandwidth than before! The good news doesn’t stop here. I then turned around and told my landlord that Cablecom stopped billing his share of the internet. He agreed to reduce the rent by 30 Francs per month. With a bit of hassle I ended up saving 12 x 35 Franc = 420 Francs a year.
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You landlord is either a thief or stupid. My landlord informed me about changes already a couple of months ago. I think cablecom figured out it’s not worth anymore to compete with Swisscom and co with the hidden tax and decided to really lower their price by cancelling the cost of the connection for those who use it.
I wonder what happens if you stop paying/using cablecom. Do they stil come to close your plug?
Can you open a new thread and talk about Sharoo? I never heard about them.
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they don’t come anymore, too expensive. They just tell you per email that you cannot legally use the cable
OK, will do (not now though).
Hi nugget,
have you thought to become a member of the mobility cooperative?
I did this 5 years ago and already saved 1000.- (because you do not pay the yearly fee when you are a member) which is the amount you have to give the cooperative when you enter (and which is paid back when you leave).
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Hi there,
I can only underscore what @pwi writes: After I sold my car, I became a Mobility member and my partner a co-member. In my eyes, it pays if you drive only a few thousand kilometers per year and would otherwise have your own car that needs a bit of maintenance.
To become a Mobility member, you have to pay 250 CHF to inscribe (non-refundable) and 1.000 CHF (your membership share, refundable upon leaving Mobility).
To become a “follow-up” member (must live in the same household), you pay 125 CHF for inscription and only 100 CHF for your share.
Compared with the annual subscription of 129 CHF/year and person, this is quite an interesting option. Plus: As a Mobility member, you can participate in their meetings (I’m not so much interested in that, but others may be).
Of course, a car is always part of the bigger “mobility package”: I travel quite a bit for work and don’t need a car standing around most of the time (like my car did when I still had one). I have a GA travelcard, I cannot do much in terms of car maintenance/repair myself, there are no kids or sports equipment to haul around and we have 10-15 Mobility cars within 15 min walking distance. So while I’ve had savings of 1.000-2.000 CHF/year since I switched from car to Mobility, this may not apply to everyone.
Cheers,
J.
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Household waste: One could probably write a whole book about waste separation and recycling. Of course I try to use the recycling collection points when convenient and have become quite proficient in compacting waste to fit into the municipal sacks.
I usually try to leave as much outer packaging (disposing of it in the bins) in the supermarket as possible. Be it cereals, chocolate or other sweets, they often come with a colourfol, shiny outer packaging that I don’t need.
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What recycling bins do you have at your supermarket? 
I’m only aware of pet recycling at my supermarket.
PD: thanks for that link, just found out about a cardboard “Mobile Sammelstelle” close to my apartment 
Aldi for instance is doing a very good job for that. They take back PET bottles, paper bottles (milk, juice, …), and plastic bottles (shampoo, …).
I’ve started doing that this year and I have a lot less waste going to the garbage bags now.
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Small tricks I use to save on trash:
- “wash” all containers that go into the garbage to avoid smells.
- use tetrapacks from milck or juices as small containers for small garbage
- throw bio stuff in the bio container.
Trick 2 is especially important: When one milck box is almost full, I push the top part of it to close it. I try to fold it as much as possible (usually I don’t fill the whole box so that I can fold it better). I then throw the brick on the municipal bag. This way I can use a 35L bag for months if I don’t have much trash and it wont smell like a dead body 
I can empty the trashbag by hand if I want to or even reorder it to make some space. Everything without an issue because the bag will always stay clean and with almost no smell (almost because if you put your nose at 1cm from a closed milk box you can smell it, especially if I put one of those small blobby sheet you have inside meat packages).
This way I don’t have to buy small trashbags just to avoid a smelly kitchen.
side note: Ads on the forum?
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Like thepoorswiss, where I live the bigger markets have multiple recycling collections. Migros also has a “generic” bins, where I dispose of all packaging I don’t need. Like the cereal boxes - I only take home the plastic bags.
If I have them, I often use tube-style packaging (think Pringles crips/chips cans or mymuesli) to compact small garbage and avoid smell.
Where I live, we pay garbage in Kilo not per bag. So, we don’t optimize for size a lot.
However, optimizing for smell makes a lot of sense. We also use a bio container and make compost. And we try to wash some of the things we put inside the trash.
It seems so indeed.
@_MP changed his mind on ads?