Swallowtail

Let’s talk about some exciting new Second Life changes. Skip this if you don’t cash out or don’t own a full region. Read this if you want to save money!

I’m a patient person when it comes to Second Life credit processing times. I convert the lindens to USD via the LindeX exchange to pay my tier. On the rare occasion that I do cash out, the money usually arrives at my PayPal account within 5 days. Linden Lab just implemented new fees, along with the promise of faster credit processing time. I tested it this week, and the cash out time is 1 day. That’s sort of amazing! The new 1.5% of the transaction value fee isn’t really that much, since I’ve read that a lot of residents are happier with faster processing time.

Do you want to pay lower full region tier? Of course you do! Linden Lab just offered the option for current sim owners to “Buy Down” their region to receive grandfather pricing. Grandfathered tier for a full region is $195US/month. Everyone else who does not receive special discounts (education, large estates) pay $295/month. If you want to save money and plan on keeping your region from now until the end of the year, this is a deal.

The pricing for this offer is as follows:

• Full Island:
  • One-time buy-down fee: $600
  • Grandfathered maintenance fee: $195/month (regularly $295/month)
• Homestead:
  • One-time buy-down fee: $180
  • Grandfathered maintenance fee: $95/month (regularly $125/month)

Some people are grumbling about the one-time buy-down fee, but do the math! Let’s say your tier is due some time in April (after today’s date). You pay the $600 buy down fee, and instantly receive a $100/month discount going forward. From April – December, you will save $100 every month, so that’s 9 month x $100US = $900US tier discount. Take $900 – $600 = $300US savings this year. Next year, and every year after that, you will save $1200USD in tier per year. I predict that in 6 months time, land owners will feel the pressure to lower their price to stay competitive. The Buy Down offer expires October 16th, 2016, but the sooner you pay the fee, the more money that you will save this year. If you pay the fee in October, you will actually not save any money this year — $600 buy down fee – $300 tier saving ($100 month x 3 months for October, November, December) = $300 spent. So do it now for the greatest savings!!!!!!! I love math. I love saving money!