Blogging about savings has pushed me even further to hold myself accountable for my own spending. It's been a pleasant surprise, in that my goal was to help others! So, in this quest to help others save money for their families, I have been working on my own budget and have been thinking of new ways to cut costs. I admit that while I have the grocery savings down to a science that works for me, our household bills are pretty high. I'm pretending our last electric bill was some fluke and that we will be reimbursed for the mistake, but I know we should have turned out more lights and invested in a proper doggie door. But, I digress. I managed to save $630 dollars this year on our cable/internet/cell phone bill and I cannot wait any longer to tell you how I did it and how you can save too!!! Here is my advice:
Call your cable, internet, and phone providers right now and ask them what can be done to lower your current bill. Seriously. Drop everything and do it right now.
I did it yesterday. Fifteen minutes later, I cancelled my premium channels (we barely watched them anyway), and added on another gig or megabyte or whatever it's called of data onto the phone plan, and
lowered my bill by $50 per
month. I then asked if there were any other discounts or promotions happening, and she credited my account a one time amount of $30. That's
$630 I will save this year after making a 15 minute phone call. Please do this yourself! Right now! Some things to consider:
1. Lowering your package. Do you need all the channels or unlimited texting, etc. that you are signed up for right now? If not, ditch them. You may have signed up for a premium package at a low cost for a trial period, but if that period is up, you could be getting charged a very high amount now. If you find that you miss what you give up, simply call back and get them back. They won't object.
2. Switching providers. Companies compete for new customers and offer very low rates for the first year of service. Some will even buy out your existing contracts to get you on board. Also, when you call to cancel your current service, your former service will sometimes lower the cost of your subscription considerably just to keep you as a customer.
3. Canceling your cable completely. I know, scary, but there are other options out there. Netflix and Hulu subscriptions are a fraction of what the premium channels cost. RedBox movies are $1 per day. DVDs from the library are free. Plus...you might not miss it. My friend cancelled her cable for the summer just to save money and ended up going without it for a whole year and a half. She saved $1,080 dollars for her family! Think about what you could do with that kind of savings.
4. Asking about any current promotions or discounts available right now. If you like the service, if you always pay your bill, remind them of if. They should appreciate your business and may do something for you.
If you have other ways to save on cable, internet, or cell phone plans, please let me know by commenting below! I would love to hear from you! I would also LOVE to hear from anyone who calls and saves after reading this. I'm already on a high from yesterday's phone call, so knowing this helped someone else will just tip me over the edge. :)
Happy savings!
~Coral
