Comments on: Three Phone Calls, $590 Saved

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:27:00 +0000

We had great luck with Vonage — they lowered our rate twice to keep us as customers! We just called to cancel and the first person we talked to could lower our rate!

By: Annie

Annie — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:34:27 +0000

It’s often possible to reduce your gym membership dues. Talk to the membership folks to see if they might be able to lower your rate — especially during a period when they’re running a promotion for dues that are less than what you’re currently paying. Also, see if you can get a gym discount through your employer or health insurance company. And, some employers and insurance companies even pay YOU to work out.

By: Ronda

Ronda — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:17:48 +0000

Unplug everything in your house!

I saw this tip about not leaving a cell phone charger pluged into the outlet because it still pulls power even when you are not charging the phone.

I leave all countertop kitchen appliances unplugged until I go to use them. I also unplug the television and DVD player in the living room when I leave for work and at night before going to bed. My son does the same in his room. This has dropped my power bill about 30-35% percent every month.

Also if I leave for a weekend or vacation, I turn off the heating/AC completly and unplug lamps (except those on a security timer) and the washer/dryer.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:59:16 +0000

My sister used to work for the retention team in a major telco here in Australia. She recommended calling and politely indicating that you are considering taking your business elsewhere. The telco will work out how much money you have spent over your contract’s minimum amount and then can spend that amount on keeping you as a customer. Ie. if you regularly spend $10/month over your contract for 24 months, that’s $240 worth of discounts that they can give back to you. This may be in the form of a new phone (or a better phone than the standard offered), a monthly discount or a better plan for no extra cost.

For utilities, we regularly have sales people coming to our door offering discounts. Instead of giving our business to annoying door-to-door sales people, we called our existing provider for our gas and electricity and told them that we were being offered discounts by other providers. In the interests of keeping us as customers, our existing provider matched the discounts.

By: Debkb

Debkb — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:37:16 +0000

As someone above suggested, try combining your homeowners and car insurance if you don’t already. And shop around.

A few years ago our rates were getting pretty high (through MetLife) so I shopped around at smaller LOCAL agencies. I went to 3 and gave them all the same info and got premiums from them all. Then I came home and did my homework on the insurance companies that were providing the actual coverage. The one I chose turned out to be the 3rd largest insurance co. in the US, but I had never heard of them til I did my internet searches. I ended up getting better coverage and cut my bill for both homeowner and auto by
just over 30%. Yes, over 30%! We went from paying just over 3k to just under 2k a year and because we’ve been with them for about 5 years, with clean driving records and no homeowners claims, our 2 policies have gone down to under 1500.00 a year, even with our coverages going up to reflect increased costs to replace, repair or rebuild(shudder).
Two afternoons work saved me over 1k a year. Well worth it.

Hope I wasn’t too long winded!

By: Kristy

Kristy — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:05:44 +0000

The property tax item is a huge thing in states that have a Homestead Law like Florida. I purchased my house in 2008 and the property was not Homesteaded. It is now eligible with the new tax year. However, they don’t lower the monthly rate with your mortgage company, you must ask for a print out and submit it yourself. The change will happen even if you don’t get involved but the money savings will take forever if you wait on them.

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:14:04 +0000

I recently contested my property taxes with my county. We had recently bought the house for less than the taxable value had valued it at. It was an arduous process, but wouldn’t you it saves us $112 on our mortgage payment EACH month – that is over $1300 in a year! Woo hoo!!

By: tms

tms — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:33:22 +0000

A lot of comments about credit cards and phones already…

Do you have a newspaper subscription? For 8 years I have always paid LESS to have my Sunday paper delivered then buying it at the newsstand or their regular rates. I just keep asking and it keeps working! Also, check out http://rewardsgold.com/membership.htm for magazine subscriptions. You sign up, they send you offers and if you are interested in the mag, you do a short (seriously, like 2 minute) survery about random products and you are offered one or two years FREE subscription. No joke, we get about 20 mags a month we don’t pay for. And it seems the more offers you do the more you get. ;)

By: Alicia

Alicia — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:16:41 +0000

A lot of people mentioned credit cards. I noticed that the interest rate in my high yield savings went down, because the fed lowered the interest rate. But my credit card interest rate didn’t. The credit card companies are supposed to lower your rates with the fed lowering the interest rate. If they didnt, call them! The longer they keep you at the higher rate, the more money they get!

By: Alysia

Alysia — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:33:27 +0000

We did the same thing last week! Comcast was charging us for items that were included on a cheaper package. So we updated our account and will save 30 dollars a month!

We just downgraded our cell phone plan, since we don’t use our minutes and friends and family have the same provider (free minutes!) Savings: 10 dollars a month Plus we have a discount offered through work, so I receive 17% off my bill each month. that is another 10 dollars. total: 20 dollars a month.

We also looked in to refinancing, since the rates are so low. We got were locked at 4.75 and would have a 30 year fixed (previously was 6.0 at 30 yr fixed). It would be around 260 dollars worth of savings a month. Definitely worth it, since we will be in our house for a few years. But we would have to pay mortgage insurance (200 something), the savings would only be 60 dollars a month. We will try again once we get more principal paid off.

ps. We have the same phone!