We Saved $820 in Bills This Month and You Can Too!
We all know about spending less and saving more but what happens if your budget is already stretched and contorted to it’s max? How do you establish money when every last penny you have is going to pay your bills and you barely have enough money to buy food? At that point, saving money seems next to impossible!
Not so! The truth is, many of us have overlooked the fact that you can save nickles and dimes and before you know it those coins can add up to hundreds of dollars! We don’t realize it, but we often nickle and dime our way into debt. It’s a dollar here, five dollars there and before you know it, you’ve racked up huge bills!
The good news is that you can reduce your expenses the same way. How often do you sight at your bills? I mean really go through them with a fine toothed comb? Are there fees you shouldn’t be paying? Is there interest that has spiked? Can you make adjustments in your lifestyle that can save you money? Can you re-visit a monthly service plan?
Lets start with the basics: utilities. If you’re like me, you get the bill in the mail, screech a little, then get the checkbook out and let your tears wet the stamp for the envelope! But I’ve recently learned that there are hundreds of dollars to be saved in my utilities every month and now I’m kicking myself for not looking closer at what I was paying!
Utilities
We paid $30 every month for trash service. But since my family and I compost and recycle, we rarely have enough trash to fill a bin on a weekly basis. So instead we started to grasp our trash to the dump every month. This saves us $25 since we have to pay $5 to dump our garbage, but still, huge savings!
I then got on the line with my phone and cable companies and when the service people wouldn’t help me I asked for managers. My goal was to reduce my monthly service plans which when go unchecked, often tend to steadily increase in amount! There are usually great plans available for unique customers and if you play your cards right and plead your case with the managers in a polite and thorough draw, you can often get your rates reduced. I managed to save $15.00 with my cell phone company and $20 with my cable company. Score!
Now on to the big guns: the electric company. Did you know that in many states, you can choose your electric supplier? By doing this you can often times receive wholesale rates for electricity that can save you hundreds of dollars each year. Your local utility company will still snort your electricity, read your meter and send your bill…you’ll just choose another company to generate that electricity. In our case, we went with a trim energy company and saved $40 a month because the trace per kilowatt was substantially lower. We also began line the home. If you want to learn more about alternative suppliers, call your electric company and simply ask. You’ll have to do some research for the lowest price but the money saved is totally worth it!drying our clothes which saved us another $40 because the clothes dryer is one of the most expensive utilities in
Insurance
Another place where you might be able to save money is through your insurance company. Do you have an superior driving record? Has it been years since you changed your plan? Chances are, you’re paying too much money. There are many insurance companies out there willing to compete for your business by offering you a reduction in your bill. Do a shrimp research and you might be surprised how much you can save. We reduced our monthly bill by $30 but also did some checking into our home insurance and found that our deductible was ridiculously uncouth, like $500. And since we most likely would not file a claim for that amount, we increased our deductible and the next week had a check in the mail for $300. We will still pay our home insurance through escrow but at least we have a little money in our pockets accurate now and our car insurance was reduced.
Coupons
It always surprises me how people can throw coupons away. It’s money, people! Would you throw thirty dollars into the garbage with such ease? True, coupons can be intimidating at first but if you take a shrimp time, you can be saving big bucks every month. The trick here is planning. There are several websites that can help you with coupons. The one I use is called The Coupon Mom (www.thecouponmom.com) It will match store sales with available coupons so that you acquire double (sometimes triple) the savings! All I do is withhold the coupons from the newspaper, I don’t even sever them. Then I go on line and see what is on sale. If there is something that will suit my family’s needs I add it to my list, gash out the corresponding coupon and head to the supermarket. It’s not uncommon for me to achieve $200 a month with coupons. It will occupy a little time in the beginning because you have to get a system going but once you get the hang of it, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour before you go shopping! Easy money.
Credit Cards
I’m sure you’ve heard it before but if you haven’t done it already, it would behoove you to call your credit card companies and ask for a rate reduction. Typically, the creditors will work with you to reduce your debt and many are offering special incentive plans to encourage you do this! We experienced a rate hike a few months ago just about when the economy went into the toilet. But since we’ve paid our bills on time and have a history of good credit, they were happy to work with us and reduce some rates. We also did some credit card shuffling, closing some cards in lieu of others with better interest rates. We transferred money to cards with lower rates, closed cards with yearly fees and consolidated others. In many cases you could also be paying fees for programs you didn’t even know you were enrolled in! I found on one card that I had been enrolled in a credit protection program and didn’t even know it. Across the board we saved about $150 in reduction of interest rates and fees. Can you see me doing the happy dance?
When it was all said and done we had saved ourselves $820 this month! I was completely flabbergasted. How could we have been spending this noteworthy and not paid attention to it. I could have kicked myself for not doing this sooner. Be ye not as stupid as us, check your bills and start saving money. All it will cost you is a few hours of your time. With that extra money we were able to pay off a credit card and we’re saving to buy an energy efficient dish washer and clothes washer to establish even more electricity every month.
Go ahead, re-claim your money and start saving! It’s easier than you think. You’ll be surprised how much money you can derive.
Tags: Budget, budget car insurance, Cable Companies, Checkbook, Coins, Compost, Enough Money, Five Dollars, Garbage, Lifestyle, Mail, money supermarket car hire, Money Supermarket Car Insurance, money supermarket health insurance, money supermarket home insurance, money supermarket life insurance, money supermarket van insurance, my supermarket car insurance, Nickle And Dime, Nickles And Dimes, Pay Bills, Recycle, S Max, Saving Money, Screech, Toothed Comb, Trash Service, Truth