As we all hunt for ways to save money these days, it’s easy to overlook the fact that sometimes ya just have to ask. In fact, by making a few calls to the companies behind our three biggest monthly bills, Sherry and I managed to save $590 for the coming year. Here’s how:
It started when we got a Comcast bill that was suddenly $30 higher than before. Seems the “triple play” promotion we were on (for our internet, cable and home phone) had expired and we were now paying regular rates. But as loyal customers since 2006, I wasn’t having any of that. So I got Comcast on the horn, explained my dissatisfaction and simply asked them to help me lower my bill (oh, and I might’ve hinted that the Verizon guy was knocking on doors around here recently). Next thing I know, I’m transferred to their “Retention Department” and I’m back on the promotion for another year – I didn’t even have to put up much of a fight (which is good, ’cause Sherry’s the real negotiator in the family). And not only did I squash the $30 increase, our new monthly bill is actually $8 less than it used to be. That’s $456 that we’re not shucking out to Comcast this year. Score!
So I took my new negotiating confidence and dialed Geico to take a crack at our car insurance bill. We’ve hadn’t re-visited our coverage since enrolling in 2006 so I thought it was time to check in. And once again, I just asked the rep if she could help me find a way to save money on my bill. I thought my clean driving record would be the ticket to more savings, but it was actually our marriage license that did the trick. Apparently we had never updated our account to show that Sherry was a Petersik (she was still listed as my “friend” – ha!). With that little update, $134 magically dropped off our annual bill. If only we had done that 18 months ago when we got married…
Going for the savings hat trick, I decided to tackle our cell phone bill. I took my same, straight-forward “can you help me save money?” approach with the Sprint guy (we have to stick with Sprint to keep our pretty decent company discount) and… struck out. Apparently our two-year-old plan is pretty much the cheapest and most basic one out there. Ah well. At least I learned that we’re eligible for $300 in new phones. Not a bad consolation prize.
In total, I was probably on the phone for 30 minutes total. Certainly time well spent for saving nearly 600 buckaroos this year, especially since all I had to do was ask.
Have you guys talked your way into some savings recently? Do you have any other tricks for trimming your bills? Let us know, ’cause I for one am eager to make more calls… especially if I’m doing it from my fancy new cell phone.
For more ways to save money, check out this article from thenest.com and this article from BHG
Jenny says
I managed to save us about $200 last year by switching a prescription, and also switching our garbage collection service. I was so psyched!
Melissa says
How about your homeowner’s insurance? You can save a bundle for various upgrades around the house (locks,alarms,etc).
Jessica says
I actually had my car insurance with Allstate, and decided to see if they (or any other company could save me some money). I went to State Farm, and they were able to save me $720 a year just on my car insurance. Well, since I had just gotten married, we needed to get life insurance too. So for a life policy for each of us, I was still going to be paying $400 less a year than what I paid for just car insurance at Allstate! Pretty awesome!
Laura says
Great tips! Thanks for sharing them. I will have to give it a try.
Heather says
before this “credit crisis” i would routinely call my credit card companies & ask if my APR could be lowered. i got most of my cards down to below 10% APR by doing this.
now, though, they are raising my APR because of the economic fiasco that is occurring. oh, well. you bet i’ll be calling again once the economy is straightened out!
additionally, by going through AAA for both my car insurance & my renters insurance, i’m saving around $500/year. not bad for a membership that costs me $48/year and has come to my rescue while on the road countless times!
Shannon says
I had great luck getting my bill dropped with Comcast when my promotion ran out too. I simply told the representative (nicely) that I couldn’t afford my bill anymore and wanted to drop my cable TV and just keep internet. She transferred me to a manager who promptly offered me the “economy tier,” something they don’t advertise. Basic cable TV plus internet is less than $40 per month, an $18 per month savings. That’s a lot of savings for a law student budget!
I was so pleased because I HATE trying to negotiate. Sometimes all you have to do is ask!
Becka says
One suggestion I would have would be to contact your insurance agent, if you have not reviewed all your policies with them lately. I mean like homeowners, maybe you have extra coverage there for like electronics you don’t need. Most good companies want to keep you as a customer to call them up, tell them you “in hard times” and you need their help reducing your bill or you will have to find another company, boy that hate that. Good luck trimming your bills. Check them all and see if you can save. Like my mom just saved on her trash bill buy reducing the extra pick-up day. I try to watch my bills each new year to see why they went up from last year, then get to calling if I feel like it’s wrong or I can change something. It can be hard because what can you live without, you might not be able too.
Christine says
That is awesome! Congrats on the savings! We recently called our credit card company and got a way better rate. Since we’ve only been married a year, we’ve already phoned everyone from the insurance to the cell phones in an effort to get a better rate and most of them worked! Married life has it’s bonuses! :-)
Kim says
If you haven’t already, I would check your insurance to see if you will save by combining homeowners and car insurance. We saved big time when we combined ours.
Cindy says
We try to “bundle” as much of our services as possible – tv/internet/phone is through one provider, and home and car insurance through another that I still have an old corporate discount on.
I’m also a big fan of simply telling companies, that the price on their service no longer works for your budget and that you’ll have to cancel it, unless they can give you a better deal.
Natalie says
We cut our insurance bill in half by switching companies. Apparently some companies use credit ratings and some don’t. By switching to one that uses credit ratings, we are paying half as much (and actually getting more coverage).
Also, we switched to a smaller size garbage can for a savings of $8 per month. With our compost usage, the smaller one is the perfect size.
Thanks for the reminder to make another round of calls!
jbhat says
Another great idea! And woo-hoo for you. That’s a huge chunk of change that you managed to hang onto. I wonder what sort of savings I will reap?
ellen says
We have called a few times to ask whether our credit card APRs could be lowered. Even though we’re in the midst of a credit crisis now, chances are, this strategy will still work. Credit card companies DO NOT want you to default, and if they think lowering your APR will help you stay a viable customer, they’ll do it.
There are lots of tips online on the best way to tackle this (http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/01/09/fiscal-fitness-09-one-phone-call-198-in-debt-savin.aspx) — you’re usually successful if you’re a customer in good standing (always pay on time, haven’t gone over your limit, that sort of thing).
Every CC company is different — with one of my cards it was super-easy, I basically just had to ask, another card it was a more prolonged experience (they just had more questions). But it never hurts to try!
Cindy says
I just received my comcast bill this morning and was so mad that it had gone up. And then I read this post…and then I called comcast. They signed me up for a “double play” special which is only good for six months (I’ll be calling them back then for sure!) but it lowered it from $140 pretax to $90 pretax! Maybe telling them I was definitely switching to Dish TV or Direct TV had something to do with it. I have always asked for reductions from credit card and insurance companies. Wonder why it never occurred to me to call comcast. Thanks, you guys!!!
Jenny says
John,
I wish I had as good of luck with Geico as you did. I just got my next 6 month car insurance bill and it went up $25. Now I know that is small change when you divide that over 6months but I thought as I get farther away from 25 the cheaper it gets. Well I don’t know if anyone else has had this experience but after your “new” car hits the two year mark it no longer qualifies for the 2year and under discount. After being transferred around numerous times, I am not out looking for new insurance.
Alysia says
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!
Alicia says
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!
tms says
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. ;)
Jill says
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!!
Kristy says
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.
Debkb says
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!
Catherine says
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.
Ronda says
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.
Annie says
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.
Rachel says
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!
Chandra says
Comcast is very good about working with you. I’ve had their service for two years, but I’ve recently switched over to Verizon Fios. Once my promo expires, I hope they are willing to work with me.
ryan says
A lot of comments about lowering Apr on credit cards….just don’t carry a balance…I never have. In fact every six months I search for a new card that is offering reward points just for getting the card.. and I only use rewards cards. I make about $500 off of credit cards a year. I have 9 credit cards now.
I’ve been doing the Comcast thing for years now. Just call them and ask them when the soonest someone could come collect the equipment. They’ll give you the new customer pricing.
I also have a corporate discount with Sprint. According to them I work for cox communications…I don’t. I work in a restaurant but i found steps online to do the corporate diwcount online. My bill should be $180 but instead I pay $125 for my wife and i.
Susanne says
I’m a regular reader and am always impressed by your DIY prowess. I’m working on getting our bills under control and being more intentional about spending our money. I took your tip and called Comcast today and got $20 off our bill for the next year. I’m so proud. Thanks for the suggestion.
YoungHouseLove says
Wahoo! So glad!
xo,
s