Every time I can find a way to cut my expenses I take notice. I seemed to have my expenses cut down to the basics, but I am always looking for ways to save just a little bit more. So, while paying bills this month I took just an extra 30 minutes to cut my expenses even further. Television – 5 minutes I am not a very big television person so this one was easy. With the recent hike in Netflix fees, I decided to cancel the DVD portion of my service, cutting $10 from my monthly budget. For family movie nights we will check out free movies from our local library. Total annual savings: $120. You can cut a great deal of extra charges especially company like Time Warner or Charter which are the largest thief’s. Cell Phone – 5 minutes A quick look at my monthly cell phone usage helped me to see where I could cut in this area. I was signed up for and paying for a lot more texting minutes than I ever use. Changing to a lower priced plan saved me $180 annually. Home Telephone – 10 minutes After looking at my cell phone usage I turned to my home telephone usage. Reluctant to turn off my home phone altogether I decided to just cancel all of the extra features I was signed up for. Dropping call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, voice mail, and unlimited long distance (since I use my cell phone for long distance calls) shaved $34 off my monthly bill, saving me $408 annually. Cell phone companies are the worst at over charging so always call and take as much as there time as possible they will lower your bill. Auto Insurance – 15 minutes I then called my auto insurance representative and asked her to help me save money. We looked at monthly mileage, discounts available, and our past driving history. I had calculated our annual mileage much higher than our current actual totals so this adjustment saved quite a bit. My rep offered me a loyalty discount for being with the same company for many years and I opted to raise my deductible by a couple hundred dollars for further savings. This short phone call saved me $750 annually. These easy maneuvers added up to a nice amount of savings over the year. The best part is that I was able to save in places that won’t be missed. To make the deal even sweeter, I plan to add the extra money into a special savings to spend on a family vacation at the end of the year. By doing all of the things mentioned above it will help your life a great deal.
