Save money on your accounts

We take the time every year to review our accounts because sometimes there are savings to be made. January is a good time to do it because we all feel fired up at the beginning of the year and often we've got more time because of the holidays. We wanted to increase our internet download capacity from 50GB to 100GB. We've been on 50 for a few years now and while we don't go over, we sail pretty close to the wind most months. The problem is that while we wanted to get more for our money, we didn't want to increase the amount we were already paying.  I started doing some research to see what our supplier's competition was offering. One of them had a plan that gave us what we wanted and it was cheaper than what we've been playing.

When you do this sort of research, you have to make sure you're comparing apples with apples. We want to keep some of our products bundled but that ruled out Optusnet, they don't offer broadband in our area. We also want the best service, uninterrupted service delivery and good technical support. Our current supplier, Telstra, delivers that most of the time.

So armed with information about a couple of their competitors having the product we want at a cheaper rate, I phoned Telstra and told them what I wanted. And that was to double my internet download capacity and not pay anymore for it. Cheeky, yes. I told the operator that while I was happy with the service I was currently receiving, I had to stick to my budget and would change providers if I had to. 

Straight away she transferred me to the "loyalty department". :- )

I repeated my request to the new operator, and was asked a few questions about how we used our home phone. We don't use it at all very much now because we use the mobile phone instead. She came back and told me that if I signed a contract for 24 months, she would change our home phone to a more expensive rate but we would have 100GB at ten dollar less than we pay now. Of course I took up the offer.

I tell you this, not because I think I'm anything special for getting a better deal, but to encourage you to look at your accounts and see if you can do the same.  If I had not done this we would have paid ten dollars more every month for the next 24 months and maybe some months we would have gone over our limit. Taking that ten minutes to enquire gave me a better deal for less money; I saved $240 over those two years. It's not a lot, these types of savings never are, but it's worthwhile doing because when you add that $240 to other savings we make, it's quite something.

You can do this sort of thing for insurances as well as your phone and internet charges. Just do some research first so you can show the person you talk to that you know what the opposition is offering and that you are prepared to change service providers if you need to. Be polite. I told the woman I spoke to that I would change if I had to but didn't tell her that I didn't want to change providers, I would hate to have to change my email address, I would rather miss the rest of this year's cricket than inform everyone I would need to inform that our email was different. I kept that to myself and used it as a bargaining tactic instead. We have to use whatever we can when we bargain. Service providers hate to lose existing good customers. So if you've been a good customer, use that to your advantage, do you research and make the call. You might just be surprised.

Have you made a saving like this recently? What did you do? What tips about saving on utility, insurance and service account can you share?

There is an excellent thread on the Down to Earth Forum about this subject with some great hints.