Do you want tips that will actually save you money on your bills? Here are my 6 tips to save money on your phone, cable and internet bills! These are all things I have learned from experience and have saved us bunches of money. I understand every situation is different, and each family has their own needs, but here are some things that have worked for us. At the end of this post, I’ll show a breakdown of my current bills.
Table of Contents
Home Phone
If you have a cell phone, do you really need a land-line phone? We kept one for several years because we didn’t want to give out our cell phone to businesses or to my students at the time. When we kept track of how many people actually called our home phone, we realized what a waste of money it was! We saved about $17 a month by canceling.
Recently, we decided we wanted to add a line for my husband’s business. While I am at home during the day, I’ll be answering calls for him. We considered getting a landline again but it actually came up cheaper to add a line to our current cell phone plan!
Cell Phone
How much data do you really need?
There are 4 people sharing our plan with a total of 5 smartphone on our plan. and we share 10 GB of data a month. We have never ever gone over. In fact, most months we use only about 4 GB. Yes, there are MANY unlimited plans, but do you REALLY need that much? Could you connect to wifi? Could you use your phone less? If I can run a blog and 2 direct sales businesses from my phone without going over my data I bet you can too!
TV
This can be a touchy subject! Totally getting rid of the TV is not an option right now for our family, but we have learned to live with very few channels. A few years ago we were looking for ways to cut our bills and decided it was time to cut the TV package we had.
I “need” (ok not really) the local news and weather and we really like having a few kid choices. When I called to say we wanted only the local channels they said there was no such package, but when I said I would be canceling, they told me about a few unadvertised packages. We decided to try it for a month, and if we REALLY missed our channels we would switch back. We did miss our channels but realized it was only because we were watching way too much TV to start with!
I would challenge you to cut the TV totally off for one week….you’ll be amazed at how much you will get done!
Companies always have unadvertised deals. Like I mentioned above, until I threatened to cancel, they said they didn’t have what I wanted. Be sure to make it very clear what you want, and let them know you will change companies if they can’t give you what you want.
Comcast also offers a few random discounts if you talk to the right person. We currently have a discount of $10 a month simply because I talked to the right person! They could give me a discount because we used such a small tv package (???). It is listed on the bill as an extra “Bundled Services” discount.
Verizon and Comcast both have something they call a “preferred customer” discount which can take $10 off your bill each month if you ask. I’m willing to bet that just about every company has a similar discount.
If you are stuck in a contract, it usually will not make sense to switch companies, but as soon as you can, you should shop around. We used to have Direct TV, and had very poor reception at our house. As soon as we could, I called Comcast to see what kind of deal I could get.
Everyone likes honesty, so I was honest with them and said basically “This is what I have with Direct TV: I pay ____ each month, can you do better?” Of course, they wanted my business and gave me a better deal. I then called Direct TV, and said “Comcast can offer me _____ for ___ price. Can you do better?” And again…of course they could! They offered to take about $40 off my bill each month for 3 months, which was an amazing deal! I kept Direct TV for 3 extra months, then called Comcast again and said the same thing. Direct TV couldn’t match Comcast’s price, so we switched!
This seems like an obvious tip, but I’m sure people miss mistakes companies make on their bills ALL the time. Paperless is billing is awesome, but it makes it hard to remember to check your bills! Make a habit of checking all your bills once a month.
The mistakes I usually find are weird charges on my cell phone bill for apps I didn’t download, charges for extra cable boxes, late charges when we paid early, being taxed extra because we were listed as living in the wrong county, not getting discounts I was promised, and the list goes on. One month I found over $25 in errors on my cell phone bill!
If something is wrong, it’s up to the company to make it right. The biggest thing to remember is that no one wants to help a grouchy person though! No matter how mean and rude the person on the other end of the phone is, be nice and I promise you will get what you want! Here is how a conversation went with Comcast once:
Me: I called 3 weeks ago to get our new cable box and it still hasn’t arrived. Can you check to see when it will come?
Comcast: I see you called last month, it was never ordered.
Me: I understand this is not your fault, could you please re-order it?
Comcast: Yes (with a sigh that made me feel like I was asking for a HUGE favor)
Me: Since we have been without TV in that room for 3 months while we have been waiting for our box to be repaired, and then a new one sent, could you give me a discount?
Comcast: No we don’t do that kind of thing.
Me: Thank you for being so helpful already, are you sure there isn’t anything you can do for me?
Comcast: Actually, I can go ahead and credit you $20, will that make things right?
See how easy that is! Throw in a few compliments, and ask more than once in a very nice way, and you can almost always get $$ taken off your bill. I never ask for anything outrageous, only what I think is fair.
Teachers get 15% off with Verizon. I think nurses can also get this discount and a few other professions. It never hurts to ask!
