How to Save
I achieved financial independence by following three guiding principles: sensible spending, active saving, and sound investing. The first principle is what I consider the foundational one, as following it enables more of the other two. I care just as much about it now as I ever have. In fact, I’ve taken it to another level, redeeming points and other credit card benefits to lower my costs even more. But I still have fun finding how to save more. And most anyone can implement a few tried-and-true tactics to lower costs. Let’s go over a few of my latest moves today.
Internet
The past several months, I took advantage of various promos for faster internet speeds. It was a no-brainer decision at the time, where the speed increases were exponential compared to the minor monthly bill hike. Those promos are over, though, and the charges are more substantial now. I could easily cover these increased fees, but on principle, I don’t want to. That’s because over the past few months, I can’t recall noticing any substantial difference in internet speed.
What, actual speeds aren’t as advertised?! I know this isn’t exactly earth-shattering news. We returned to our prior speed before all these promos and reduced our bill by about 50%. I haven’t really noticed anything beyond a TV app launching a few second slower.
Cable and phone companies, like many others, rely on us setting and forgetting. More than likely, you probably don’t need as much service as you think you do. Hop online and easily make changes.
Insurance
We’re longtime car, home, and life insurance policy holders with a particular company. We periodically make changes to our policies to decrease costs in certain areas. One of our vehicles is substantially older than the other. We’ve historically had a $1k deductible on the older one and a $500 deductible on the newer one.
A few more years of depreciation have passed, and I no longer feel the need to hold a $500 deductible on the younger vehicle. I called to raise it and saved a bit more. In retrospect, I fell asleep at the wheel here. I should’ve called in few years ago to raise the deductible. So the insurance company won here to an extent, and will continue to elsewhere – but not as much on this deductible anymore.
Consider all the ways you can lower your insurance premiums and make a call!
Phone Service
Okay, so maybe this isn’t actual savings since I didn’t truly cut any existing one. But I was very close to changing my phone plan for many of the same reasons I talked about in the Internet section above. I could bring on more service for a relatively minor amount.
But I ultimately withstood the temptation to change. I decided I was perfectly happy with my $15 monthly Mint Mobile plan, which is 95% covered with credit card benefits. I may “only” have 5GB of data monthly, but I also don’t want the lifestyle of a person who needs more than that. The freedom and simplicity of Mint Mobile (also available with other MVNO’s) is a huge benefit which I appreciate, too. Perhaps some of you can relate.
Do you need that expensive, unnecessarily-convoluted phone plan? Probably not.
Theme Park Passes
I recently described the more-striking-than-I-expected dichotomy of Disney World tickets compared to Busch Gardens memberships. My family’s annual Busch Gardens memberships are cheaper than single-day Disney World tickets. Disney’s obscene prices aren’t totally to blame there, though.
In the process of re-upping with Busch Gardens, I decided to buy my family slightly cheaper membership versions. I bought them single-park memberships, more expensive than the two-park versions I bought last year. Other than the new memberships not getting them into the second park (which we rarely visited, anyway), all other pass benefits are identical. During the process, I knew that my Platinum membership came with benefits we could use to get them into the second park, too.
Do you use the benefits of your various memberships enough? If not, consider ways to downgrade. Or maybe you cancel them altogether!
How to Save – Conclusion
As consumers, we’re faced with rising costs everywhere. But we control certain aspects of savings on many goods and services. Take the time to pick up cuts where you can. The good news is that many substantial ways to save don’t take much time to implement. Keep at it!
How are you easily cutting costs with minimal effort these days?
Those are all great ideas. There are so many ways to save without changing your lifestyle. There’s many Being smart with your purchases, and comparing costs of items you buy. Even where you shop makes a big difference. Knowing that Walmart charges high prices on meats and vegetables, or shopping at WinCo instead of Safeway. Watching prescription costs and using Good Rx, which may be better than your own insurance. Shopping at more than one website when booking rooms (hotels.com, Priceline, Agoda, direct, etc). There’s a lot of ways to be smart. And don’t let companies convince you that you can get cash back at gas stations, and then steer you into overpriced gas stations where you end up getting ripped off…..and simply shopping around for gas prices…there’s often a difference of $.80 per gallon from one toma other….that’s $8.00 every time you fill up. Lots of stuff.