- Who does not want to save money on their utilities?
I pay about $1K per year for auto insurance, but it used be higher. One obvious way to reduce is to avoid bad remarks on your driving history. Other option is to combine your auto with rental insurance. I use one other less known approach. Most of the auto insurance companies (well, at least two that I know of) give you the option to track your driving habits over a few months using a plugin device. Depending on the driving times, speed, number of hard brakes, they classify you as a safe/careless driver and then give you a discount on the policy. The first time I tried, I got over 25% discount. But the sad part of the story is that they offer you this discount only once, meaning when you renew, they will not allow you to get further discount on top of the existing discount.
So what I do is switch to a different provider for a few days even though the new quote is higher. I will then move back to the initial provider who provided the above discount and enroll in their discount program. This way when you start off the second time, your base rate will be near to the first time's discounted price. So, you can get deeper discount. Sometimes providers try to tell you that the longer you stay the "premium" member you are and hence cheaper the quote, but I found this benefit to be far worthless than the above approach. But you might want to check that too.
Another utility that I hate to pay too much is Internet connection. Sure, the more you bundle, the more you save. But I don't use cable, home phone. So not much options for me in those terms. What I do is switch internet providers once a year or so. Most of the times, when there is no monopoly, providers run special offers like $19.99/mo for the first 12 months and on contract. So, I hunt for such offers each year and signup. At the end of the contract, I call the customer loyalty department to cancel my service since they now jacked up the price. Often times, they provide you with an offer to retain you. Like I got $29.99/mo for another 12 months contract. Which is much better than $54.99 regular price. So, the next time your provider increases the price, call the customer loyalty department
Regarding electricity bill reduction, I have one BKM. Sure, you can install solar or use less power but this is not possible for all. In my case, I signed up for Time-Of-Day plan, which essentially charges a premium for your usage from 3-6pm. So I try to avoid heavy usage in this period [sure, your wife does not care :) ] This saves a few $$.
So, what's your BKM? How do you save money on your utilities? Please share them in the comments.
Another utility that I hate to pay too much is Internet connection. Sure, the more you bundle, the more you save. But I don't use cable, home phone. So not much options for me in those terms. What I do is switch internet providers once a year or so. Most of the times, when there is no monopoly, providers run special offers like $19.99/mo for the first 12 months and on contract. So, I hunt for such offers each year and signup. At the end of the contract, I call the customer loyalty department to cancel my service since they now jacked up the price. Often times, they provide you with an offer to retain you. Like I got $29.99/mo for another 12 months contract. Which is much better than $54.99 regular price. So, the next time your provider increases the price, call the customer loyalty department
Regarding electricity bill reduction, I have one BKM. Sure, you can install solar or use less power but this is not possible for all. In my case, I signed up for Time-Of-Day plan, which essentially charges a premium for your usage from 3-6pm. So I try to avoid heavy usage in this period [sure, your wife does not care :) ] This saves a few $$.
So, what's your BKM? How do you save money on your utilities? Please share them in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment