Our family just returned from vacation last week, only to find an overstuffed mailbox full of the weeks mail. Catalogs, free magazine subscriptions, junk mail, countless credit card offers, and of course bills. Faced with the reality of having to pay for what we use, I sat down Sunday to pay all of our bills online.

Amongst getting everything organized post trip, I also had a chance to call up each of my service providers to see if there was any chance of saving some money. A couple weeks ago I read or saw somewhere that when calling up to try to save some money on your bills, be straight forward. The agent on the end of the line has heard every excuse in the book, and frankly does not really care to hear your excuse that you lost your job, etc. If you want to save money, just come out and ask for the best deal. You save everyone a headache and get the agent to go to work helping you.

Cell Phone Plan Savings

So I started with Verizon. My wife and I share a family plan, which at the time allotted us a shared pool of minutes. We also have a shared, unlimited text plan since it is our primary method of communication. Lastly, because we have an older Verizon plan, we still have an unlimited data plan.

In total, we were paying roughly $174 per month. Ouch! It was painful to pay that much each month, but downgrading our minutes was never much of an option because the 1400 minute plan we shared grated us 10 friends and family numbers on any network. With the Friends and Family feature, we never used any minutes.

Note, for reference, we do not have a house phone. Also, we are no longer under contract with Verizon.

Prior to this weekends phone call, I have never called Verizon to inquire about saving money on my account. I just assumed since I was under contract there was little hope without downgrading service. In addition, we already receive a 15% discount through my wife’s employer.

So I was surprised to learn that by switching to a new share everything plan, we were able to save $30 per month!

The difference was we switched to an unlimited talk plan, still maintained an unlimited text plan, but throttled down our data plan to 2 GB per month.

Looking at our history, we at the most hit 1 GB per month shared. So making the switch for our family was an absolute no-brainer.

Even if we were to go over our 2 GB per month data plan, fortunately, it is only an additional $10 for 1 additional GB.

Until our boys are old enough to be on a shared plan, we are very fortunate to be in a situation where it made absolute sense to save $30 per month.

Satellite Television Plan Savings

Next up on the list was our television provider, Dish Network. While we do tent to watch, or at least have it on in the background, quite a bit of television, the quality of what we watch is minimal. Meaning probably 90% of what we watch is on free-to-air networks. Therefore, we are paying roughly $60 per month to watch stations that we can get for free.

I hate paying for television service, mostly because probably 95% of the stations we get with our package, we never watch. I long ago handed over my man card because I never watch ESPN or the sports networks. The sports we occasionally watch are available on free TV. We do not watch all of the news networks, or the shopping networks. Really, the only cable networks we watch on occasion are ABC Family, HGTV, The Food Network, The History Channel, or The Travel Channel. In addition, the boys are starting to like some of the options available on the Disney channels.

The downside of the little we do watch on Dish is that the only way to get stations like the Disney channels is by of course paying for the premium 120-channel package.

Calling Dish Network for a discount is something I do fairly regularly. Just this month, my previous $5 per month discount dropped off our bill. So I was ripe for another discount.

Note, we are no longer under contract with Dish Network.

So after getting the agent on the phone, I was able to score a $10 discount for 6 months.

Internet Plan Savings

I am in the process of still working on this saving because my service provider was not open on the weekend. It looks like if I do not get a substantial service upgrade at the same price I currently pay, I may be switching to a new provider offering substantially better connectivity at a slightly higher price.

Tips for Saving Money on Service Providers

1) When calling into your service provider, be prepared with all of your account information. Also make sure you have authorization on the account to make changes.

2) Either by navigating the automated system, or by talking with an agent, politely request that you want to cancel service and get redirected to the retentions department. Those are the people with the most flexibility to make something happen and maintain you as a customer.

3) Be polite. Once the agent is on the phone, tell them that you are looking at your options to save money and want to know what the best current offer they have available.

4) If the agent is unable to offer a discount, understand why they came to that conclusion. Are you a good customer worthy of maintaining a relationship (i.e., do you pay your bill each month? Are you a long time customer?). If all else fails, politely thank the agent, hang up, and call back. While the agent may make a note on the account that you called in to request a discount, if you are nice to them, they may not. The next agent will see any notes during your call.

5) Have some idea what the competition in the area is offering for new customers. I always carefully review any offers I receive in the mail, etc. to see if I can use it as a negotiating tool. If a new company comes into the area and if looking to gain your business, your existing company may give you a discount or better service to maintain your relationship.

6) If you have yet to make a call to ask for a discount, do not delay and do it today. You would be surprised what you might receive just by asking. I often receive additional discounts, better service, more stations, etc. just by calling up and asking.

This weekends phone calls took me maybe an hour of time, but only because I tend to ask a lot of questions, and sometimes even call back after thinking about things and discussing them with my wife, or family and friends (for their opinions). My hour of time will save our family $480/year.

Paired with having our rental property refinanced and our PMI dropped on our current home, we have saved a significant amount of money this year! Hopefully your family can do the same!

Save Money, Travel More!

Source: InACents