Part 1: Getting Out of Debt with Dave Ramsey
Part 2: Having the Proper Insurance Coverage
I knew I had to get rid of debt quickly if I wanted to be officially debt-free by my 31st birthday. That meant re-organizing everything — the way I look at things, the way I spend my money and the way I budget — every single detail. When you want to attack debt full-force, you have to be willing to make sacrifices for a determined period of time. Once you are debt-free, then you can start buying stuff again, paying cash obviously. That’s a good thing to work towards.
You can’t assume that you are paying the best price out there if you never really looked into it. Just because you’ve been with the same insurance company or cable company for a long time doesn’t mean you have the best deal. Shop around to get better prices, and negotiate with your current company so that they don’t lose you as a client. Is it annoying and time consuming? Yes. But it’s your money. Don’t throw it out the window! Thanks to the help of my husband and his negotiating skills, we are now saving over $175/month in our recurring monthly bills. Crazy but true!
After hours of talking on the phone, this is what we ended up saving for our recurring monthly bills:
Cell phone : savings of $23 a month
Cable / Internet / House Phone : savings of $50 a month
Insurance (home & personal) : savings of $85 a month
Personal Bank (both our accounts); switched Bank : savings of $30 a month
For a grand total of : $188 a month! And that’s without counting all the couponing I am doing.
The trick is, even if you are happy with your current supplier, look around because it’s proven you always get the best price when you are a new customer. Often your current company will match the lower price because they don’t want to lose you as a client. If you get lucky, they might even give you a price that’s 5-10% cheaper!
Are you the negotiating type? Have you been able to save by switching companies or negotiating with your current supplier?
Mrs. Sunglasses’ Dave Ramsey Budget Plan part 3 of 5
1. Getting Out of Debt with Dave Ramsey by Mrs. Sunglasses2. Having Proper Insurance Coverage by Mrs. Sunglasses
3. Learn to Negotiate by Mrs. Sunglasses
4. Getting Rid of Bank Fees by Mrs. Sunglasses
5. Couponing by Mrs. Sunglasses
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
Good job!
My biggest tips with cable et al is to threaten to cancel and they will offer you the sun & moon and reduce your bill!
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
@regberadaisy: Oh most definitely that’s how we were able to lower down our cable/internet/phone bills. I love a little threatening. Gives us a short amount of power of them. Well, until we have to pay. ha!
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
Wow, that’s impressive!
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
@Leialou: You’d be surprised how much you can save! Just switching to a fee-less bank made a HUGE difference for us!
grapefruit / 4187 posts
Awesome!!!
I actually cancelled my cable/internet/phone recently, but what you said is totally true. While we were on the phone repeating over and over that we wanted OUT as customers completely, the price kept getting lower. We went from paying $210/month to being promised $99/month. We didn’t take it out of spite (and history has proven it will just go up again in a month or two), but I couldn’t believe they cut it by that much!
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
@Modern Daisy: Exactly. It makes NO SENSE what so ever that if 5 different people have the exact same services pay 5 different amounts. It’s maddening. I’m just lucky we are one of those that pay lower, but it sucks for those who “THINK” they are paying a good price. Egh!
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
we reallllly need to do this. we were contemplating canceling our cable completely, but lately we’ve been watching a lot of hbo and showtime, and that is our date night.
but i know we can save on banking fees and cell phone fees!
blogger / pear / 1964 posts
Our cable/Internet company ALWAYS negotiates. My DH is an expert at talking them down — it’s gotten easier since FIOS showed up in our area, but we pay about $60 less each month than neighbors who haven’t negotiated.
grapefruit / 4649 posts
My DH is a pro at that, he just sent me a text the other day about how he lowered our internet price and got a chunk of money back as a credit because of a mistake they had made. When one of these giant companies mess up, after he gets it fixed, his favorite line is “so, I bill $x/ hour and have now spent two hours of my day on the phone with you fixing a mistake you made, how are you going to make this right?” It almost always results in a credit.
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
@Cole: I wish we could use that line for the goverment and banks. “We made a mistake, you owe us 2k, 4k” Um, really?! Ya, so honestly our debt-free mode hasn’t been going so well. We’ve received 2 letters in the past 2 months stating we owe more than 6k because THEY miscalculated stuff. FML
grapefruit / 4649 posts
@Mrs. Sunglasses: that must be so infuriating and just disheartening! Especially in your situation where you are dealing with disability, it feels like they are just kicking you when you’re down!
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
@Cole: yup! exactly. I keep telling myself it can’t go worse, but yet it seems to. I just can’t wait for it to go better. If only all this would go away. Egh.
coconut / 8305 posts
What great savings!
I have most everything down as much as we can except our internet, which I need to totally call on, and our auto insurance, which I trust my agent too much to ever leave….. still though, we finally combined my & DHs policy which saved us almost 40 bucks a month. I’ll need to read your “coverage” post and get on that one too and then bookmark them all since it looks like we’ll be in this stage of our financial lives for a bit. =)
I absolutely LOVE that you’re covering this stuff! It’s exciting and encouraging!
persimmon / 1255 posts
We always negotiate. We do a yearly roundup of calls to insurance companies and service providers to make sure we’re getting the best deals available. It’s well worth the time.
We also try to negotiate discounts on lawn care, house-painting services, and other household services. You know what they say, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
honeydew / 7968 posts
@Cole: hahaha that’s what my hubby does.
one thing we found out was that verizon gave discounts if we had home stuff as well as cell phone!