First of all, let me say that I'm working things out financially. I think I'll be okay, and if I'm not, I'll figure it out. I always do, right?
So anyway, the phone. I have a smartphone. It is sort of the thing that keeps me together. I take notes for work in it, put my grocery lists in there, get directions when I get lost (which is often). So when my phone died a few days ago, I had a crisis of conscience- do I replace the smartphone with another smartphone, or buy something cheap, or go without?
So I called my service provider, talked to them about my phone bill, cable, internet, and then my cell. After all that talking, they knocked 5$ off my phone bill, took a 5$ "insurance" charge off that I highly doubt I agreed to, and informed me that the data plan for the phone I want was $30 dollars less than the one I have (why, I have no idea). So just like that, I saved $40 a MONTH off my bill, all by breaking my cell phone! By the way, that's 480$ a year. Seriously!
So no matter how financially savvy you are (or think you are), there are always negotiations to be made. And no matter how screwed you think you are (or really are), there's very rarely NO WAY out. It just takes some faith, some creativity, and a little congeniality to boot.
1 comment:
Jaime, congrats on the savings! I wanted to add, however, that just because you may get a better rate by calling your carrier or switching plans doesn't necessarily mean that new rate will be ideal. The carriers are in this to make money off you, after all; they have no real incentive to optimize your plan. To that point, I would suggest directly using the internet to vastly lower your business or personal cell bill. In particular, there's one great new blog called http://fixmycellbill.blogspot.com/ that constantly tracks new ways to cut wireless costs and exposes shady billing practices utilized by the cell phone companies. Also, check out the consumer advocacy website where I (admittedly) work, http://www.fixmycellbill.com , that slashes the average cell bill by 22 percent. Through the site, which is powered by a company called Validas, we have currently audited over 26,000 cell lines to save consumers over $5 million off their wireless bills. You can see Validas in the national news media, most recently on Good Morning America at http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6887412&page=1.
Good luck on cutting your expenses in the recession.
Dylan
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