Friday, March 5, 2010

Productive Phone Call

Remember when I asked a simple question that will end up saving me over $1,000 in rent this year? Well, this time a 20 minute phone called will end up saving me an additional $480 this year. How hot is that?

We've been looking at our budget and trying to see where we could cut some cost and throw a little bit more in savings each month. Even a few dollars here and there adds up over time, so I was just looking to trim a bit from anything I could. One of our monthly bills that really stuck out was our car insurance - we've had Progressive for just about 5 years now, and while we love our service, I do not love the price. So I looked around and found out that with Geico, I could have the exact same coverage for $50 less. That at least warrents a phone call to Progressive, no?

So this morning I gave them a call, let them know that I didn't want to switch because I'd have to build up a new history with them (whereas once you hit 5 years at progressive, they have major accident forgiveness), BUT I found a way cheaper rate through Geico and did they want to do something about that?

Well fancy for me, they were able to give me a few new discounts (state employee, paperless something or other) and get my rate down by $40 a month!!! Sure, Geico is still cheaper by $10, but staying with Progressive (and thus keeping my history with them) is going to pay out in the long run in the event of a major accident. And now I can tuck away $40 extra a month into our savings account.... just because I spent 20 minutes on the phone this morning.

Anyone else have any tips on lowering bills? I'd love to hear them!

3 comments:

mrs.messi said...

That's great. I've gotten our cable bill (back when we had TV!) lowered twice, just by calling and saying that I felt we were paying too much. As soon as you tell them you are considering switching to another provider - BOOM, they lower your rate!

AP Mommy said...

That's awesome! If you have high speed internet you can always check to see what speed you have - often you can go to a slower speed that costs less.

Our Happy Married Life... said...

ya that is always a good idea. I'm an insurance agent and while I try to keep everyone's rates low, it helps when people call and then i re run things to see if I can get it cheaper. Awesome! Seems like calling the utilities and threatening to leave always helps too! :)