How I Saved $2,965 in 6 Hours

If I told you that you could save over $500/hr. for less than a day’s work, would you be interested? This is not a pyramid scheme, a low-budget late night cable ad, or anything other than a tease to pique your interest about how you can legitimately save some money. The only thing sensational about this is the savings potential you have from doing some research and acting on it.

You may have noticed that some of your bills – even those that should be roughly the same every month – tend to creep up over time. I get it, things cost more, inflation is real, and life gets more expensive every day. However, don’t just go with the flow when providers raise prices. A savvy consumer – that’s you – knows that you have the power to make choices in our capitalist society, so use that power to your advantage and choose well.

In this article, I’ll give you an overview of how my research and choices saved me $2,965 in the past year. It took about 5 1/2 hours over the course of the year (so less than 30 min per month). You won’t get rich by saving a couple thousand dollars, but I’d rather have that money in my pocket at the end of the year than have it vanish by overpaying for services I use. In essence, my efforts paid me $531/hr. Not bad. Your savings certainly might vary, but I found the time to be a good investment for my family’s budget. I’ll detail the actual amounts saved when I was intentional about investing a little time into saving some decent money. Let’s jump right in with the first money-saving tip.

Tip 1 – Call Your Internet Provider

When I said that your costs tend to creep up over time even on bills that should be fixed amounts each month, this is the one I had in mind. About 2-3 times a year, my provider sneaks a fee increase into the schedule. I have automated much of my bill paying, so when they tick up a fee by $2.02 every few months, it makes me have to update my bill pay. It also annoys me and reminds me that I am paying more. In my neighborhood, I have limited access to internet providers, but I would certainly switch if I had another viable option. I’ve looked every year and I don’t have a good option, so I did the next best thing. I had a conversation with my neighbors, and they shared that they just moved to a better rate on their internet plan. It was $21/month less than my plan for a faster speed with the same provider I have. They told me the plan name, I thanked them and headed back to my house.

Armed with that information (thanks, neighbor!), I placed a call to my friendly Spectrum support person. I explained that I wanted the plan my neighbor was on, relayed the plan name, and patiently waited. They were actually quite accommodating, and other than having to brush off some upsells from the support rep as they pushed the “We can get you home phone, TV, AND internet for only $30/month more” angle, they switched me for the next year onto the new plan. That 30 minute call saved $21/month, which means an extra $252 per year for the next year. That’s a $504/hr. return on my phone call. We are off to a great start.

I have made this same call in the past, so I have a few additional thoughts. I always brace for a bit of haggling. You may have to put up with the “new customers only” script from the provider, but I stand ready to counter that with how long I have been a loyal customer and surely they would treat their long-time customers at least as well as new ones. I expect to be transferred to a manager for approval and to weather the storm of options where they upsell me which runs counter to my goal of saving money. Some calls I have been completely stonewalled, but in this case – and several other times – one call gets our monthly price dropped.

Tip 2 –Review Your Electricity Plan

Okay, this one is not something everyone can do, but if you can, it’s worth the effort. Texas deregulated the consumer electric market in 2002. What that means for many Texans is that you have the power to choose your own electric provider. If your community is served by municipalities, cooperatives, or investor-owned utilities they may have opted out of provider choice. For example, Frisco zip code 75035 is in an area that is mostly deregulated, but 75036 in west Frisco is serviced by CoServ which is a cooperative. If you live in a CoServ neighborhood, you have to go with a CoServ plan. If you want to know more about deregulation of electricity in Texas, Amigo Energy (a former electric provider of mine) has a nice article on the subject.

If you are not sure if you can pick your provider, go to the PowerToChoose.org website and type in your zip code. The site is run by the Public Utility Commission of Texas which is the group that regulates public utilities in the state, so it is an impartial source. There are other sites with competitive information, but be aware that they may get kickbacks from providers, and you might not be able to see all your options. Even the PowerToChoose site can have a delay in what they show as a price and the current plans actually available by a provider.

I’ll add the details to a future article, but switching electricity plans saved us $589 last year. The research took me about an hour, so that is $589/hr of savings on my time for the year. I tend to be a little plodding in my research, and I read the fine print on a few electric plans, so you might be a little faster to make a choice. Regardless, the time was well spent to save roughly $50/month on our electric bill.

Tip 3 –Shop Around for a Better Mobile Phone Plan

I happen to know someone who had three phones on a family plan for mobile service for the mom and two kids. The cost was roughly $120 per month. When the oldest child was on her own and removed from the family mobile plan…the price went up $11/month. What?! Less value, more cost?! I was offended so I dug in to see what I could do.

A quick look at the usage data revealed some telling information. In the past year, the two phones on the plan never exceeded 18 Gb of data combined. Rarely did either phone exceed 10 Gb. The plan was for unlimited data, but there were less expensive plans that would cover the high speed data they actually used.

With usage data in hand (data is your friend!) it was a quick matter of shopping around for the right provider and plan. Moving the two phones on the plan from T-Mobile to Mint Mobile lowered the monthly cost from $131 to $46. Nice! And in a crazy twist on the story, Mint uses the T-Mobile network, so compatibility and quality were exactly the same. Mint has a 3-month trial for $15/month ($45 up front) for any of their plans, including the Unlimited plan. After 3 months they will recommend a plan based on your usage, even if it is a less expensive plan. Nice again! If you like, you can even sign up for the comically named Unnecessary Plan which is 60 Gb of high-speed data.

There are a few catches on this one, but this family was happy to make the change even with these fine print details. It took some time to research and then the switch took a little effort, but I’ll put the savings per hours at about $478/hr for two hours of research.

Catch number 1: The T-Mobile plan came with “free” Netflix with no ads. That “free” service perk was costing the family $85/month when Netflix sells it directly for $15.49/month. If the family was willing to put the ads back into the equation, the Netflix subscription drops to $6.99/month. Regardless of the choices with Netflix, it was clear that a switch was in order. In this case adding the cost of ad-supported Netflix, the savings amounted to about $78/month after tax or $956 for the year.

Catch number 2: To get the best Mint pricing, you prepay for an entire year. That may be a sticking point for some folks, but this family saw the value in paying upfront. In this case, two phones on the 15 Gb plan would be $35/month for 3 months, $25/month for 6 months, or $20/month for 12 months. The per phone cost for the year would be $420, $300, or $240 based on the period of time you prepay. Multiply times 2 phones and it made far more sense to prepay $480 for the entire year for two phones than it did to draw it out and pay $880 for the same service by paying 3 months at a time. These are prices before fees and taxes, but those details don’t change the winner of this rate comparison.

Tip 4 –Shop For Your Homeowners/Renters Insurance Policy

Before you click on the way too easy link to renew your homeowners or renters insurance policy, do some rate shopping. While you can easily get quotes online from most major carriers, this one can be a little tedious because you have to answer a series of questions about your home or apartment. Roof material. Square footage. Number of bedrooms. Type of flooring in what percentages in the house. If you take the time to do this on multiple sites or go to one broker site that will do some of the comparison for you, it can result in some cost savings.

I rate shop every year and have saved money on several occasions. I am willing to change carriers, but I stick to insurance companies with a good track record of payout and customer service. I’m sure I could get an even lower rate if I use a cut-rate carrier, but I’m not willing to trade a low price for getting lowball service and potentially getting claims denied.

This time when I shopped around, I ended up sticking with the same provider, but reviewing the policy offers from other companies pointed out that I was paying for a clause in the policy that didn’t make sense for my needs. It was an escalating value clause that increased the amount of money the policy would pay me to replace the contents of my house over time. The coverage I had was plenty to pay for the replacement cost of our furniture, electronics, etc. so when I renewed, I requoted the price without that clause. The requote lowered the policy cost by $354. It took me about 45 minutes, so my savings rate was $472/hr. Certainly not chump change, so I pocketed my savings and moved on to the next savings tip.

Tip 5 –Use a Sinking Fund to Pay Your Car Insurance

Alright, we are almost on rinse and repeat now. I encourage you to shop around with different providers before you renew your car insurance. However, this tip is to prepay for the 6-month policy when you renew or get a new policy. The savings will vary based on coverage, number of vehicles, and certainly the number of teenage drivers on your policy (yikes!), but for me the difference between paying the policy monthly and paying for 6 months upfront was $297. Six months later, I did the same thing, but this time I saved $372 dollars.

If you get a lump in your throat at the idea of prepaying for car insurance because of the amount, ease into it using a sinking fund. A sinking fund is a fancy term for paying yourself in advance before you pay someone else. It works great on big bills like car insurance. Whether you create a separate account at your credit union / online bank, create a new “bucket” online within an existing account, or manually track the extra money, paying into a sinking fund can make saving money almost automatic.

For more detailed information on sinking funds and how I use them, see my prior article entitled “Eliminate Sinking Feelings with Sinking Funds.” In this case, an hour of research saved me no money, but the sinking fund saved me $669 for the year for the hour I invested. That is the best return on an hour yet!

Tip 6 –Audit Your Subscriptions

This one is easy, but it can get away from you. Look at all your subscription services and think through which ones you truly use and which you can do without. Hula, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Sling, Peacock, Paramount+, Apple TV+…the list grows daily. The fact for us was that we used some services a lot and some very little. We decided to cut those underused subscriptions and focus on the ones we really used. We even tend to rotate through some services. For example, if you are fans of a show that is exclusive to one service, subscribe, watch through all the shows you want on that platform, and then cancel. When a new season comes out, you can let a few shows build up a backlog and then subscribe and watch through them. If you rotate between different services, this can save you from wasting your subscription dollars paying for content you don’t watch.

There are two tips, one that is great that my wife does and a second that is more extreme and not for the faint of heart. Many of the streaming services offer holiday discount pricing around the November/December timeframe. Hulu tends to have a black Friday sale for $1/month (okay, $1.07 per month), which is a nice discount from their normal rate of $7.99 for the base plan. That can save you a nice $80 per year with little effort.

The second tip is more hardcore, so sports fans please don’t throw things at me for this one. I am an avid college football fan, but I care less about other sports. I get Sling during college football season and then drop it the rest of the year. That saves about half year off the Sling subscription. Some people need their ESPN all year. I get it. That used to be a “must” for me, but as I focused on raising a family and watching fewer sporting events, it was something I could part with for a chunk of the year. Watching corn hole and billiards championships in late June was just not worth the price for me, so I focused on when I used the service and paid just for those months. You can do the same with March Madness or the NBA/NHL playoffs and only pay for the months you actual watch the sports of that season. If you have sports on all the time, this is clearly not the path for you. The point is to be intentional about getting bang for the buck.

Dropping the services we didn’t use saved us another $145 for the year for about 15 minutes of thought and 5 minutes of clicking “Cancel” on a couple subscription services. That’s $435/hr.

Summary

To summarize, here is the report card for savings in a year.

Savings Type	Annual Savings	Time Spent (min)	Savings / Hour
Internet plan	$252	30	$504
Electricity provider	$589	60	$589
Mobile phone plan	$956	120	$478
Homeowner’s Insurance policy	$354	45	$472
Auto insurance	$669	60	$478
Streaming services	$145	20	$435
TOTAL	$2,965	335	$531

That’s certainly not chump change! Some years I saved a little, and other years I have saved a lot. What I published here are my actual savings since last year. If you are intentional year after year, you can see how this could result in more substantial savings over time. I urge you to pick a couple of tips from this list and give it a shot. Use the access you have to information to take control of your recuring bills and put some money back into your own pocket for a change.

Links

Check out the Mint plans and get a $15 credit if you sign up using the link provided. Full disclosure, I will get a credit if you sign up from the link, but I only promote products I use and believe in, so you should know I am happy with my service and the lower price.

PowerToChoose.org is the site I use to start looking for electricity providers. It will also tell you if you are able to choose your provider or not based on your zip code.

“Eliminate Sinking Feelings with Sinking Funds” is an article I wrote about sinking funds if you want a fuller treatment on the topic.

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