Frugal February - Take a close look at your monthly bills

Frugal February

Take a close look at your monthly bills

One of the things that we have done over the past year is take a close look at our monthly bills. We have been able to significantly lower our cable, cell phone and Internet bill by making a few phone calls.
Here are a few things that we have done

Cell Phone bill

We combined our phones with my parents and John's mom into 1 big family plan. By doing this we were able to save all of us over $350 a month!! I highly suggest looking at your cell phone bill and making sure you have the right plan. 

I called T-Mobile and asked what the best plan and rates available to me were. They put together a plan that lowered our cost and added additional minutes to our allotment.

Cable

One area were we have made changes is our cable bill. We sat down and looked at what channels we were paying for and how often they were used. We found that we were paying for a ton of channels that were never watched. 90% of our TV watching is done on the basic channels -ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

Initially we were going to make the change to an antenna and cut out our cable bill completely. We went as far as buying the antenna and all of the parts. Well 8 months later the antenna is still in the shed waiting to be used. We realized that we are pretty hooked on having a DVR. We like coming home and being able to watch the shows we wanted to.

We called Dish Network and were able to lower our bill over $50 a month by dropping down to a basic program. I now use Hulu to watch a few of the shows that we do not have access to.

Internet

We live in an area that only has 1 option for Internet - Centurylink. I really wish we lived in an area that had better Internet service at times! I called CenturyLink and asked to review my bill. I was able to shave off a portion of the monthly bill by taking advantage of specials they had. I now call every 6-8 months and ask if I am receiving the best rate.

If you are looking to lower your monthly bills I recommend calling each of your providers and asking if you are receiving the best rates available. They do not want to lose your business and have you go to a competitor. 

Let us know if you are able to lower your bills!