Money-Saving Ideas-Part III {Services and the Small Things}

If you have’t read my other posts about money-saving using websites and apps, feel free to stop on by.  This post is devoted little things that we have found useful in saving money.  You could call it the “tips and tricks” section of this series.

Tips, Tricks, and Miscellaneous Ideas for Money-Saving

• Mohu Leaf Antenna: For those that are Netflix subscribers or only occasional TV watchers, this is a perfect way to eliminate paying a cable bill each month.  The Leaf works as old-school “bunny ears” would work.  You plug the coaxial cable into the wall and you’re done!  We get about 40 channels and all of the basic cable TV stations.  Because we have Netflix, we primarily wanted it to watch football game (Da Bears!).  Refurbished Mohu Leaf Antennas sell for $20 on Amazon, which was exactly what we were paying for one month of cable service (one month!).  And the best thing about it is it’s a one-time charge.

• Insurance: It’s amazing what a little phone call can do.  Kevin decided out-of-the-blue one day to call around and see if we could get better rates on our insurance (car insurance and renter’s insurance).  We had been paying $150/month for car insurance and about $150/year for renter’s insurance.  Just by calling around, we switched insurance providers and got our car insurance down to $42/month and our renter’s insurance down to $50/year.  Granted, our car insurance was partially because we are now over 21 (we weren’t when we bought the car) and we’ve been safe drivers for 5 years.  Our previous company couldn’t match their prices, so we switched to GEICO and saved over $100 a month!  Even if you aren’t in the same situation we were, it’s worth a call to ask, “What can you do for us?”

• Change Jar: You might scoff a little, but we put all change that we get in our change jar and when it’s full, we cash it out.  Kevin and I are always surprised at the amount of money that ends up being in there every time it’s full.  Last time, we had $50 and ours is a small change jar.  Imagine what a large one could hold!  As Kevin says, “Millionaires are made ten dollars at a time”.

• Phone Services: I’ll admit it….for the first two years of our marriage Kevin and I bought into the notion that you need a very well known service provider (ie. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile) in order to get the best quality service.  Let me tell you, this is one of the ways we have saved the most in the past year.  We were paying $160/month for two Smart Phones (unlimited data, text, and minutes).  Little did we know, one of the reasons our payments were so high is because not only were we paying for our service, we were also paying full-price for our phones.  They don’t tell you that in the store.  Again, being the frugal mogul that Kevin is, he shopped around.  We found two services to serve our needs and ended up saving $120 a month (that’s $1,140 a year, folks!).
  •  Republic Wireless: For Republic Wireless you have to purchase a device from their service because their service runs primarily on Wi-Fi, with a back-up of using data.  Kevin is currently on this plan.  You also are paid back for any data that you don’t use (!!).  The plans:
    • Unlimited talk and text with add-on data
      • 0.5 GB of data: $15
      • 1  GB of data: $25
      • 2 GB of data: $40
  • Airvoice Wireless: Although you have to either bring your own device or purchase a phone from Airvoice, their service ends up being very inexpensive.  We’ve had great experience with customer service and no problems with coverage.  Here are their plans (as of 9/2015):
    • Unlimited talk, text, and MMS with add-on data
      • 25 MB data: $5
      • 100 MB data: $20
      • 1 GB data: $30 (the plan I’m currently on)
      • 5 GB data: $50

• Credit Cards: I post this with a HUGE word of caution: Please do not use this money-saving strategy if you can’t afford to pay the balance on your credit cards.  The bold and caps enough warning for you?  Okay….moving on.  Kevin and I have always been blessed with finances enough so we can charge everything to a credit card and pay it off at the end of the month.  Why would we do that, you ask?  Rewards. Initially we had a rewards card from our bank that was good, but not great.  Kevin did a lot of research (go figure, right?) and found a blog called Mr. Money Mustache.  There, he found options for credit cards that give good rewards.  Our pick: the Chase Freedom card. The details: $100 cash back after spending and paying off $500, $25 bonus when you add your first authorized user, 5% cash back on rotating categories of items, and 1% cash back on everything.  Another disclaimer: This only makes you money if you pay off your balance on time.  Chase is counting on people making late payments and wasting the rewards they earned (and sometimes more) in interest.  Spend and pay off wisely, people.  With that being said, it’s been a great source of passive income for us.
  • Another card we looked into (but haven’t committed to yet, but will probably apply for eventually) was the Citi Double Cash MasterCard.  The details: 1% cash back on everything you spend and 1% if you pay off the debt in time.

Hopefully you found something on this article or one of the previous posts to help you stretch your budget so you can use money for things that are really worthwhile.  As always, comment if you have any ideas, tips or insight.