I spend so much a month on bills. It seems like I can never get ahead. If you keep telling yourself this I’m going to share five things I did to lower my bills by $353 a month in one day.
Cancel Unneeded Subscriptions
Most people have multiple subscriptions a month they pay for. Here are some common subscriptions.
1) Netflix ($6.99 to $19.99)
2) Amazon Prime ( $14.99/month or $139/yearly) ($8.99/month for Prime Video only)
3) Spotify ($9.99)
4) Disney+ ($7.99 to $19.99)
5) HBO and HBO Max ($9.99 to $15.99)
6) Apple Music ($10.99)
7) Hulu ($7.99 to $14.99)
8) Espn+ ($9.99)
9) And many more!
We get it! The convenience and entertainment of these services are nice. If you find yourself struggling financially these services can have a huge impact. According to CNBC the average person has $133 a month in subscriptions. That means the average person spends $1596 a year on these subscription services. Now think of how far that $1596 could go to helping you out financially. We are not saying to cancel all subscriptions but instead eliminate multiple services. For example, like many young people these days I do not have cable. So I instead opt to have Netflix as my streaming service. Between watching Netflix and Youtube I have more than enough content to keep me entertained. There are even apps that help identify subscriptions you have such as Rocket Money to help cancel services you may have forgotten about. Use these free services to help identify and cancel excess subscriptions. Let’s say we have the $19.99 Netflix service now and no other services. However we had $90 dollars a month in services beforehand. Which by the way is below what the average person spends on subscriptions monthly. That would be a savings of $70 dollars a month or $840 dollars a year. By just canceling some of your subscription services.
Change Phone Plans/Carrier
AT&T, Verizon, and T Mobile are the big named phone services. These phone services are expensive, let’s be honest. My wife and I were spending $220 dollars a month at AT&T for unlimited service. This can have a huge impact on your finances each month. We decided to shop around and it didn’t seem to be better anywhere else we went. Then we decided to look into what some people may call cheap alternatives. We did not want to be known as the broke family that couldn’t afford a phone and had to be on a budget plan such as Cricket. However, we started to look into it anyway and we discovered that Cricket uses the AT&T network. Which means we would have the same service as before so no loss of coverage. We didn’t need to get new phones, we could bring our phones with us. We didn’t need to change our number. So we decided to make the swap. We went from paying $220 a month to $90 a month for two lines with unlimited services. That ended up saving us $130 a month or $1560 dollars a year. You know what’s funny is no one even knows or asks what carrier we use, but if someone asked I would tell them proudly.
Shop for Better Electric Rates
Electricity is something we all pay for and it’s something most people don’t even think about. You move into your Apartment/House and you call the company after doing a little shopping and you get service. The issue with this is most people never revisit it. The problem with this is most services will give you a teaser rate to get you to sign on. So for your first year it’s great. Then all the sudden your bill starts to creep up. Years later you’re paying somewhere near 5 cents per KWH over what you started at. So why not use these teaser rates to our advantage. After every year or contract agreement term is reached you should shop around for electric providers. This will ensure we get the best rates and pay the lowest amounts. Let’s say you never switch service providers and eventually you are paying 18 cents per KWH and you use on average 1500 KWH per month that means you would pay $270 a month in electricity. Now let’s say you pay 13 cents per KWH you would now spend $195 a month. Saving yourself $75 dollars a month or $900 dollars a year. This can go a significant way in helping your financial situation.
Shop for Better Internet Rates
We know most everyone surf’s the internet. There is no problem with that. You are reading this on the internet right now. We also know no one wants to wait on buffering for videos. So you want the fastest service you can get. Trust me I am no different. That doesn’t mean we have to overpay for it. The goal is to get the service that fits your needs for the cheapest price. How do you do that? You got it! Shop around. Just like many services, internet providers will give you teaser rates for signing up. So use this as an opportunity to get the best rates available. My wife and I recently swapped from Comcast to AT&T fiber. When we initially got Comcast we had a teaser rate of $80 a month for 1Gbps service. When our one year contract ended it went to $120 a month that was a 50% price hike. So we decided to shop around. We found that AT&T fiber had better rates and we could get 1Gbps service for $80. That’s great! However we knew from past experience we could use 100Mbps service with very little issues. So we decided to lower our speeds. Not by much honestly we decided to get the 500 Mbps package for $65 a month. This was a savings of $55 a month or $660 a year. Not only that AT&T was running a promotion at the time and we qualified for $350 dollars on a VISA debit card as an incentive for switching services. Bring us to a savings of $1010 dollars for the year. So yeah shopping around really helps.
Shop for Better Insurance Rates
If you drive you need car insurance. If you own a home you need home insurance. Everyone needs medical insurance. These are some of the most common insurances people need. We do have options though. The first thing to do is to make sure you get the coverage that is needed. Without proper coverage you could still be in a situation where insurance isn’t very helpful. Let’s say I go buy a $60,000 vehicle and I get liability insurance and wreck it the next day and I was at fault. Well bye $60,000. I know this example is a bit extreme. However, making sure you have proper coverage is more important than the cost. With that being said we still want to get it for as cheap as possible. Unlike most things we have talked about, you’re not going to get teaser rates for swapping. However, does that mean you should not shop around? Of course you should. Now how insurance rates are calculated I have no idea. What I do know for sure is that rates are different from company to company for the same coverage. These rates change frequently as well. So taking the time to call around and shop quotes is a great idea. My wife and I had Allstate and were paying $213 a month for car insurance. After a day of calling around and getting quotes we were able to bring that down to $190 a month. That’s a savings of $23 a month or $276 dollars a year. Not the most biggest amount of money we talked about so far, but it adds up quickly.
Conclusion
So from our very own experience my wife and I were able to save a significant amount a month. Which not only made paying bills easier due to our monthly bills going down. It allowed us to pay debt down faster meaning we were paying less interest a month. We were able to save $353 dollars a month or $4236 a year by just adjusting these five things. Also lowering our stress about our financial situation. With making adjustments to these five things as well as other aspects of your financial life. You could be on your way to financial freedom.
