Straying slightly from credit cards, I would like to offer you some of my favorite money saving tips.    I presume the only reason that you would read a blog like this is to save money, so here it goes.

Cell Phones

Always get credit for outages.   T-Mobile had a massive outage yesterday.     I have four T-Mobile lines, yet I personally didn’t notice any problems.     A two minute phone call resulted in a $5 credit per line, $20 total.   I wish I could make $20 phone calls all day!

Try to get everyone in your family on the same plan.   Not just on the same carrier, but the same bill.    With T-Mobile, for example, my wife and I have included her parents in a family plan.   We pay $50 a month or so for the first line, and $10 a month for each additional.    That adds up to $80 a month for 4 lines. This is a mere $20 per line.   Of course we need only 1000 minutes a month as a large percentage of our calls are to each other.    We also forgo texting and internet fees, as we get more than our share of computer use during the day.  How much are you paying?

Do you really need that new phone?     For a long time, every new phone was smaller, lighter, and had a longer battery life than the last.    These days, they just keep adding features that I have no need for, often at the expense of size and battery life.     When our contract was up, we were offered new phones to replace the perfectly good phones we already had.     What did I do?   I bought four of their most expensive phones, the latest greatest super-duper internet phones available.    Since I was renewing my contract, they sold me four new phones for $200 each.    Then I asked for the unlock codes for use overseas, which they have to provide by law.     I was able to sell them quickly on E-Bay for $500 each.   Even after PayPal fees and E-Bay listing fees, I made a quick $1,000.     When we actually did want to replace our phones, we found suitable new models on E-bay for under $100.     The moral of the story, if your cell phone company is subsidizing your purchase of new phones,  buy the most heavily subsidized one, and sell it on E-Bay.

Always Ask For A Discount

I never hang up with my insurance agent without asking if there are any further discounts available.     They usually come up with something such as accident free, multi-line, smoke alarms, fire extinguishers.    This trick works for cell phones too.    I had my activation fee waived when I was an IBM contractor, and then later had my bill cut by 10% as an employee of another large company.     Government and military discounts are especially common.     The trick is to always ask.    The worst they can say is no.    It also helps to ask before you commit to a purchase.   When they are trying to close a sale, the trick is to say, “I don’t know, are there any discounts available for corporate/government/military/senior/student/AAA” etc.

Be A Student

I have carried my student id with me since I graduated from college 15 years ago.   I have probably saved thousands at movies, museums, and the symphony.   Even if you take one class at a local community college, never get rid of your student id!

Always Get Restaurant Discounts

Sign up for the email list at Restaurant.com.    Their $25 “gift certificates” are almost always available for $2-3 when you have the coupon code that they mail to you about once a week.    The minimum spend to use these certificates is typically $35.   If you spend just over $35,  you will have a bill of under $20, after tax and tip, for a pretty nice meal for two.     The Entertainment book is another great place for coupons, which are usually 2 for 1 deals at restaurants.     My local edition has $20 in cash back coupons at our neighborhood grocery store, so it is a no brainer.   Enjoy The City also puts out a decent coupon book.    Finally, I just started using Open Table for reservations.   Granted, I really don’t frequent restaurants that require reservations, but they are free to use and they offer gift certificates after so many reservations, so why not?

Get An Alarm System

I wrote about how my home was burglarized a few weeks ago.    At first, I was reluctant to purchase an alarm system, as I hate the thought of spending hundreds of dollars a year on a “monitoring service”.    I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could install a pretty sophisticated system for under $1,000, and that monitoring was available for only $9 a month.    It got even better when I told my insurance company that I have a monitored alarm system.   It turns out that the discount is almost exactly the cost of the monitoring.     So I spend $1,000 dollars once, and I essentially receive free monitoring.   My home is safer and more secure, and the $1,000 will probably be recouped in additional value when I sell the house.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 20:00 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.