Hope everyone had an amazing weekend. Ours was a very busy one . We had egg hunt for kids on Saturday morning, then picnic at a park in the evening. Sunday morning I got to go to my yoga class and we did some yard work in the afternoon and visited our friends house in the evening for tea.
Coming to today’s topic, we always subscribe to phone or internet or cable service and never look back at it. We keep on paying the monthly bills as though someone is forcing us to pay and if not we will be fined. Just take a step back and think if you are really using those services. Most of these services charge us insane amount of money every month. I am going to make you think by addressing a few services which we made changes to recently
*Home cable connection: We recently disconnected our home cable connection as we figured out that we hardly watch TV. With two kids we have no time for it. Even if we want to watch something we usually watch online or we have a Roku (click here to buy it ) on which we stream from you tube.
*Movie subscription : For movies usually people subscribe to Netflix. They provide a 30 day free trial. You can also try Amazon Prime (click here to sign up for free trial) as you get free movies, free kindle books and free 2-day shipping on all items when you enroll for a 30 day free trial. Try both and see which one you like. End of the day, you get free movies and TV shows for 2 months of the year.
*Home phones: We dont have monthly paid phone connection for home. We have a Magic Jack Plus (click here to buy it )for home phone service for which we pay about 90$ yearly which works out much cheaper than the monthly home phone service. After looking at the comments I received on this post I think Ooma (click here to buy it ) is even cheaper. The device is ($150 on amazon) a one time cost and people tell me that they pay only around $3.60/month for taxes. This works out even cheaper than what we have. Will switch to this after our pre-paid contract with Magic Jack is over. Think twice before getting a Vonage phone if you will really use it. In our house we always Skype with our parents during weekends and they also have a magic jack plus that we can call during weekdays. We also have Reliance India call if we need to call India.
* Mobile phone : We have AT&T for mobile connection with data plan. Always try to find out if your company offers any specials/discounts and try to get it. For other company discounts to look for read this post Dont miss these as you or your company pays for it .Me and my husband have a family plan and it works fine. Yes this is unavoidable and we do pay a lot for data plan. If any of you have tried any other options please do let me know.
Please share this and also let me know if you have any other tips to save money on any other service.Also check out other Money saving tips posts and leave your comments.