Your Frugal Friend-Tip Six

Money saving tip #6-Do not be afraid to call your cable/phone/internet company to try to get a lower monthly bill and rate.

We cannot take credit for this. We heard it on one of the news shows. I think ABC. So, about a week later, I asked Mr. Wild to give it a shot. He called our satellite provider. He started by talking about the competition. Then, it turned out the competition didn't have as good of a deal. He went back to our provider and asked for their customer retention representatives. Turns out they really have these people. They gave us our DVR service for free, took $5 more off our bill, and, as long as we stayed with them for 24 months, would give us the first, 10th and 20th month free. The catch is that we have to stay with them for 24 months. So, if we wanted to cancel the bill altogether, we'd end up paying a fine. We're not in dire straights, and I don't think that will be necessary over the next 24 months. It was nice to shave a bit off our bill.

The catch is, that you probably should be willing to walk if your company is not willing to deal. Be sure to find some competition that compares apples to apples, so that if you do need to walk, you have an alternative. What was that mom always taught you? No idle threats? Works on kids, would work on companies, too.

I guess the other catch is that you or your spouse can be insistent with your service providers. I know some people are timid when it comes to this kind of thing. Mr. Wild is not, and I'm lucky that way.

So, we're enjoying free satellite this month. I thought Mr. Wild did pretty good. Now, if he would please tackle the phone bill.