29 January 2010

how to negotiate with your cable provider

So, I just received my bill for this month's cable and internet, provided by a major national cable company. For those of you who do not know our family, my husband serves in the United States Army, and thus we are a proud Army family. So we moved to our current post about a year ago.

Moral of the story, we've been here for a year, thus we've had all our utilities for about a year. Well for those of you who have gotten a great deal on cable may have had the same experience that I had today. I open my cable bill, and it's about $45 dollars more than what we usually pay! I am perplexed, call our cable provider, only to find out that our "great deal" was only a 12 month deal. Ugg, now I sware that they never told us that it was a 12 month-only deal, and I told the nice lady on the other end of the phone as such. I also told her that if I HAD known that, I would have looked at other providers. Thinking back on it now, there's a small chance they did mention it, or put it in tiny writing somewhere, but I have the memory of a goldfish {and for those of you who don't know, that's a whopping 3 seconds}. Anyhoo, I ask the lady, "well, is there any way I can get back our 'great deal' or do you have any other discounts available?!" I might have been a bit brusk, but she went ahead and there was indeed two discounts available to us. Whoohoo! Now it only saves us $15 a month over what we would have been expected to pay, but it also means our cable/internet bill only went up $30 as opposed to $45. So it's certainly better than it could have been.

My thought process through this whole thing was, "now just a month ago I was paying X dollars, and the cable company was doing just fine. Thus there is no reason I should be now paying X + 45 dollars, because obviously they can still provide the service without the extra $45." Am I wrong? Ridiculous. Oh yes, and I may have told the lady on the other end of the phone at some point that this was indeed ridiculous... maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that, but, well, I was heated at the time.

So what can you learn from my experience? What can you do if your rates for a particular utility go up unexpectedly? Well, let me share!

  • wait a while to cool down before you make any phone calls, you get more flies with sugar than vinegar
  • do your homework, look at other potential providers you could switch to that have better rates
  • do your homework, check if your OWN provider has a discount or promotion currently going on
  • ask if there are any new discounts available that you can take advantage of
  • mention that there are indeed other providers you could switch to, but that it would certainly be easier to keep your business with them
Now these are just a few things that can help you if your rates suddenly jump, and all because a promotional period has expired on your current contract. Hey, it's worth a shot, right? And hey, we're now saving $180 a year just by making a 15 minute phone call. It may not seem like all that much, but that's money we can instead put toward tithing, missions trips, or other disasters, such as Haiti.

participating in

frugal servant

About the title of this blog:

I am a Christian, and, as such, a servant of our Lord God, Jesus Christ. As Christians, we are not called to be in debt, and thus comes the frugal part.

The Bible states that we are slaves to those who lend to us {Proverbs 22:7} and also that it is a blessing to not have to borrow {Deuteronomy 28:12}. Here are a few links on debt and frugality from a Christian perspective:

*please note: the views expressed on the above links are those of the writer and may or may not completely align with the views of our family*

Our family is a family of sinners, as are all of us here on earth. My husband and I weren't frugal in college, and thus we've started our married life together with some lingering debt {not to mention college loans}, but we have a plan to repay our debt, living frugally while still having fun, and awaiting the day when we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing we no longer have the burden of debt! :) And not to say that we won't still be living frugally, I have no doubts that I will always be a "penny pincher" but once we are out of debt, we'll be living frugally so that every extra cent can be used to further His Kingdom and give to those in need.

Whew, that was a lot of debt and frugalness in one paragraph... let's end with a lighter note... cookies!

cookies!

Yes, cookies! Yum :) I just made a batch for my inlaws to bring to their Bible study this evening {I'm bunking with them for a bit, my DH is deployed so I'm visiting family for a bit}. But, oh, yes! Comestibilis! I know, co-mes-ti-what-lis?! Yes, I know, strange name, awesome blog! Along with some great friends of mine, we post great recipes, some tried and true, some that we found online, will be trying, and then updating with our input. It's great! I'm posting the recipe for the Cran-Oat-Choco Cookies over on that blog now! :D

new blog!

wow! new blog! :D well really this is an offshoot of my crafting blog, but this one will be a bit different. I decided to create a separate blog dedicated more towards my homemaking: cooking, organization {outside of the craft room!}, frugality, housework, etc. Some of my posts may be cross-posted to both sites, such as organizing my craft room, maybe some projects where I used my scrapbooking supplies to make the item but, say, it's a calendar for organizing our family's schedules, you get the idea! So I hope you enjoy my journey on this new blog! Feel free to follow along, or just pop by when you feel like it :) I'm an avid fan of Google Reader, my one stop space for all my favorite blogs! Welcome :)

01 January 2010

Here you can find all the links for my holiday planner printables! Click on any of the titles to be brought to my Scribd page to download them. If you have any problems with the site, send me an email, and I can send them to you via email. Also, if you would like a customized version of any of the below documents, please do send me an email and I can customize them for you! :)

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Gifting Lists {to keep track of what sizes friends & family wear, their favorite colors, etc}