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The Top 5 Ways To Cut Your Household Bills

Here are the top five ways to
cut your bills.

You will first want to
get a printout of your most recent credit card statements, bank, and
mortgage statements, utility bills, etc and then spread them out on the
table. Grab your calculator and pencil and start looking for all the little
charges that are bleeding you dry.
What you are going to be looking for are the hidden bloodsuckers that are
sucking your wallet dry. Here are a few examples:
Communications:
1. How To Cut Your Phone
and Internet Bills
Magazines that you don't read any more but which are automatically renewed each
year. Make that ANYTHING that is renewed automatically and give it a close look.
Do you really need that premium email account at $19.95 or that subscription to
"Dollhouse Monthly". Start calling and canceling subscriptions and go online and
start and clicking and deleting the premium options from all your accounts.
Daily we are bombarded with ads to change our phone service but the truth is the
phone company IS ripping you off. If you have access to cable broadband then
consider a service that gives you unlimited long distance (VOIP it's called)
over your high speed internet. Skype is one of the better VOIP providers and the quality is just as good as Ma Bell. Savings: $30 to Unlimited
per month depending on who you call.
Do you really need to surf the internet on
your phone or do you just use e-mail?
You can share an internet connection with a friend or pick up unsecured wireless
networks from distant coffee shops, etc, using very long range WiFi antennas and
high power wireless adapters. See this article for how to do it.
How to get free Wifi - Internet
with long range Wifi adapters and antennas.
If so get rid or $20 or more broadband access on your phone. If you work for a
major company you can likely get a 6% discount on Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile
and other carriers by logging in or calling customer service and entering your
work e-mail as proof of employment with your company. Your savings will be:$5.00
to $10.00 per bill.
If you can get by getting the news off of your internet home page but don't want
to give up the paper completely, call and downgrade to the Sunday edition only.
Savings: $20.00 (There's tons of store coupon's in the Sunday paper but we'll
get to that later).
2. How to cut your entertainment bills
How much is your cable bill and how much are some of those channels really
worth? Are you paying for movie channels that you only watch once or twice a
week because they are full the same old of re-runs? Ditch those premium channels
and you will save from $20-$60 per month
Consider a movie rental subscription such as Blockbuster Online instead.
Cancel the satellite radio service, especially if you have an MP3 Player or Ipod
and you will save $13.00 per month. Join up for free music podcasts instead.
Consider getting local channels with a digital TV tuner or trying FTA or free to
air satellite TV which has no monthly fees. For more on Free To Air satellite TV
see this article
How To Get Free Satellite TV with a Free To Air
Dish, FTA
3. How to Cut Your
Insurance Bill
The company that provides your homeowners insurance probably has a hefty
discount, typically 15% for having a home security survey (done by your police
department for free) and another 5% for a monitored alarm. If you own your alarm
there are discount companies that will monitor your system for
around $6.00 per month instead of the usual $40. It's a good idea to get a full
coverage review and make sure you do have enough coverage. Search for discount
alarm monitoring.
Saving a couple of bucks is not worth being homeless for if your house burns
down! Ask them what things can lower your rates. A metal roof, and and proximity
to a fire hydrant can often reduce rates.
If your car has a factory alarm, ask if you are getting credit for it. Increase
your deductibles and set aside a savings account for car repairs such as broken
windows and small dings. It might sting to pay a thousand for a dent but it will
keep your rates down by not reporting it.
Also put any older vehicles that are paid off and not worth that
much you have on liability insurance with uninsured motorist added.
Ask your auto insurance company how much their discount is for a driver
education course. You can find one on line, spend $25 and 6 hours and save up to
10% on your auto insurance.
If you have over 20% equity in your home and a recent appraisal chances are you
can get rid of the PMI insurance on your mortgage that is sucking $80 or more a
month out of your pocket.
4.
Cars,
How To Cut Your Automotive Expenses.
Add up how much gas you are feeding your large gas guzzler.
If it's more that $50 per week for normal commuting, you're in trouble and it's
only going to get worse as gas prices rise. If you are getting 14 MPG city find
a car that gets 25 city. Find a used, (never buy new cars since you loose around
$3000 the minute you drive off the lot) gas miser and replace the guzzler.
Savings: $20-40 per week or more.
Keep your tires inflated and get a tune up. Under inflated tires cost you 1-2
MPG.
Stop buying premium gas and just buy regular. Most all new cars do not need
anything but regular gas.
Carpool with coworkers or use the bus if you can.
5. How To Cut Your
Grocery Bill
Find an online coupon website that lets you print manufacturers coupons for the
items you use each week and scan the Sunday paper. if you contact some of the
merchants of items that you use, like Earthbound Farms, for example, you can
join their "club" and get coupons e-mailed to you.
Those are little dollar and half dollar bills free for the taking. Treat them
like the money they are and save $10 to $100 bucks a month. Also, ask yourself if
all the fancy throw away toilet brushes and spray cleaners are worth the money
you spend. You can find endless sites for making your own cleaners to put in
those spray bottles you normally throw in the trash that work just as good as
the store brands.
The top 5 ways to cut your
bills above will get rid of most of the money vampires, here are a few more ways
to reduce your bills.
Other Bills
If your work a regular work schedule, consider buying a programmable thermostat.
The new ones are easy to install and use and let you set the temperature
slightly lower at night and while you are at work. Savings can be up to $50 or
more a month.
Replace all light bulbs with compact fluorescents. There is a size now for every
light socket in your home with the exception of some track lights
You might have heard that they contain mercury. That's true, but only a small
quality and not nearly as much as has been proven to be released burning the
coal that is needed to power an incandescent bulb. Savings: $10 to 30 per month.
Wrap your hot water heater and put foam pipe sleeves on the hot pipe coming out
of the top. Get rid of that beer fridge in the garage. It's not worth $20 a
month and you could use the exercise to walk to the fridge in the kitchen. If
you have automatic sprinklers install a rain sensor that can tell if it is
pouring outside before turning on the system. Insulate those drafty exterior
doors and add insulation. There are local, state and national tax incentives out
there for all kind of energy saving expenditures.
When they wear out replace
your washers and dryers with front loading models. They use much less water and
because the washer wrings more water out of the clothes at high RPM, you don't
have to dry them as much. The pay out will be a couple of years but they get
clothes cleaner too. It could pay to replace your old HVAC with a newer, high
efficiency cooling and heating system. Look for a SEER rating of 14 or better
and you can see substantial savings. Systems that heat your home with just
resistance coils and not a heat pump are energy vampires. This includes electric
space heaters of any kind. Just turn one on and go outside and look at the
meter. It may be cheaper to run a heat pump and heat a whole house that 3 - 1500
watt space heaters!
My
Tiny Calculator For Simple Calculations
I hope these top five ways to cut your bills were helpful. Good Luck. Fore
more money saving tips see
http://www.waystosavemoremoney.com
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