Lowering My Bills: Trying to Save Money

I know I can’t just keep paying the minimum payments and get any closer to being debt-free. Also, when you have 18 accounts to keep up with, it’s very stressing. I work a rotating shift (some days, some nights) and sleep is very important to making it through those night shifts. Lately, I’ve been lying awake a lot of days thinking about money problems and it’s been making the night shifts harder than usual.

One day recently when I should have been asleep, I was looking at my bills and trying to decide what could be cut out.  I found a few things and began calling various companies to lower my bills.

We have Directv and I’m a big baseball fan, so for the past few years, I’d subscribed to the MLB Extra Innings package so I can watch just about any game. This is about $200 a year. The season just ended recently, so it’ll be a while before they charge me again, but unless I cancel it, they will renew it automatically. I was afraid I might forget to cancel it if I don’t do it now, so I called and had them remove that from my programming package now. I also removed HBO, which saves me another $12.00 per month.  If it were up to me, I’d be willing to cut our plan down to the cheapest plan they offer, but my wife and daughter would give me too much grief, so we’ll just go with this for now.

About 4 months ago, I signed up for a free two-week trial to an online music service called Rhapsody and liked it so much I kept it. They were billing my credit card $12.95 per month. That’s cheaper than one compact disc a month and the service allows you to listen to just about any album, so I still think it’s a pretty good deal. Once I get my finances straightened out, that may be a treat I’ll allow myself to have, but now isn’t the time to be paying to listen to music. I called them and canceled the service.

A couple months ago, I paid off my pickup truck. While there was a lien on it, I was required to have full insurance coverage by the bank. Since I was no longer required to carry comprehensive insurance on it, I called my insurance agent and had them switch it to just liability insurance. I’d rather not do this right now, but desperate men do desperate things. I’m 42 years old and never been involved in an accident (knock on wood), so I may be all right, but if I were to wreck the truck now, replacing it would be a burden. Changing the insurance will save me $22.00 per month. I also have a third vehicle that hasn’t been driven in ages. I pay $12.00 per month for liability insurance for it and I canceled that as well.  This third car is obviously not needed, since we haven’t driven it in over a year.  I need to sell it and apply that money to the debt.

I called Sprint to make changes to my cell phone bill to lower that too.  No need to pay for 1300 minutes when we don’t even use 500 and my daughter will have to learn to keep the text messages under 1000.  She wants unlimited, but if I have to sacrifice HBO, she can sacrifice here.

I considered doing away with my landline phone, but I live in a rural area and the cell phone reception can be weak sometimes, so I’d hate to have to depend completely on a cell phone.  I think I better keep it.

I called my wireless internet provider and had them put me on the lower speed plan, which will lower the bill by $10.00 per month.  I really notice the difference, especially when downloading software or watching video, so I’ll be really happy when the cash flow improves, so I can get back to the faster service.

The changes I made should save me about $110.00 per month, but I know that’s not enough.