I have been a DirecTv customer for years. We also have an HBO package which includes access to HBO Go. HBO Go is a great service, we can watch any and all HBO series, including past seasons and current seasons, on an iPad or iPhone anywhere (assuming access to WiFi) at anytime.
But, there is a down side of DirecTv and HBO and that is the price. While, I feel like we get a lot of enjoyment out of the service, DirecTv has been inching up and inching up in price. So I've developed a habit of calling once every 13 months or so and asking for a discount. I used to call armed with information from their competitors, but now I just call up and tell them I want to keep our same services but I want to pay less and it seems to work.
Last night I called, and I received a $10 discount on our DirecTv package and then I spoke to someone in the premium channel department and received a $10 discount on our HBO package. The general discount is good for a year and the HBO discount is good for six months. So in 5 minutes I saved us $180.
This is a good lesson for all who are working on killing debt, sticking to a budget or increasing savings. While you may have to cut certain things out in your quest for improved personal finances, there are also opportunities to keep the same services but pay less.
When we were killing our credit card debt in 2007 I regret that I never called, on the cards that were not 0%, and asked for reductions in interest rate or some other accommodations. Last year, we combined and redid our car insurance (more than 5 years after we got married). We dramatically increased our coverage and saved a ton of money (which we put towards our umbrella insurance policy). We could have saved thousands of dollars over the 5 years of insurance status quo, but we didn't make the time to investigate our options.
Showing posts with label Insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Insurance. Show all posts
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Bonus Plan
Mr. Sam recently received a small bonus at work. Nothing huge, but every little bit counts.
First, the bonus was subject to his 401k withholdings, so a chunk has gone to the 401k, which left a couple thousand.
Second, since its Mr. Sam's bonus he wanted to take a chunk, a third to be specific, and put it in his everyday checking account. His point is that he struggles with our allowance system (true) and he'd like to have a cushion. I wasn't in favor of this plan because I believe that Mr. Sam will spend as much money as is available to him (hence the allowance system) and that this "cushion" won't last 90 days. But, he convinced me to let him try* and I guess we'll see what happens. We probably should have made a friendly wager.
Third, the rest of the money will be put towards our savings goals.
*In our house any expenditure over $300 has to be discussed and agreed and we counted this experiment as such. I don't want the impression to be that Mr. Sam's is "hen-pecked" as this rule works both ways.
First, the bonus was subject to his 401k withholdings, so a chunk has gone to the 401k, which left a couple thousand.
Second, since its Mr. Sam's bonus he wanted to take a chunk, a third to be specific, and put it in his everyday checking account. His point is that he struggles with our allowance system (true) and he'd like to have a cushion. I wasn't in favor of this plan because I believe that Mr. Sam will spend as much money as is available to him (hence the allowance system) and that this "cushion" won't last 90 days. But, he convinced me to let him try* and I guess we'll see what happens. We probably should have made a friendly wager.
Third, the rest of the money will be put towards our savings goals.
*In our house any expenditure over $300 has to be discussed and agreed and we counted this experiment as such. I don't want the impression to be that Mr. Sam's is "hen-pecked" as this rule works both ways.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Insurance Homework - Follow Up
Six months or so ago I posted about how we were in the process of obtaining life insurance. And in September, I posted information about an umbrella insurance policy we were investigating.
I pleased to report we can cross these tasks off our "to do" list.
Regarding life insurance, we each obtained $500,000, 20 year term life insurance policy through the private market. I have a $500,000 life insurance policy through work which is very reasonably priced. When open enrollment comes around in December 2013 I understand that I can obtain a similar policy on Mr. Sam at similar discounted rates. So as of now, I have $1 million in life insurance and Mr. Sam has $500,000 in life insurance but we will increase that to $1 million early next year.
As for the umbrella policy, as I previously posted, this process was complicated by the fact that three of our properties are insured through the Florida state insurer of last resort, Citizens. Citizens insurance policies only provide $100,000 in liability coverage so we had to first obtain a "wrap" policy to increase our liability coverage from $100,000 to $300,000 for these three properties and then we had to obtain the umbrella policy.
We also ended up not including our property up north in our umbrella policy because it was going to cost us a almost $1000 to obtain a regular insurance policy before we obtained the umbrella policy. Since our property up north has no structure on it, we believe the risk of someone injuring themselves on our property is very low. Since there is no structure on the property anyone on the property is not an invitee and is trespassing, which while that doesn't mean there is no liability risk, the risk is pretty low.
So overall our insurance costs are going up, but we ended up saving about $1000 per year when we combined our car insurance policies and moved to a new company (we also increased our coverage) last year. As such, the money saved in our car insurance category is going to cover our umbrella and wrap policies.
I pleased to report we can cross these tasks off our "to do" list.
Regarding life insurance, we each obtained $500,000, 20 year term life insurance policy through the private market. I have a $500,000 life insurance policy through work which is very reasonably priced. When open enrollment comes around in December 2013 I understand that I can obtain a similar policy on Mr. Sam at similar discounted rates. So as of now, I have $1 million in life insurance and Mr. Sam has $500,000 in life insurance but we will increase that to $1 million early next year.
As for the umbrella policy, as I previously posted, this process was complicated by the fact that three of our properties are insured through the Florida state insurer of last resort, Citizens. Citizens insurance policies only provide $100,000 in liability coverage so we had to first obtain a "wrap" policy to increase our liability coverage from $100,000 to $300,000 for these three properties and then we had to obtain the umbrella policy.
We also ended up not including our property up north in our umbrella policy because it was going to cost us a almost $1000 to obtain a regular insurance policy before we obtained the umbrella policy. Since our property up north has no structure on it, we believe the risk of someone injuring themselves on our property is very low. Since there is no structure on the property anyone on the property is not an invitee and is trespassing, which while that doesn't mean there is no liability risk, the risk is pretty low.
So overall our insurance costs are going up, but we ended up saving about $1000 per year when we combined our car insurance policies and moved to a new company (we also increased our coverage) last year. As such, the money saved in our car insurance category is going to cover our umbrella and wrap policies.
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