How To Save Money ($260/year!) on car insurance if you're unemployed

If you are one of the millions who have been laid-off recently, saving money on all your expenses is probably a high priority. You've probably read about some ways to save money on your car insurance; combine your home & auto policy w/ the same company for a discount, raise your deductibles, etc.

Well, today, I discovered 2 new ways you can save money, and you're probably qualified just because you were unlucky enough to have been laid off.

1. Most car insurance policies have some type of provision for approximately how much you drive each week or month. When you originally got your insurance, you may have been classified as "drives to and from work, 100 miles or less per week," or "drives daily for outside sales job - 101 - 250 miles per week." Each insurance company may have slightly different categories, but the more you drive, the more you pay for insurance. Well, if you're not driving to work everyday, you can probably fit into a lower category. With State Farm, I called my agent, gave her my current mileage reading, and an estimate of how many miles I drive each month and she made the change. She said I'll be sent something periodically requesting my mileage to make sure I still qualify.
2. I also qualified for a discount for having a low "earned income." This is because I have coverage for loss of earned income if I am injured in an auto accident. They do not count severance, unemployment, interest, social security etc., so if you are unemployed, it is fairly easy to meet the qualification of $500 or less per month in earned income. She emailed me a form I have to fill out, sign and return by mail.

Total savings: $130 every 6 months. Not bad for what was literally a 5 minute phone call. And I didn't even have to lower my deductible to save money.

Get a live person when you call your bank!! (or phone company, credit card, insurance company, tech support, airline, cable company etc)

Gethuman.com - save your time & your sanity ( even save money cutting back on Xanax)



Few things are more frustrating than calling customer service and hearing "please listen carefully; our options have changed," or "sorry, I did not understand, please try again," which often escalates to "sorry you are having trouble, please try again later." Right, because nothing says "I'm sorry" like hanging up on someone.

Well now you can outsmart Corporate America and actually get customer service from customer service. Or, at least have a real person hang up on you. Just go to http://gethuman.com/ for ph #s of the major cable and phone providers, banks, insurance, automotive, retail, travel, technology and more. Sometimes, it really is a magic # and a person answers. Or, it's the same # you've been calling, but they cracked the code for reaching a human. We've all tried repeatedly hitting zero - sometimes it works, but often it's more complicated, like, "at the first prompt press 2263; press 1 at each prompt thereafter." Who could have guessed? Now, relax, take a deep breath, and tell that nice person all about your problem.

Free Resume Printing One Day Only at FedEx Office

Tues 3/10 Free Resume Printing- FedEx Office

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It's 25 copies (about a $5.30 value), not a huge amount but every little bit helps and I'm sure their laser printer will do a much better job than my ink jet. Here are the details:

FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko's) will offer its printing services in an effort to help job seekers. The company will host "FedEx Office Free Resume Printing Day" on March 10, 2009, offering to print up to 25 copies of each customer's resume for free.
Take advantage of this one-day event by visiting any FedEx Office Center in the U.S. during regular business hours. This offer is good for 25 black-and-white resume copies per customer and is only valid for orders placed and picked up in-store. Customers may place orders by submitting their resume in printed format or as a digital file, and the copies will be printed single-sided on resume-quality paper.
To find the nearest FedEx Office Print and Ship Center, go to: http://www.fedex.com/ or call 1-800-Go-FedEx (1-800-463-3339).

How to get the Best Price on ATT or How I Cut my TV, Internet and Home Phone Bills by More Than Half

This is a continuation from 3/5/09, so please see that post as well for this to all make sense.
After doing the research described earlier, I decided I could get the best price with ATT U-verse. Along the way, I did all I could to lower the price and discovered a couple of little known ways to save more money.

Here's the breakdown on what I was paying before I switched:

ATT standard phone service, local only, no features (call waiting etc.) $28.56
MagicJack for long distance $ 1.67

Internet, w/ 1.0 Mbps standard DSL $30.oo

Dish Network, with one receiver and one DVR $64.99
with the Dish 100 pkg, the second cheapest after the family plan

MONTHLY SUBTOTAL $125.22

TOTAL FOR 6 MONTHS $751.32


I had planned to switch to ATT's standard DSL and Direct TV, but it turned out it was not available in my area, so I ended up with U-verse. My new package not only provides the best price, I have upgraded several services. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

First, here are some general tips. I think a lot of these will apply to other companies as well.

• Resign yourself to talking to someone on the phone at some point. To be sure you get the best price, you need to get at least two competitive bids from the same company, one online and one by phone. And, if you don't like what the first person offers, you can always call back. Their hold system is a nightmare. Use a speakerphone or headset and have a stack of laundry to fold or something... this may take a while.
• It helps to have a phone number that should get you to a person rather than a hold system. Find this on one of my favorite websites, get human.com. The number for AT&T is 800-288-2747 (& hit "0" after each prompt, ignoring their automated messages). The site lists ph #s of the major cable, satellite and telecommunications providers,plus banks, insurance, automotive, retail, travel, technology and more.
• The phone operator, I spoke with offered me (in addition to the standard deal) an extra $25 Visa gift card on direct TV and an extra $75 gift card off my home phone/Internet. This is in addition to the rebates shown on their website. She insisted she had only a limited quantity of these gift cards and this was a special just for me, but in fact, I spoke with two operators, and they both offered them. I think as long as you don't seem too easy to close, they offer them quite readily.
• I thought I'd found the best price and proceeded to start ordering the services I decided on, only to find out that DirecTV and AT&T DSL Internet were no longer available in my area (although their website said they were...) So, back to the drawing board, where the operator proceeded to extol the virtues of U-verse. U-verse starts out more expensive even with their basic package, especially the TV part. So I expressed my great distress over all the time wasted researching DirecTV and AT&T DSL -especially when their website misled me into thinking it was available. I asked if that was her best price. I told her I just couldn't afford the additional money for U-verse, not in the budget, blah blah blah. That's when she offered to discount this service by $20 per month for the first six months.
• That brought the price down in the range of the original deal I was looking at. But only for six months. So I pushed a little more. "Well, that sounds better, but do you think you could do the $20 off for 12 months, instead of six? She said no, but then made a great suggestion. The basic package I was planning to buy (U200) came with a $100 rebate. The operator, Susan (now my best friend), lowered her voice a bit and said "for $20 more per month you can upgrade to the U300 package -then you get a $200 rebate and you can call after the first month and downgrade to another package- so you still net an extra $80." Sold. With U-verse there is no commitment/contract, so it's no problem to downgrade the package. It may take closer to 2 months to get my rebate (and you can't downgrade to U100 until you do) but that will still net me $60.

There are a couple of other ways to increase your savings:

• If you buy online you can go through one of several great online rebate sites (more on these in a separate post.) For AT&T, there are several that offer an extra rebate if you link to AT&T through their website. The best deal on ATT (right now) is from FatWallet.com. They will give you $12.50 - $55 back, depending on the service(s) you order. Be sure to check several sites when you're ready to order as the deals change frequently. Many of theses sites will also list coupon codes for any extra savings available. For more on getting the most out of these rebate sites, I'll be doing a post soon with more details.
• If you get an AT&T Universal MasterCard, they have one with a special feature. Set up payment for any and all AT&T services (wireless/home phones, Internet & TV) on auto pay with their card and you get an additional 10% rebate for the first 12 months and 5% after that, indefinitely. If your monthly charge is $90, that's an extra $108 back to you, the first year. The only catch is you have to charge at least that same amount ($90 in the example here) each month for something else, but that's easy enough. Just put your gas bill or car insurance or something on recurring auto pay, and make sure you choose an expense that will equal at least the amount you need, then you don't have to worry about it. (P.S. -my ATT Universal MasterCard has the lowest interest rate of all my cards. Of course every situation will be different, but it's not likely they will give you the discount but then charge you higher interest which would offset it.)
• And speaking of cell phones, there is generally not much additional savings to be had by bundling this fourth service in with the rest. But I did discover one interesting option. If you have AT&T wireless and elect to have it added to your bundle, it qualifies you for the "AT&T Unity plan." With this free program calls to/from your wireless phone to any other AT&T line (cell or land) do not count toward your minutes. If you are not currently an AT&T wireless customer, there is sometimes an extra $50 rebate if you activate a new wireless plan, and sometimes some extra money through the rebate sites.
• And don't forget referral bonuses. I couldn't get one since I already had AT&T wireless and home phone. But if you're a new customer, you can generally get a referral bonus. Most companies offer the bonus to the current subscriber that does the referring and to the new subscriber. So even if you already know what you want and no one helped you decide on it, there's an extra 50 bucks in it for you if you can find a friend that already has their service and have them "refer" you. In fact, if they did nothing for it, keep your $50, and tell them you'll split their $50 with them. That way you make $75 and they should still be very happy to have $25 gift wrapped and delivered by you. Some companies also offer other bonuses (on top of the cash) such as three months of free premium movie channels if you come to them through a referral. Info on referral bonuses is on the company's website.

I hope these tips can help you save some money too. If you have any other ways to save money on phone, Internet and TV please pass them along in the comment area. I'll be especially interested in the best ways to max out your savings with some of the other companies, since my research was somewhat focused on AT&T.

So here's the rundown on my new plan. I'm basing this on the first 6 months. Admittedly, if I kept the same service, my savings would be less. But I'm reasonably confident that Comcast, Dish or Direct TV will be running some great deals to get me to switch. And with most of the other deals for new customers, the great price is for 3-6 months, and you are locked into a contract for 12-18 months. At least with U-verse I can take a better deal when I want to.

U-verse Phone, Local & Long Distance w/call waiting, caller id etc. $32.70 x 6 = $196.20

U-verse Internet 3.0 Mbps (3x faster than before) $30.00 x 6 = $180.00

U-verse 300 TV - 2 months at $79 $158.00

U-verse 100 TV - 4 months at $44 $176.00

Subtotal $710.20

Rebate -$200.00

extra $20/month off -$120.00

Subtotal $390.00

-10% = $351.18 for 6 months or $58.53/month,

That's a savings of $66.47/month, $400.14 for 6 months, and 53% off!!

Saving money on Cable and Satellite TV, Internet and Phone

There are many ways to save money on these services, adding up to a lot of money each month. First, a few things to keep in mind:

1. Look at options for both bundled & individual services, based on your needs, and what is available in your area.
2. If available, consider cable and satellite TV, plus new technologies like AT&T U-verse or Verizon VIOS.
3. What seems to be the costlier option may be your best bet. Premium service may come with extras you want, for less than basic service plus the extras. Example: The intro price on Dish Network 200 is $23. The DVR Advantage with 200 programming is $33 w/ 2 DVRs. If you are planning to get 2 DVRs, they add $6/month each, to the standard 200 package, so you save $2 a month with the DVR Advantage.
4. Rebates, specials & freebies change often. The deals they offer vary in their brochures, at retail store partners, on their website, or if you speak with a salesperson by phone. Check several sources to find the best deal.
5. Consider a TV package with fewer channels. Most shows can be viewed online, some on the site of the network the show runs on, and nearly all shows on YouTube. There are many other sites with TV shows, but that's another post.

Next, determine the services available in your area by checking:

• Mail and local newspapers
• Retail partners (Best Buy, Radio Shack etc.)
• Comparison websites like whitefence.com. With a phone number or an address the website will tell you which services are offered in your area and the various packages and prices.

Then, go to each company's website to see packages, discounts for bundling & specials. Some companies let you create your own bundle; choosing for example, Internet and TV, & keeping your current home phone provider. Other companies only offer a savings with the TV/Internet/home phone trifecta.

Tomorrow, how I'm saving over 50% with ATT U-verse ($66.50/month) compared with my previous deals - with a 3x faster Internet connection & more features and services for TV and phone. I'll include a compilation of tips found online and several saving stategies I didn't find anywhere on the web (I stumbled on them after harassing enough customer service reps.)