Cha-Ching!

Today is Wednesday and that means I am posting about one of my favorite topics....(drum roll please) saving money! Whoo Hoo!! Yes, I am a geek and yes, I know it. When you make the decision to cut out an entire salary to stay home to have kids (which are not the cheapest things ever) you have to find ways to save some money. So without further delay, here is my first money saving idea. It may or may not be something you can take advantage of, but it worked for me and was very, very easy.

Pretty much every day I get some sort of offer for At&t's U-verse tv. They call, they email, they send me snail mail, it is relentless. I have Directv currently and am pretty happy. But I decided to look into U-verse about a month ago and well...it was the same price. After you add in the same channels I get on Directv, plus Hd service, plus a dvr, it was the same price. So I stayed with Directv. Well, another email came along from U-verse and for some reason I decided to read it and low and behold the offer was better. You could save $25 a month on your first six months of service. Now I am not one for change, but I am for saving money. So rather than calling and switching right away, I called Directv. I simply told them about the offer from U-verse and asked them if there was anything they could do. The guy on the phone said, "Yes, we can offer you $27 off your bill for the next six months." And in less than five minutes I saved $162.

I realize not everyone has Directv and I realize some people don't even have cable. (though how those people do it, I do not know) However, if you have five minutes and want to save a little on your cable bill, I suggest you shop around. See what deals are out there, be willing to switch (which I would have done had Directv not given me a deal since U-verse has no contract), and just ask for the discount. What is the worst that can happen? Either way I would have been saving money! (As a side note, sometimes if your first attempt does not work, you can call back and get a different operator who will say yes to your request.)

Well, that's it. My first post about saving money. Look for other great ideas every Wednesday. Some might work for you, some might work for someone you know. In case you are interested, that extra $162 will be used to help out with the grocery budget which seems to be growing and growing despite my money saving efforts. So expect some posts about grocery savings that are a little less radical than the extreme coupon ideas on the internet, but more beneficial than doing nothing! Have a great day and good luck with the cable guy.