Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Paper Bills

     How many of your bills have you opted out of paper billing?  I know, I know, it is better for the environment, less mess in the house, no need to shred anything, I too have changed to mostly online statements.  The problem, is when I get an email stating I have a new bill waiting, and then go to the website, the company shows me a nice little summary, in nice big font, so it is easy to read, but I have to click a few times to get to the detail.  But hey, I do not care about the detail anyway, right?  Wrong!
     Last weekend, while paying one of my bills on the website, I decided to look at the statement.  It seemed that this particular card was not going anywhere with my payments, in fact it seemed to me that it was going up!  Well, looking at my statement revealed that I had at some point signed up for "Credit Protection", I am sure with the intent to cancel after the first 30 day trial period.  However, I forgot about it and paid on it for almost a year.  Yikes!!!  No wonder my balance was not moving in the right direction.  I promptly cancelled.  That prompted me to start looking at all my bills.  Low and behold, when I pulled out my cable bill, I found that we were paying for a "pack" that I was not sure we were watching.
     My husband, Mike, called the cable company and after a little bit of conversation, discovered that we do not watch the channels in question.  Success!  Not only that, but the cable company employee informed Mike that there was a new package that included everything we wanted for $20 less each month.  Woo Hoo!!  So, with my find on the credit card bill and Mike's success with the cable company, we are now saving $50 each month!  Do you think companies want to bill us online just to save paper??  I am not so sure!  Get those bills out and do a review every quarter, you just might find some money!

2 comments:

  1. This is one of my favorite things to do! I love figuring out how to reduce my bills. Another good trick... threaten to cancel! Often they will then send you to the companies loyalty department who has incentives to offer you to keep you with the company. I switched to Qwest internet for this reason. No contract and every time my 6 month promotion price is over, I call and say I am thinking about going back to Cox, and they put me on another 6 month promotion price! Most companies will try and go the extra mile to keep you as a customer

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  2. Thanks for the great thoughts Jessica!!

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