Saving Some Money...

I've been doing some things to cut back on some monthly expenses lately.

First off, I canceled the mobile internet service on my Verizon account. I haven't used it at all since I got the iPod Touch. I used to use the mobile internet to keep track of sports scores while at work...especially NFL scores during the season because several of us are in the same fantasy football league. But the airport has free Wi-Fi, and the iPod can connect to that. The iPod also has a nicer looking user interface for the the scores, so I've really only used that since I got it. I think I had used a total of about .67 megabytes since I got the iPod, yet I'd been paying $10 a month for it.

I also canceled the insurance on our phones through Verizon. Both Cathy and I take really good care of our phones, and we are far enough into the contract that if we did manage to break a phone we could probably just buy a new one off of Ebay for less than the deductible and hassle with the insurance. That is another $10 a month that I won't have to worry about paying. So that's $20 a month worth of savings solely by canceling some things that I didn't really need through the cell phone service.

The biggest thing that I did, however, was finally getting around to going with Cathy to visit her car insurance agent. She goes through AAA. I had been going through Progressive. I thought I was getting a pretty good deal at $456 every six months. That works out to only $77 per month with the installment fee. I didn't think that was too bad...until I talked to the AAA agent. Through Progressive I had about the lowest possible coverages...high deductibles and low dollar amounts for pay outs in case of an accident. The AAA agent suggested I go with better coverages and lower deductibles, and that brought the price to $582...per YEAR. So with better coverages and lower deductibles, I actually am going to save about $350 per year. Not too shabby. That's roughly a $30 per month savings. The best part?? Cathy also got a $200 a year discount because now we have two vehicles insured through the same agency. She also lowered her rates by a couple hundred by switching from broad coverage collision to standard. So all together we ended up saving around $700 a year. Not bad at all.

So, with just those couple of quick changes to things that I've been paying, I saved myself about $50 per month. I am still debating the motorcycle insurance right now. I haven't gotten the bike out at all this year, so I'm thinking of just canceling the insurance on it. I figure I won't be getting it out at all seeing as the summer is half way over now. That would be another $20 per month, for a total of $70 per month that I'm saving.

That doesn't even include the fact that I'm saving about $30 by paying off the Meijer and Walmart cards. Overall, I'd say I've cut my monthly expenses by about $100 in the last couple of weeks. That's pretty cool!!!