Here's a quick and easy money saving tip:
Threaten to cancel your service (and it helps immensely if you have a great competitive offer in hand when you do).
Oftentimes, all you need to do to get a better/good price on a service with a company you're already dealing with is to threaten to cancel your service with them and move to a competitor. It's much easier and cost effective for them to give you a good deal than to lose you as a customer (studies show that keeping a current customer is several times more cost effective than trying to get a new customer).
So if you think you're paying too much for phone, cable, internet or any other service, call them up and ask what they can do for you. If it's nothing, then mention the rate their competitor has and how you're thinking of switching if they can't help you out. Oftentimes, they will.
We've employed this option several times. Most recently, I reminded my local bike shop that their competitor had better prices and I was given a price match as well as a preferred time to have my bike serviced. Here's another example a reader left as a comment on my post titled Save Money: 5 Alternatives to High Cable Bills:
Every year or so, I call to "cancel" my cable or internet. At this point, I usually am able to secure a 12-month deal for $19.99 or so for extended cable. I do the same for cable internet. This probably amounts to $500/year savings. It would be cheaper to cancel cable altogether, but my wife would kill me.
$500 bucks a year is nothing to sneeze at. Consider doing the same if you'd like to save some big $$$$$.
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