A Frugal Find

I was reading some blogs this morning and noticed a trend... they were mentioning what a no-brainer it was to contact your telephone and/or cable company and simply ask for a better deal. These ladies were reporting some good savings just by asking, so, I gave it a try and here are my results:

• Verizon - the telephone portion is already basically as low as it can go, since we don't have long distance service. Everyone we know is either local or we communicate on facebook! But, we also have internet service with Verizon. We pay $37.95/month currently, and by agreeing to stay with Verizon for one more year, we were able to drop the bill to $31.99/month.
• Dish Network - Our monthly bill is $57 with Dish Network. I asked the guy if there was anything we could do to lower our monthly bill and he suggested dropping the dish protection plan, to save $5.99 per bill. Then he asked if that sounded good... well, yes, but if you're asking, that must mean you can go lower! Duh. I said "can you go any lower?"... to which he responded "well, if you stay with us for 24 months I can lower your bill to $39.99 for the first 12 months". Bingo! After those 12 months, our bill will go to $49.99, which is still a savings of $8/month. And, our service isn't changing at all. We are a bit spoiled with the DVR (one of man's best inventions, we both agree), so I knew we didn't want anything interfering with that.

So, to make a long post short, I am now going to save $13 a month between the two, and even more during those promotional periods. It doesn't sound like much, but every bit helps. And it only took a few minutes of my day. Really, I wasn't on hold for hours! AND, I spoke with two Americans... yay for Dish Network and Verizon for not contracting out to India!!