How Much Are You Saving on Phone, Internet and Cable

Frugal Tip For Today: How To Save Money on Your Phone, Internet and Cable

Whether you are looking to save money because of a job loss or just trying to cut costs to have some extra money each, it pays to look at your phone, internet and cable tv services.

Let's start by taking a look at your phone services...you have several options for savings here. If you are like me and rarely use your cell phone, I actually just like to have it for peace of mind while driving, then you should consider eliminating your monthly service and going to a pre-paid phone plan. Our cell phone plan had cost us $75 a month and one of those phones was a duplicate as my husband had a company paid cell phone for work. By not renewing our contract after it ended and going with a pre-paid phone we saved over $65 a month. We purchased pre-paid minutes at $30 for 3 months costing us $10 a month. That's quite a bit extra we were paying for something that simply wasn't used much.

On the flipside, if you are someone that does use your cell phone quite a bit then look at eliminating your land line and saving over $30 a month. Make sure you look at your cell phone plan to ensure you have enough minutes on the plan to cover what you'll need by going exclusively cellular.

At the very least look at your cell phone bill to find ways to save a few dollars each month. Consider skipping the texting and internet service. Look at how many minutes you are using and if you seem to have quite a few left each month, downgrade your plan to one with less minutes and is less expensive.

Bundle your services to save money and have them all on one bill each month. By combining cable, internet and phone with long distance through our cable company we saved over $30 a month and now only pay one bill. These plans typically average $100 a month but can vary by area. Switch to automatic online bill pay and save the postage....every bit helps.

Look at your cable bill...do you really need HD, Pay Per View and Premium Channels? Go back to basic cable and the savings will quickly add up here as well. Also, head to the library! You can borrow DVD's for free and save money on movie rentals. If you are really in a financial pinch you may want to eliminate your internet plan and use the free internet service at the library while you are there to borrow DVD's, Books and Magazines!

Saving money on these budget busters is easy to do by making just a few changes.

Brown Bag It

Brown bag your lunch instead of eating out or running through the drive thru. Not only will you add money to your wallet but chances are you may lose a few pounds by skipping the fast food. Consider this...if you spend an average of $6 a day on lunch you will save:

$30 a Week
$120 a Month
$1440 a Year !!!

WOW...with an extra $1440 a year you can put that money away in savings, pay down debt or take a vacation! And you will be eating healthier lunches for weight loss with this simple change in your lifestyle. Give it a try...your wallet and waistline will thank you!

The same concept applies to those of you who love to have their morning latte! Considering you spend $4 a day on your latte you can save:

$20 a Week
$80 a Month
$960 a Year !!!

Making your own coffee each morning or grabbing a cup at the office can also pay off big over the year.

Go Green To Save Some Green!

Save money on your energy with a small easy to make change...light bulbs! Yes, light bulbs. By switching from your incandescent bulbs to the compact fluorescents you can begin to save money on your energy bills. Yes, the compact fluorescents cost more initially at the store but they last longer which means you will need to purchase bulbs a lot less often and these energy saving bulbs use less energy adding up to even more savings! So on your next shopping trip, add compact fluorescent bulbs to your list.

These new CFL bulbs can save you 75% on your energy consumption and have a life span ten times that of your typical incandescent bulb. They also give off 75% less heat.
Consider this: If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an energy star bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs and prevent green house gases equivalent to to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars! Please check out this website www.energystar.gov I found a lot of great information for this tip from their website and they have many more ways to save energy posted on their site.

Welcome to my Frugal Mom's Guide to Saving Money

I am starting this blog as a way to share the money saving tips and ideas I have used over the years. In today's economy we can all use ideas about how to save money and make your dollar go further. This is especially true for mom's, both stay at home and those that work outside the house.
I would like this blog to be different in that I plan to post a daily "money saving tip" every day as well as new articles a few times a week.
So please keep watching as I get this blog set up. I will be adding to it frequently in the coming weeks.

Thanks!
Donna