Cut, cancel, and switch – August 2016 Monthly Money Challenge

Update: As a group we are now saving $569.95/mo — 6839.44/year as a result of this months challenge.

(Join the Facebook group to participate.)

The August money challenge is to cut, cancel, or switch providers for any services that you are overpaying for or not using.

You never know if you are over paying until you actually LOOK at your bill and study it. You also have to look at your monthly spending to see if you are paying for something you’ve forgotten about or haven’t used in months(or years!).

It’s easy to let these expenses go undetected especially when they are on auto-pay. The services that only bill once a year are even harder to find.

The part I love about this challenge is that the savings are ongoing. It’s not just a $30 win one time, you get to win over and over and only had to do the work once.

Here’s a 4 step method to get the most out of this month’s challenge. (Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments)

List out all your possible targets, actually write them down on a sheet of paper!

Then…

1) Cancel it if you don’t use it.
2) Reduce your plan if you aren’t fully using the service.
2) Shop around for a better deal and switch companies.
3) Call and ask for a better price/rate and tell them you are thinking about canceling or going with another provider. (This works, try it!)

Here’s a short list of services I came up with to look into. I’m sure this is not a complete list. Add a few services that you are going to look into in your comment below.

• Cell Phone (My bill is now $23/mo with Republic Wireless)
• Utilities
• Internet
• Cable
• Car insurance
• Home/renters insurance
• Health/dental insurance
• Audible (You never use it!!)
• Gym membership
• Skype subscription. (Yeah, someone actually had this and cancelled it.)
• Any and all of those monthly gift box things or whatever they are

Winners from The Facebook Group! <– Join us.

This month isn’t even over and look at all this money being saved…

Switched to Geico where cheaper, negotiated with our other company where it was not cheaper – total insurance savings (house, car, umbrella) $2,200 per year! (So painful that we were overpaying by that amount… letting it all go….) Also dropped phone bills over $930/year: cut landline, cut back on data (don’t even know how I got on the XLarge data plan) and letting lines go to uncontracted status with V****** as they age out.

I was amazed at how all those small charges add up including a Skype subscription I completely forgot about. Updated my Amazon orders and saved too!

I just dropped an $11 subscription I wasn’t using last month and that was all I had. But I did just switch home and auto insurance on the 1st and will already save about $525/year, so that counts!

Changing auto/home insurance carriers and going to save $660!!

I was paying insurance on a car I don’t even own anymore, just because somewhere along the line a piece of paper got lost! The company was able to credit me for 3 months of my overpayment, score! We also ditched cable, instead we have Netflix, Hulu, and amazon prime. We don’t even miss it!

Small win, we are now saving $7.37/mo on our car insurance. Also cancelled an Internet hot-spot that we don’t need anymore so that’s another $30/mo.

See all the monthly money challenges.

Join the Facebook group.

Go get ’em tiger!

-Derek