Trash Services
So I've been wanting to do this for some time and it's been on my to-do list for longer than I'd like to share. We aren't trashy people, ha! No really, we recycle everything under the sun and we just don't have that much trash. We pay for weekly trash pickup but rarely put our massive city assigned trash can out by the road every week. Most of the time, it's every other week and sometimes we skip two weeks. I knew we were paying this big bucks for the mega 96 gallon superstar we had...but it's what 'came with' the house so I've just been too busy lazy in changing it.
Today was the day, people! I called up the City of Austin and talked to the girl on the phone. There is a surcharge of $15 to upgrade your trash can size but there is no charge to downgrade. Cha-ching! She laid out all the options we could choose and I opted for the next smaller size. The 64 gallon can. She said if it was still too big, we could downgrade again, for free again. So we'll see how manageable this size is for our weekly trash and go from there. Here's the savings we'll accrue over the next year by making this switch that only took about 5 minutes of my time.
Then: 96 gallon can for $22.20/month
Now: 64 gallon can for $10/month
Savings: $12.20/month
Yearly Savings: $146.40
Internet Service Provider
Another item on my to-do list has been to cancel our cable and just have internet. Why? We just don't watch that much TV anymore. We used to devour hours and hours pre-Nash but now we're lucky if we can even fit in ONE of our fave 30 minutes shows. And people, that's even with fast forwarding through commercials because of our DVR service. I do love me some commercial fast forwarding DVR, I must admit.
We are also attempting the 'no TV till Nash is 2 years old' routine in our house which is something we've chatted about at length and decided it's for us. Another blog post on that will come in the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled. And we also have started going to the library (we love the Books & Babies class with Miss Heather at the Pleasant Hill location) which has an amazing selection of DVDs to borrow (we're in the midst of HBO's hit series The Pacific right now) so we're not even feeling like we need all those shows anymore, anyway. Another post on why I love the library soon too.
Ok, back to today's post...good ol' Time Warner and why we were about to opt out. So I called today and asked for the cancellation department. Told him exactly why we were going to cancel. It's highway robbery (the prices) and why we're downgrading to only high speed internet. Upon chatting at length with Paul (who was wonderful, by the way) he explained what he could do for me and what my options are. No contracts, just options.
No joke, by the time I got off the phone...I'm not only keeping our cable and only downgrading our high speed internet from 25mps to 15mps, but I'm also adding a land-line phone for $40 less per month. Yep, you read that correctly...$40 less than what we pay. I've heard other people say that if you call a provider and ask for cancellations that they really are the only ones that are able to finagle some serious deductions/deals but I had never tried it. We were all gung-ho and ready to be cable-less so it really didn't matter to me what 'deal' he threw my way.
So where did he get me? Internet as a single service would be close to $70/month, without taxes and fees. Yowza, right? For only $20 more per month, we can still have our cable, internet and an added home phone line too. Walt's previous job paid for our home internet but now that it's out of pocket, it's one total bill we've been wanting to downgrade for some time. Like I've told many of our friends, even though we can pay for it, doesn't mean we want to pay for it, ha! Here's the new breakdown:
Then: Cable/Internet for $148/month
Now: Cable/Internet/Phone for $108/month
Savings: $40/month
Yearly Savings: $480
So I'm pumped that I saved us over $626 over the next year. Now don't get me wrong, that might just be chump change to some of our readers but for us that means a really nice addition to a college fun or our emergency fund too. In this kind of economy and the way we like to truly 'know' where our every dollar goes, these changes (though small) do have a big impact on our budget. Maybe you've been wavering with getting rid of cable or downgrading your trash can size? Hopefully this post inspires you to take the 15 minutes to call your provider and ask about options. I just put the ol' iPhone on speaker and read a book to Nash while on hold. It was a win-win all around!
PS - I'm absolutely doing my due diligence to see what Time Warner's main competitor (AT&T) will offer us as a bundle package, etc. Again the bundle that Paul offered me was a no contract bundle so I can get out of it at ANY TIME if I find a better deal.
