Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Financial Housekeeping

Over the last couple of weeks, I've made some more efforts to streamline my financial life a bit.
I set up auto credit card payment on my cable internet and local phone bills. For some reason, I hadn't realized this was an option before, and was doing manual e-payments each month from my bank, but I much prefer having everything go on my credit card so I can earn frequent flier miles.

I canceled my long distance telephone service. I know this one will seem like a no-brainer to many of you who have long used their cell phones or Skype, etc., but I was still hanging on! One reason is probably that I had paperless billing. I'd get an email each month and say "Oh, OK, there's the AT&T bill and it's only about $15, no big deal." But when I recently bothered to actually go to the website and see what that $15 had bought me, I found that I'd only made one outgoing long distance call and the rest of the bill was fees and taxes. Minute per minute, that call had become way more expensive than I thought it was, and that was the last straw! I don't like relying on my cell phone for all calls, but I'll just use my Zaptel calling card if I really want to make a call on the landline.

And yes, I know I should probably cancel my landline but I'm just not ready to do that yet. It's another pretty moderate cost and for the time I spend making local calls, it is worthwhile, as I'd have to upgrade my cell minutes if I didn't have the landline. But the annoying thing was that a few months ago, I'd finally had to replace an answering machine I had since college. I bought a phone with a digital answering machine built in, for about $30. Unfortunately, this piece of shit stopped working after a few months and recorded nothing but static. Emails to the manufacturer went unanswered and I'd been procrastinating about buying a new one. Then I started to think about how many people call me on my cell phone anyway, since I'm often not home. A lightbulb went off in my head: I ordered call forwarding service. Yes, this actually costs me about $4.00 a month, but now if I don't pick up, my calls go to my cell phone voicemail, so no answering machine needed, and it's cheaper than using Verizon's voicemail service. And though I could use Google Voice, that would mean telling everyone I had a new number-- this way, I don't have to change the phone number I've used for years and my calls will find me wherever I am. A few dollars spent for a convenience is sometimes worth it.

It's good to take a few minutes to stop and think about these little things. And it goes to show that even someone as financially anal as me can easily miss small money leaks if she doesn't pay close attention to every single bill!

7 comments:

Gord said...

Well done, X! And those little leaks of money are all tax free new income (to you).

I'm sure almost everyone can find something they are paying for that isn't needed and could be eliminated. What a great deal, give yourself a little raise, you don't have to wait for the boss.

Wayne said...

Did the same thing here as well. Checked and noticed I was not making many long distance calls so I updated my account to local only and for long distance charge it will be $0.05 minute. Doing so saves me close to $25 month. Need to keep phone for alarm system.

Anonymous said...

You should get vonage or a similar VoIP service and you would be paying ~ $25 for all calls including long distance and you get call forwarding for free.

Sweet Kitchen said...

I've often thought about cancelling my landline - especially when they charge ridiculous fees for basic things like 911 service! The only thing that keeps me from doing it is the memory of the blackout in 2003 when cell phones were pretty much useless.

Love your blog!

Sicilian said...

I was bound and determined to shut off the land line. . . . when I called AT&T, they talked me into keeping the line in the house and reducing the cost to $20.00. I haven't had long distance in the house for 5 years. I am paying cell phone and land line costing about 130.00 a month. Some time I'll cut the home phone
Ciao

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Little Dough Girl said...

I need to find a credit card that offers better incentives. Right now, my Discover does squat!