Save on Your Monthly Expenses (without the sacrifice!)
One of the hardest parts about saving money is deciding what expenses you're okay with eliminating. Maybe it's your Netflix or Spotify subscription. Well, in this video I explore creative ways you can save money while still enjoying the benefits of some monthly subscriptions.
Stop Overpaying For Monthly Expenses
Okay, so you might be over-paying for common monthly expenses. In this video, I’m going to cover a few tips and tricks that can help cut some costs without having to sacrifice too much. Especially now in the middle of a pandemic, you may be relying on Netflix to keep you somewhat sane – so even though you may be trying to save money, it can be hard to cut out something like that. You probably already know that you can save a bunch of money by making coffee at home instead of ordering from Starbucks – that’s been talked about to death – instead, I’ll cover some other ideas that you may not have thought of.
1. Apple Subscriptions
This one is for iPhone users. Go to your settings and click on your Apple ID. Next, tap Subscriptions. Here, you can see things you’ve subscribed to through the App store. Here’s the trick (and it might be a loophole that they’ll eventually close), but it will show you all of the subscription options available for that app or service. For instance, I have Apple TV+ at $5/month – but I could switch to the yearly service for $50 a year, saving $10. Now that’s a pretty common discount, but for other apps, you may find promotions or discounts on the same subscription. Now check this out: here on DuoLingo, look at all of these annual subscriptions at different prices. My wife Rachel saw this, and switched to the $60 a year plan instead of $84, saving $24 for the same exact plan. There’s literally no difference other than price! Also, this is a good time to cancel anything you may have signed up for but no longer use.
2. TrueBill
Next up, we have Truebill. If you aren’t familiar, Truebill is an expense tracker, but where it really excels is recognizing monthly subscriptions and then helping you cancel them. It’ll also notify you when you have a recurring payment coming up so you can be prepared for it. I have our business accounts connected, so there are a lot of expenses on here that aren’t personal, but this gives you an idea of how much you’re spending and where you may be able to cut costs. All of those monthly expenses add up like crazy. Also - they alert you when there are larger than usual transactions. For instance, just the other day, I was notified of a $1700 charge that I didn’t recognize. It turns out, my old gym accidentally charged me for an entire year – so I was able to contact them and get that refunded ASAP.
Another great thing about Truebill is they can negotiate your bills for you. Like your phone or cable bill for instance – if they’re able to negotiate a lower rate, they’ll take a 40% cut of whatever they save you for the first year, and you’ll save the remaining 60%. Not a bad deal if you ask me. So if they save you $100 a year on your internet bill, they’ll take the $40 for their trouble, and you’ll save $60. I tried it out with my Spectrum internet bill – and they weren’t able to get me a lower rate, but said they’d try again over the next month.
Truebill is free to use, but I signed up for the Premium plan at $5 a month. This gives you some more features, – like you can easily cancel subscriptions with a few taps. Either way, it’s definitely worth checking out! If you want an alternative to Truebill, check out Trim at asktrim.com.
3. Lower the bills you do have
Okay, so there are obviously some essential things you probably can’t cut completely, so let’s quickly go over some ways to lower those costs.
Refinance
If you have a car or house payment, consider refinancing. Right now, interest rates are super low, so look into it. There are generally some costs associated with refinancing, but it’s quite possible the amount you’ll save by locking in a lower interest rate will be well worth the time and effort. You could save thousands over the course of your loan by taking the time to do it, so check it out.
Cell phone discounts
You probably need to hang on to your cell phone plan, but many providers offer discounts if you work for a business they have partnered with. For instance, when Rachel worked at Starbucks, she saved 20% off of her at&t bill. Call your cell provider and see if you’re eligible for a discount based off of where you work.
In the same vein, see if you’re eligible for Auto-Pay discounts. I saved $10 a month on our cell phone plan by enabling auto-pay. You can also try this tactic with other bills
4. Family plans
If you’re anything like me, you probably share a Netflix account with some family members. Well, you may want to consider doing that with other subscription services. With Spotify Premium, it’s $10 per account. Or, you can get a premium family subscription for $15/month and get up to 6 accounts…so if you have a big family, everyone could just pay less than $2 per month instead of 10. You’re technically supposed to all be living under the same roof, but I haven’t had any issues so far by ignoring that rule…
With Hulu, you can stream on two devices simultaneously and with HBO Max you can stream on three different devices at the same time, along with having separate profiles like Netflix, so you can definitely cut costs this way without losing all your precious shows.
5. Free Stuff
Okay, if you’re really trying to cut costs without and some of these other methods don’t work for you, check out the app Hoopla. You sign in using your library card – if you don’t have one – I was able to sign up for an e-card here in LA in about two minutes so you may be able to as well – and then you have access to a free library of audiobooks, e-books, music movies, and tv shows. You get access to each for a set amount of time, so for this Wes Anderson movie for instance, you get access to it for 3 days and e-books and audiobooks are good for 21 days… and if you want to listen to one of my favorite albums of 2019, you can have that for 7 days. There’s some great business audiobooks in there if you are into that sort of thing, like me. You do have monthly limits on how much you can check out, but it’s hard to complain too much when you aren’t really paying for it. There’s a few other similar apps – like Libby and Librivox you can check out for free as well.