DontSpendMore.com Blog

Author: dontspendmore

  • Car Insurance Secrets: How To Save In Three Easy Steps

    I don’t know about you, but I personally hate it when I have to pay hefty car insurance premiums. No wonder that I am always on the lookout for ways to cut back on my premiums. After much of search and research, I have found 3 easy steps to save money and get cheaper car insurance. Read on to know more about them.

    Compare and contrast

    Well, this is actually plain common sense. Everyone knows that the best way to get better deals is by comparing the options and selecting the best fit out of them. You can do that with your car insurance deals as well.

    You’ll find a number of websites online that are dedicated to the sole purpose of comparing and reviewing the various deals available in the market. Checking these sites out is a good way to keep updated about the new deals that enter the market and also for excellent discount offers that are typically available for short periods of time.

    Say yes to higher deductibles

    You might already know that when you put in a claim you are supposed to pay a certain amount of money before your insurance can come in to save the day for you. Well, the trick lies in agreeing to pay a higher amount of money in case of claims as deductibles. Doing this will reduce your premiums considerably.

    For instance, if you agree to pay 200 % more on deductibles in collision and comprehensive coverage (when compared to the amount you are now paying), your premiums can reduce anywhere between 15 and 30 %. If you agree to pay 400 % more on deductibles, you can save up to 40 % in premiums. That’s a whopping amount of savings, don’t you think so?

    But a word of caution is necessary here. Make sure you can arrange for the deductible amount when you actually put in the claim.

    Try buying from one insurer

    You might be already having home insurance and probably you have a different company dealing with that and a different one handling your car insurance. Try buying both types of insurance from the same company. It is quite common for insurance companies to favor customers who buy more than one product from them and they usually reciprocate by extending discounts on premiums or by offering great deals.

    It is actually much easier than you think to save money on car insurance. The only catch is that you have to make some effort and great deals will not miraculously come and land in your lap.

  • Seven Strategies To Save Over $500 Every Month

    I am sure it is the title that attracted you to read through this article. Well, that’s predictable because each one of us wants to save money. I totally understand your eagerness to get to the heart of the matter, so here are the promised 7 strategies without wasting any more space in introductions.

    Cut back on takeaways

    I know it does not seem very nice when someone hints at taking away the comfort of takeaways from you. But if you knew what I know about saving money by saying no to takeaways, you definitely would nod your head in agreement to this suggestion.

    People have lots of time on their hands. Why else would they spend their time in researching, collecting and evaluating data about the amount of money you could save by avoiding takeaways for just 1 day of the week? If you are dependent on takeaways for your major meals of the day throughout the week (which is a rare possibility) and you decide to cook at home just once, then you can save almost $ 100+ per month.

    Bundle up your insurance plans

    Other than having to pay more for insurance coverage by opting for different companies for different kinds of insurance, you also have to deal with the hassle. Cut back on the stress and decide to provide some relief to both your mind and your wallet. Bundle up all your insurance coverage with a single provider and this should save you at least $ 30-50 per month.

    Walk more drive less

    Most of the households in USA are forced to keep aside a huge share of their monthly budget for car fuel. Seeing how fuel prices are shooting up, it helps to find ways and excuses to drive less and walk more. Avoid using the car for short distances and especially when you have time to take a walk. You could kill 2 birds with one stone- save money on fuel and boost your fitness.

    Car pooling

    I figured that since fuel bills are the most expensive, it would be smart to include more than 1 way to save money on it. Car pooling is a method that I highly recommend due to many reasons. The top 2 are of course focused on saving. First of all you save money and second, you save the Earth by contributing lesser to the pollution.

    Bundle up service plans

    It saves you at least $ 50-60 per month if you bundle up your phone, internet and cable service providers into one. You save almost $ 120-130 per month if you decide to avoid data usage. Maybe you could rely on Wi-Fi for your data needs until you have your finances in order?

    Save electricity

    Switch off the electrical gadgets when not in use as opposed to leaving them on standby mode and switch to CFL bulbs instead of the regular incandescent ones. Buy energy efficient electrical appliances and you should save a few dollars each month on your electricity bill each month.

    Shop for discount deals

    There are discount offers and deals for every shopper who cares to look around. If you shop online, it becomes easier to keep track of the latest discounts and lowest rate offers.

    These 7 tips together should save you at least $ 500-600 a month.

  • Slash Your Long Distance Bill Ruthlessly

    Anyone who has relatives living out of State or in a different country altogether knows how the telephone companies charge them through the roof for all the long distance calls made. I have often considered stopping contact with my ‘distantly located’ relatives and friends to get rid of the hefty long distance bills, but you know it’s not a practical thing to do.

    All you good souls who love maintaining contact with distantly located loved ones, don’t you worry. Today I am not here to suggest breaking ties with them. Instead I am here to share with you all the useful tips to slash the long distance telephone bills that I have since found.

     Check your usage pattern

    You will need your last 6 months phone bills for doing this. Review all of them and find out if there is a pattern emerging. Is there a time frame when you make the most long distance calls? Are you making more of out of State or out of country calls? What is the frequency and duration of the calls?

    Use all of these info and then call up your telephone company to strike a deal. If your company does not provide any good deals, try other service providers and see what they can do to help you save money on your calls.

    When you are calling the telephone companies, make sure that you use the toll free customer care number, or you would end up wasting money in the pursuit of discount deals.

    Switch to VOIP

    Voice over Internet Protocol or voice over telephony as it is commonly called, is an excellent way to cut short the long telephone bills you have been getting for your long distance telephone calls. Since VOIP makes use of the internet networks to transmit the voice data, the costs are cut back considerably.

    There are various plans on offer by the VOIP companies. Some will charge you a flat rate (usually @ $0.01 per minute) for all types of calls (domestic and long distance) that you make through their network. Others will offer a very low amount ($ 6) as fixed cost per month but will provide you with the freedom to make as many domestic calls as you want and bundle this offer with 1 hour of long distance calls, totally free of charge.

    So, you just need to find the plan that suits your needs best with VOIP.

    Bundle Up Your Packages

    You are already using cable, internet and telephone. But if you are using different service providers for all of them, you should consider bundling up all of the services into one single package. Buying a bundled up service from a single service provider will help save money and also save you the trouble of having to deal with 3 different companies for any customer support issues that you may face in the future.

  • How To Cut Your Cell Phone Bill

    Life has now become impossible without a cell phone to go along with its high and lows. But high cell phone bills often leave you feeling low. But don’t despair because there is hope yet. You could cut back on your cell phone bills without having to cut your cell phone into pieces. Here’s how:

    Select an appropriate plan

    Usually we select a plan at the time of signing a contract with the cell phone service provider and then practically forget all about it. But once you have used this plan for some months you will get an idea of your actual usage. Review all your previous phone bills to get a clear picture of your usage history and then approach your cell phone company to provide you with a plan that better suits your current usage.

    Doing so will help you cut back on unnecessary expenses and pay only for what you actually need.

    Axe the extras

    There are so many features that we all keep paying for, irrespective of whether we use them or not. Most of the times, we are not even aware of what we are paying for. Scrutinize your bills minutely and see if you are being charged for services like visual voicemail, roadside assistance, GPS etc.

    If you are sure that you do not need any of these services, make it clear to the cell phone company and they will deduct those charges from your next phone bill and stop providing you those extra services as well.

    Banish the bandwidth hoarders

    There are so many apps that sneakily use up a lot of your bandwidth. More bandwidth usage translates into more expensive data charges. There are many commonly used apps like Google maps, free version of the game Angry birds, Netflix etc which hoard a lot of bandwidth. Just get rid of these apps and see how light your data usage becomes and saves you quite a few dollars as well.

    Care for a new carrier?

    In the US, there may be only 4 major players in the cell phone service arena, but that does not mean they are the only ones out there. Many small players are quietly trying to make a mark out there too. At DontSpendMore.com, you can compare various cell phone plans in just a few seconds.

    Dig up info on them and see how they compete with the biggies to provide you with comparable service at dirt cheap rates.

    Play with prepaid

    Prepaid plan can never go wrong when it comes to managing your cell phone budget perfectly. Instead of paying for what you use (as in post paid plans) you are limited to use only what you paid for. This restriction actually allows you the freedom to stick to your budget. Instead of having to foot the bill after a month of reckless usage with a post paid plan, you can save money by avoiding limiting your usage to a predetermined sum of money each month.

  • Credit Card Secrets You May Not Know

    It is quite tough to agree that you do not know of any secrets about credit cards. You have been using plastic money ever since you can remember (for most part of it) and now there’s nothing you do not know about it, right? Well, if you ask me I think it’s a bit too early to say that. At least not until you have read through this article to the last word. So, you ready to move forward to reading this post? Yeah, I thought so.

    Paying balances first is prudent

    Majority of us credit card users already are aware of the dangers of availing a cash advance on our cards. But probably very few of us know a secret about cash advances. The credit card company will always give first priority and preference to standard purchases.

    So no matter how quickly you may have paid off the cash advance that you availed on your credit card in a desperate attempt to get rid of the cut throat interest rates, you will never succeed in freeing yourself from its claws if you carry a balance.

    So this means that your cash advance will continue to be considered as unpaid debt until you pay off the outstanding balance on your credit card purchases. And need I remind you that cash advances are charged up to 29.99 % interest until they get paid off in total?

    It is tough to keep a secret from your credit card company

    Have you read your credit card agreement in full detail? I doubt it; because I am sure you have not yet read about the Universal Default Clause yet. What this means in layman terms is that your credit card company has the right to hike the interest rates applied to your credit card, at any given point of time, if they get wind of your financial secrets (at least you thought that it was a secret).

    What is this secret? If you have defaulted on payments of any of your loans like auto loan, home loan or personal loan (from banks which have no relation whatsoever with your credit card provider), your credit card company will find this out and will automatically brand you as a ‘high risk’ customer. And you know that ‘high risk’ is not a pretty label to carry around in the credit card industry. No matter how old your account with the credit card company is, you are suddenly thrown down from the pedestal of ‘loyal customer’ to a deplorable ‘high risk’ category.

    Your creditors’ address could affect your interest rates

    Have you ever imagined that the address where your credit card company is located can influence the interest rates that they charge you for providing service? Well, there are States like Delaware and Utah have no cap on the interest rates that credit card companies are permitted to charge. Blame it all on weak Usury laws, but if your credit card company is incorporated in States which have no cap on the interest rates, then they could charge you through the roof or hike their current rates of interest without breaking any law.

    Didn’t I say that I knew of 3 secrets you never knew about credit cards?

  • Amazing Ways To Improve Your Credit Score

    A sagging credit score usually has a similar effect on your mental peace and ego. By the way, you are not alone in the world, fumbling in the dark with low credit scores. Approximately 14.25 % of the US population has credit scores ranging somewhere between 300 and 549. But guess what, this actually is great news. You want to know how?

    FICO statistics reveal that around 1.4 million people have found ways to improve their credit scores from the previous year. Now that’s good news, isn’t it? The best part is that you too can use some of the amazing ways used by those 1.4 million people, to improve your credit score. Get ready to know how they did it.

    Add a loan EMI to your Report

    When you leave evidence on your credit reports that you are paying loan installments, you are actually displaying proof of your capability to take on a financial responsibility.   This is by far the speediest way to improve your credit scores.

    In case you do not have any loans as of now, maybe taking a small personal loan that allows you to make regular installments to pay it back will suffice.

    Trim your balances

    Credit scores are influenced a great deal by the balance amount that flashes in your previous month’s credit card statement. You need to find ways to reduce and trim down the outstanding balances each month.

    You can also try to set up a reminder to pay the dues each month before the end of the due date. Try limiting the usage to just 10-30 % of the total credit available each month. Or you could try to convince the credit card company to send you a reminder when you overshoot 10-30 % of your credit limit for each month.

    Pay off some balance

    When you pay off some of the outstanding balances, like paying off a revolving credit card account can dramatically improve your credit scores. The idea behind this is that you will be able to show a wider gap between the available credit limit and the actual credit availed by you.

    Just because you have an available credit for say $ 2000 each month, you should not avail all of it. Try and keep your usage within 10-30 % of the entire limit. When you pay off a revolving credit card account, you can actually manage to widen the gap considerably.

    Get a new credit card

    This one sounds counter-intuitive, but it works nevertheless. If you face a difficulty in obtaining a regular card you have the option of getting secured credit cards. As you maybe already aware secured credit cards extend only that much credit which corresponds to the amount of money you have deposited.

    Depending upon your current credit score u can use either one or two of these four ways to improve your credit score.

  • How To Save On Insurance Bills

    Insurance is a commonly included item in most of our budgets. While the type of insurance may be different like home insurance, health insurance or car or insurance, it goes without saying that if you manage to save some money on your insurance bill, you can make a considerable difference to your budget as well.

    Here are three easy steps to cut back your insurance bill and save some money in the process.

    Pay Higher Deductibles

    Paying more money to save money does seem a bit counter-intuitive at first. But here’s how it works. When you agree to pay a higher deductible, the insurance company looks upon this as a favor from your side. Now the insurance company decides to reciprocate by extending a discount in your insurance premiums. After all, you are taking off a burden off the company’s shoulders (albeit small) by paying a higher deductible until the insurance benefits kick in.

    Bundle your insurance needs

    It is very common for an average individual to have more than one type of insurance. Majority of the folks have insured their homes, their cars and their health with different insurance companies.

    You may have chosen different providers because you were approached by them at the time of your need. But most of the insurance companies do not limit themselves to a single type of insurance. They do offer coverage for all major types of insurance.

    What you can do is compare the different companies and then select one of them which has an affordable coverage plan. Now approach this company and intimate them of your decision to merge your other insurances along with the one you already have with them. So if this company is already providing you home insurance coverage, indicate that you would like them to handle your health insurance and auto / car insurance as well.

    This is a win-win situation for both of you, because the insurance company gets more business and reciprocates by extending considerable discounts in premiums to you.

    Don’t stop shopping — compare and save

    Don’t be under the impression that you need to stick with the insurance company you currently have. It always helps to look around for more lucrative deals. Chances are that you will stumble upon better discounts or better coverage plans if you look around.

    The best way to do this is to keep track of the latest entrants into the insurance market, because these are the companies that are eager to land new customers and build their business.

    At DontSpendMore.com, we have several insurance plans that you can compare at the click of your mouse.