Whether you had an unexpected loss of income or just want to reduce your monthly expenses to make life more comfortable, this series will give you a host of money-reducing ideas. Each family will have different needs and priorities, so this series will serve as a spring-board for finding what works best for your unique family.

• Vehicle and home-owners insurance — Re-evaluate your insurance deductibles. You will pay less each month by raising your home and vehicle deductibles, but you must decide if higher deductibles work for your family. If you have $1000 saved and available to use in case of an accident, raising your deductibles may be a good idea. If you have had a claim in the past year, you may want to check with your agent because changing your deductible within a year of a claim may result in a penalty. Though it doesn’t save money monthly, if you rent, it is worth the few dollars a month to have renters insurance.

• Phone and Internet – Check with your phone company to make sure you have the best plan. Many people are changing from landline to cell phone exclusively. This can save lots of money, but is it the best plan for you? Our family chooses to keep the landline for many reasons:

1. 1. First, our landline is reliable. We had an ice storm last winter and cell phones were down for days and cordless phones did not work because of a loss of electricity. We had an old corded phone tucked away in the basement so I plugged it in and could communicate with the world again.
   2. We are fairly selective about who we give our cell numbers to, so if we get a call when we are out, we know it is someone that we know well or it is an important call.
   3. We get a good package deal combining phone, internet, and satellite from our phone company. Most companies have a few different Internet options, so be sure you are not paying for a service with more bells and whistles than you really need. We were able to reduce our bill by changing an internet option to a “DSL Light” and we never noticed a change in quality.

• Satellite/Cable – Some families are choosing to go without this service. That certainly will reduce your bill, but if this option is not for you, then examine the package you are using and decide if you are paying for channels you do not really need. Contact the provider to see where money can be shaved off.  If you have a landline phone service, check with the phone company to see if they have package deals. As I previously mentioned, we pay for our satellite through the phone company where we get a discount for a bundled package of phone, internet and satellite. This also makes bill paying easier since we pay one bill to one company.

Next time, I’ll give you some more ideas on reducing other fixed monthly expenses.

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