Oh yeah. In fact, sometimes I don’t even have to ask-- I’ve called about other things, and the rep will say something like, “Hey, I notice you’re on the X-minute plan for Y dollars a month, we have a new plan with X+50 minutes for the same price, would you like to switch?” Maybe it’s just a Verizon thing.
I suppose the only thing I do is shop at privately owned companies and pay cash. It’s amazing how many people will offer you a discount without you asking them if you say you’re paying cash. Or more likely they say the price is $546.38, so you start counting out bills and they say “Oh, $500 is fine.” That happens quite often, actually.
Regarding the other stuff though - do you guys really find that it makes an appreciable difference in your monthly budget?
Since we already had high-speed internet (Comcast), I dumped our phone company and use Vonage, $25/mo. We used to pay about $40 for our phone bill, not including long distance. That added up to about $25-30 saved each month.
We keep the thermostat at 65 during the day, 60 at night. My parents keep theirs at 68 and whenever I go there, I have to strip down to a t-shirt. It’s uncomfortably warm.
We shop at Costco. A gallon of milk there is a full dollar less than at ShopRite, and at 2 gallons a week, that adds up fast.
I pack a lunch 3-4 days a week, which is usually just a lunchmeat sandwich and an apple. Buying lunch around here, even just a salad, will run 7-8 bucks easy, so I’m looking at close to $100 savings each month. Sweet.
I set my cruise control at around 63- the highway I take to and from work is 55, but everyone drives 65-70. I just hang out in the right lane and get much better gas mileage now- I went from 25 mpg to 30, every tank. It only adds about 3 minutes to my commute, and I don’t have to constantly be on the lookout for cops. They pretty much let you slide at 63.
Cable and satellite companies will lower their prices too, if you live in an area where they compete. You have to be willing to switch which can be a little of a pain. Right now I only pay about $40 for Dish tv with 60 channels and DVR on 2 tv’s, plus free HBO. Then I referred a friend to them and I will soon be getting another $5 off per month for that. I switched to them after my promo for digital cable ran out, I just keep calling them and saying I am cancelling because I got a better deal elsewhere. Often they will match the price, but if they don’t I switch. You do have to be careful not to lock yourself into a contract though, and sometimes you have to pay an install fee but often you can get that waived as well, and it is still cheaper than most plans.
I personally have given up on the coupons a little, I find that clipping them and keeping them organized enough to use them just to get .40 cents off my next order wasn’t worth it to me. Stores in my area don’t do double or triple coupon days or anything, so it was a pain and I found I was only saving $2-3 each time. I do a quick glance in the Sunday paper to see what’s on sale that week, and for big coupons or percentages off your whole order. I just shop at the store with lower prices overall, and look for sales. I do buy bulk in things that I always need that are expensive though, like diapers. You can also sometimes get discounts by buying things online, or signing up for e-mail coupons from stores. Visit your favorite stores’ websites and see if they have promos.
I really try to shop around on things I pay monthly like phone and cable, and to reduce energy use. Like others have said, often companies will lower prices if you just ask.
When is “off-peak”? During the day, when most people are at work, or at night, when businesses and factories are closed?
I have never had this happen.
What kind of business offers this? 
BTW–we’re switching to screw-in fluorescent bulbs.
You can cut your light bills.
And you don’t have to climb ladders all the time, changing bulbs.
Frugality is something I’m pretty good at. One thing we do is not pay for TV. We have a Netflix subscription instead which costs at least half. We don’t get to watch a show the day it airs, but just about everything comes out on DVD these days. We watch on our schedule without commercials or reruns. It’s not for everyone, but we’ve been doing this for seven years and it works very well for us.
We also spend less than $300 month on groceries for the family. We don’t buy a lot of prepackaged foods or name brand items (unless on a good sale.) I don’t buy meat unless it’s less than $2 a lb. We don’t do a lot of meals that include a slab of meat with a side dish. Stir fry is cheaper. I make most stuff from scratch including most of our baked goods. I think I have the only kids in the country who won’t eat Chef Boyardee.
Ditto on not paying for cable TV–I have it now, but for years I relied on the internet and, when it became available, Netflix. Now that I have cable, I’m honestly not sure it’s worth the price–except that there are reruns of Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs at a much higher volume than I could get with Netflix’ 3-at-a-time plan.
Something else I picked up on in college is to not order a drink when you eat out. I lived in a dormitory without food service for a couple of years, so I ate out once a day, and quickly figured out that there are water fountains right outside the food court–and they’re free.
Driving a car until it breaks down is a big one, for people who like to buy their cars new. My current Camry is 12 years old and showing no signs of stopping.
It’s sometimes a Cingular thing as well. This has happened once in the time I’ve had a plan with them (about 6 years). They called my phone about 4 weeks ago and asked if I wanted to keep my text messaging the way it was or to change it. I asked what I could change it to. They explained to me that I could get 100 more messages a month or something like that plus I would have twice as much internet use from my phone. I was pretty happy to switch since it cost exactly the same, I just had to tell them to go for it.
Brendon
(on electric rates)
You need to have a utility that offers time-of-day based rates. Some utilities sell power at a discount at night. The idea is you run the laundry (or whatever) at night, and it’s that much less load that they need to worry about supplying during the day when most businesses are open and drawing large amounts of power, or in the summer, when thousands of air conditioners are cranking away.
When I was in Sacramento, the utility there had a voluntary load-shedding program called “Peak Corps” that gave us a significant discount if we allowed them to remotely control power to the air conditioner.
Humm - let’s see:
- Mechanic
- Fav. clothing botiques (a couple - I’m sort of a regular).
- Service people (plumbers, electricians, etc)
- Dog groomers
Really, just about anywhere that’s privately owned and sells a product or service. I don’t even ask - I just pull cash out of my wallet and they offer.
You sound like a great mom and homemaker! 
(Reminds me of my own… sniff…)
Our off-peak time is something like 11pm-6am. I found out that we had off-peak rates when I received the bill and it separated our usage, so if you check your bill it might have something similar.
My tips are straightforward:
Keeping a library card. I not only check out books, but movies too. Checking books out of the library allows you to save money, and it also gives you a chance to “sample” books you wouldn’t otherwise read. It also keeps you from accumulating a bunch of books you don’t like.
Also, my library allows its patrons to download audiobooks and listen to classical music. I take advantage of these services much more than I pay in taxes.
Buying from Goodwill. There’s a Goodwill Superstore down the street from me, and you’ll find me there on a monthly basis. They have namebrand clothes there for very cheap, plus books, movies, and housewares.
Oh yeah, forgot about that one, I am definitely on board with that.
Both the cars we drive we got for less than $500 each about 5 years ago. No car payments, cheap insurance (only have to carry liability) and good gas mileage on both.
The only bad thing is for some reason when the cars decide to break down (about once a year) they both do it at the same time!!! Right before Christmas we had the alternators go out on both cars! What a pain. Ended up costing about $300 altogether, but we figure that’s our yearly car payment.
I don’t know how we would make it if we had monthly car payments on top of our house payment and other bills.
Thank you. That makes sense. Our utility bill is very basic – garbage, water, sewer, and electricity all on a little postcard. The bills are computed using a homemade Excel-based program and printed on an HP Laserjet.
I don’t know if we separate peak/non-peak hours, but I’ll bet the city we buy our electricity from does. I’m gonna ask at the next city council meeting.
I’m a true tightwad at heart. Mr. Adoptmom is self employed so it’s usually feast or famine around here and I’ve had to learn to pinch a penny until it squeals.
Today I went to Lowes to look for lamps for our new home. None reached out at said “take me home” but I wanted a little more time away from the house so I set out looking at all of their discounted items and hit the jackpot!
Two flats of pansies for $2.00
Two (huge) misc houseplants plants for $3.00
Three disposable houseplants (I have no idea what they are and I will prolly kill them in record time) for $1.00
I already had pots for the large houseplants and browsed through their pot selection for the disposable ones which were priced entirely too high. So I stopped by my local Goodwill on the way home and bought 3 pretty, ginormous, decorative coffee mugs for 69 cents. Pretty plants for inside and out for next to nothing!
None of my purchases were necessary for our physical survival, but sometimes you need to feed the inner interior decorator and today I hit paydirt
On that note… a lot of car problems are easy DIY fixes. Of course, car repairs and maintenance do require tools, parts and time… so YMMV. For items like alternators, you can return the core to Auto Zone or Orielly (whatever part store you have) and get a partial refund. Additionally, you can rent specialty tools from them with a deposit, then get a refund once you return the tools.
Oil changes are a piece of cake. I will never pay anyone to change my oil again.
Visa will not lower my rate, no matter how many times I ask! I have fantastic credit and rarely roll over a balance and they just keep saying “16.24% is a good rate, no one will be able to do better.” Then I call discover and they say, “Sure! You want 3.9%? We will take care of that for you today!”
The coupon thing really works best when you match them up with sales. You don’t buy something just because you have a coupon for it but because it is super cheap/almost free and you can buy a ton of it to last until it goes on sale again. My last trip to the grocery store I got $70 worth of groceries for $22. It takes some getting used to though.
Also, call your auto insurance company and have them go over all the possible discounts. Call your other insurance companies too! I work in auto insurance and I can’t tell you how many times I have found someone switched jobs or got married or improved their grades since we spoke to them last and they are now eligible for a new discount. Call when you have at least half an hour to talk though because they need to review all discounts and coverages for you to give you the best coverage at the lowest price.