Think Big

It's important to pay attention to detail. For example, I've been using online bill payment for quite awhile now. It cost me $5.95 per month, which was about the cost of stamps. The reason I chose online bill payment was its convenience. I also hate the taste of glue on envelopes. A couple months ago, my credit union started offering their own version of online bill payment.

I changed over to them, not only because it saves me about $2 per month. This way I'm not giving all my credit card numbers to a 3rd party bill paying service, even though I did trust them. Besides, it's just as convenient. The savings after an entire year will cover about a 1/2 tank of gas.

You do yourself more justice by concentrating more on big ticket expenses - think of how it can be used to offset some of your other costs. For example, I was paying about $450 every 6 months for auto insurance. I decided to buy one of 3 cars, so I called my insurance company, and asked for a quote on each make and model.

The car I ended up buying, I was told could be insured for roughly $550 every 6 months. I was pretty pleased that it wouldn't cost much more to insure a brand new car than it cost to insure my hooptie.

A couple weeks later, I was sitting in my brand new car in the garage, and called the insurance company to inform them of the change. The woman I spoke with told me it would cost over $900 per six months. I felt like they were holding me hostage. I had to choice, since I needed the insurance. So, I agreed to their terms.

Then I went through those flyers we all get in the mail, and which I save for times like these. A different insurance company offered the same coverage for about $650. So I switched to them, and cancelled with the original company. So they re-imbursed me (pro-rated) for about 5 1/2 months. Almost 6 months passed. Guess who came crawling back to me with their new and improved $528 / 6 months rate?

I saved over $600 in a year - just on car insurance, and all it cost was a couple phone calls. I've saved about that much on homeowners insurance, as well. And that savings carries forward: If I allowed that insurance company to gouge $900 out of me, it would cost me about $1800 for this year, $1800 for next year, and so on... of AFTER-TAX dollars. That's like free gas and electricity! Well, at least it used to be.

It's nice to save a couple dollars here and there, but don't sweat the small stuff until after you've taken care of some of your biggest expenses.