Bill Creep

I struggled with a title for this post - but basically what I'm talking about is all of those bills we have - for TV, phone, internet, radio etc. that starts off at a promotional rate, and then creeps up in price over time.

I don't have a set schedule for it, but at least a couple of times a year I call up our service providers to make sure we're paying the best rates for our services and see if I can negotiate better prices.

Today I called up Shaw (TV/Cable), Bell (cell phones), and Sirius (satellite radio) - I had no joy with Shaw and Bell - but I had great success with Sirius.

We got our satellite radios when we purchased our cars - of course it was free for the first six months and then there was a fee for it afterwards...but I didn't really look at the details until now.

We had been paying $190.84/year for one of them and and $119/year for the other...what?! $310.88!  So I asked if we bundled them what pricing deals he could offer - and the agent came up with $294/year ($175+$119) - I told him $300 for radio was just ridiculous, commercial free or not, and asked one more time if there was anything he could do to get me better pricing.

and he did.

We renewed the account for $120 for the next year!  Saving over half the price if I hadn't made that phone call.

That's pretty good for only 15 minutes of time over my lunch break on a Friday.