Something that many people aren’t aware of is how much complacency can cost them. Many businesses throughout the world are pretty much built around the fact that most people will be too lazy to look for alternative services, or to negotiate lower costs. These companies then will attract people to their services whether those are credit cards or insurance policies with attractive sign-up offers, only to then increase their rates drastically once their users are signed up.
Being smart, and being discriminating as well as being vigilant is the best way to avoid falling foul of these schemes and it can save you a huge amount of cash. Here’s some advice to help you do just that.
Sign Up Online
The first way you can save money on many bills is by signing up for them online. Electricity and internet providers want to encourage this because it means they can save costs on manpower and that means they’re willing to offer you a discounted rate. If you’re not a fan of signing up online, it’s worth getting over that for the sake of those savings.
Look Elsewhere
If you’ve ever taken out car insurance then you’ll know how many companies will try and catch you out by putting up your rates rather than rewarding your loyalty and this is where they rely on your complacency to prevent you from going elsewhere. In reality though it’s not much effort to change to another provider, so if that does happen then make sure you take the time to switch to another provider.
In fact if you’re smart you can do this every year to make the most of incentives from multiple companies. For instance, when you take out a new credit card you may well find that you’re offered 0% APR for six months or even a year – and if you’re in debt there’s nothing to stop you from transferring this debt between those cards every year to avoid paying any interest for a long time.
Negotiate
Before you look elsewhere though, make sure to ring up your current providers and let them know your plans. Particularly with mobile phone contracts, but also in a lot of other cases, you’ll find that as soon as you mention leaving they’ll start offering you better rates. This way you save the hassle of changing over, but at the same time get the benefit of the lower costs as well.
Change Yourself
In some cases it’s not them, but actually you who are responsible for the costly rates and you might find it’s possible to reduce your rates by making some changes to your lifestyle or circumstances. For instance if you want to enjoy cheaper life insurance then you will find that you can often do that by quitting smoking, while you can get cheaper car insurance if you swap to a car with a smaller engine, or if you start parking it off road. Meanwhile you can get almost any loan cheaper by improving your credit rating and there are a number of ways you can do this as well.
About the Author: Chantille McDonald is a sales executive and works with a pet insurance company.
