As I write this post and wait for an internet technician to arrive, I’d thought I’d share with you some ‘savings’ I’ve been enjoying. Now, the savings aren’t extravagant, however, as I like to think, over time, small amounts can produce lots of income in the future.
Some background
About a year ago, I was looking to switch up my ‘triple play’ with an internet provider – Verizon. We were tired of our cable bills constantly increasing. The chance to unbundle looked like it would save us about $80 a month. I was pumped to make the move especially when Verizon was offering essentially $40 monthly just for internet service. Our current bill was approaching $170 with cable and phone included. The $40 price would be substantial savings even with picking up a new streaming service.
I contacted Verizon to cancel my cable and landline and keep the internet for the $40 price. They were quite cordial and polite even thanking me for being such a loyal customer. Unfortunately, the $40 was for new customers only and my price would be $79+ per month! Really? That’s loyalty for you?
That’s loyalty for you
After trying to get a price adjustment for my loyalty, I finally ended up letting them know I would simply switch providers and they would lose me. And that was it. No price adjustment. No loyalty discount. Oh well.
Two weeks later, the Comcast tech drove up our driveway and installed their internet service. They would be charging us $40 a month. Got my $80 monthly savings and transitioned from cable to streaming.
At the beginning of this post I said “over time, small amounts can produce lots of income in the future”. So how does keeping an eye on my cable/internet/phone bills translate into income in the future? Check out the table below:
This is an example of someone 25 years old who eliminated an $83 monthly expense. They put the money into an investment earning an average of 8% rather than spending. By the time they reach age 60, there’s over $179,000 in the account! Withdrawing just 4% each year going forward until they reach 85 years totals $317,643. That’s an average of $12,706 a year or $1,059 a month!
Imagine…saving $1,000 a year by cutting expenses today can provide you an average of $1,000 a month in retirement!
Review your own expenses
Of course, it doesn’t have to be your internet bill like me. It can be anything. $83 a month is roughly less than $3 a day. As another example, I wrote about savings after reviewing my car insurance in this post. There’s plenty of monthly expenses to look through. When folks say cutting out the lattes each day doesn’t amount to anything, I argue it does! Take some time this weekend to review your own expenses and see if there’s any savings to be had. Even small amounts can produce big differences.
Well, where are we now?
Where does this leave us? Everything has been going smoothly. We’ve pocketed nearly $1,000 in savings over the past year.
Everything has been going smoothly. Well, until last month. That’s when our Comcast bill arrived. There was some especially tiny text under the $40 charge. It essentially said that our introductory rate was about to expire. “Hmmm”, I said to myself, can’t be as bad as the previous provider, right?
Wrong. Upon further investigation (because of course they don’t tell you what it will be), I found the rate would change to about $80 a month. Back to where we were a year ago. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was another note at the end of the bill that stated they was increasing charges going forward as well!
I honestly can’t recall whether the rate I got a year ago was disclosed as introductory or not. Given everything else going on over the past year it seems like an insignificant issue for me.
Recognizing the experience we had with Verizon and with trying to be a loyal customer, we knew what our approach would be with Comcast. Jump.
Back to Verizon
So, as I write this, I’m waiting for the Verizon technician to arrive. Funny, now that we haven’t been a loyal customer of Verizon for a year, they let us sign up for $40 a month. Who knew? But get this….not only are we keeping our monthly expense level, the new plan is twice as fast as the old plans.
Crazy, right? A little over a year ago, the provider wanted to charge us twice as much for half the speed. Wait a year and now its half the price for twice the speed! Can’t wait until next year to see how Comcast will sweeten the pot.
Find some savings in your expenses
Here’s to hoping you can find something in your monthly expenses that you can change to provide just a little more lift to your savings. As demonstrated above, it doesn’t need to be huge (of course, if it is huge then I congratulate you!). Even small amounts, can produce lots of income in the future.
Thanks for stopping by.
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Post image credit: Photo by Umberto on Unsplash