Sharing Services, Saving Serious Cash
Written on Saturday, December 03, 2005 by Dus10 D :: 5 Comments
Who ever said that you had to give up some of the nice things in your life to be frugal? It sure wasn't me. Do you have cellular phone or satellite service? Do you have family or friends that also want to save money? There are a couple of ways that you can share some services to save quite a bit of cash. If that sounds interesting, then here is a frugal living tip just for you.Almost all cellular carriers offer family plans these days. The standard plan is $9.99/month for each additional phone you add to the plan. My wife and I have the lowest family plan from Cingular Wireless. Even so, with Cingular's Rollover, we have a considerable amount of minutes left over each month. How much? About half. Now, I already let you in on the secret from Cingular Wireless about finding discounted service fees... how would you like to save even more? I thought you would. Do you have a family member or a friend whom you talk with frequently that would also like to save some money? Add them to your plan, split the bill. How you split it is up to you. Obviously, there are some trust factors involved, so be wary if trust is fleeting.
You can do the same thing with satellite television services. Many times, you pay $5/month to add an extra receiver to your plan. This is an advantage compared to cable television. Since the service is wirelss to your dish, you can move it. Find a friend or family member who wants to save money, and have them buy their own dish, and get the receiver through your plan, and split the monthly bill. Again, trust comes into play, as well as working out programming selections.
My sister-in-law's family does this with her husbands parents. The beauty of their arrangement is that one of them carries the cellular service, while the other carries the satellite television service. So, they do not keep track of sending each other money, they just pay their bill as it comes it, and they get two great services for just slightly over the price of one.
Do you have any services that you could expand this idea apon?
December 05, 2005 10:31 AM
I don't know if this falls under the category of "service," but a magazine subscription share would save money also. If each person received a magazine that the other would like, they could agree to switch halfway through the month, and enjoy the magazines for half of the price.