#21 Read your bills carefully.
When the first bills of the year arrived hubby and I spent and afternoon pouring over every line. We do this each January to check for additional fees, rising rates, or erroneous charges.
For the remainder of the year we do a quick scan of each bill as it arrives.
What should you look for?
- Base cost increases.
- New fees.
- Actual use of services.
If the cost of a service has increased make a quick call to verify the amount and request an explanation.
It's also worth a phone call if there are new or unexplained fees in your bill. Some services are charging fees for online payments or receiving a paper bill. Ask what you can do to eliminate fees such as these.
Ask yourself how you use the service you're paying for. If you have unlimited texting on your phone, but never text, you may want to eliminate the service option. Make sure you optimize each service based on your actual use.
We recently noticed a new charge of $9.99 on our phone bill. When we called our phone company they had billed us for a new service we hadn't requested. Unchecked that bill would have cost us an extra $120 over the course of the year!
We need to make this a habit as well. Thanks for the reminder.
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Good tips, thanks! You should also carefully check your credit card statements (if you use one). My MIL found where she had been billed $40 as a tip for a meal; the tip should have been $4.
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