Ending '08 With A Small Bang

So I finally called my phone company to remove the voicemail ($6) and maintenance ($7.50) services that I discussed in the Every Penny Counts post. When the customer service rep asked how she could help me, I told her that I was interested in reducing my monthly bill but not at the expense of upgrading or getting additional services to bundle. To my surprise she said "okay, let me see what I can do." She then rattles off the following:

• We can reduce your local service from $35 to $26;
• We can reduce your unlimited long distance from $21.99 to $9;
• Your voicemail is $6, we can reduce that to, $0 (yes, zero);
• The maintenance plan is $7.50 but that will increase to $9.99 if you choose to keep it (the increase is due to the additional coverage of the DSL modem);
• The DSL you have is $32.95 and we can reduce that to $27.95 (my company pays for my DSL so this doesn't impact my monthly budget, however the $5 savings is still welcomed)

The total phone savings per month is $30.50, $5 for my company and $25.50 for me! I was calling to reduce my services and save $13.50 but I get to keep all of the services and save $25.50 instead! How awesome.

Feeling pretty good about my conversation with the phone company, I called Directv to see if my luck would continue and guess what, they offered me a $10 per month price reduction, plus free premium channels for 6 months. My guess is that either the recession or cable is creating some customer reductions for them and they are trying to hold onto those of us who remain. Whatever the reason, I'm happy to be a beneficiary of their generosity;-).

In total, there will be an additional $35.50 added back to my monthly budget for 2009. The $35.50 monthly will yield an annual savings of $426, which will be used as extra principal payments on my mortgage. Paying the additional $426 in principal payments will save me approximately $1,400 in interest payments. Woo Hoo!