Many of us faithfully do a number of little things to save money, everything from clipping coupons to using the library to turning down our thermostats. These small steps do add up and hopefully save us a decent amount of money over time. It’s just as important, though, to trim costs in areas that will have a large payback.
Last summer I spent the better part of an hour comparing insurance rates for our home and cars. Because it’s almost always less expensive to combine home and auto, I gathered all quotes with this assumption. I sat down with what were our current policies at the time and got some preliminary quotes online. For the companies that looked promising, I gave them a call to get a more detailed quote. The least expensive offer with the best coverage was a company that has an office only a few miles from my house. After getting the quote over the phone, I stopped by the office one afternoon and took care of the paperwork. I was there for about 20 minutes.
For roughly 90 minutes of my time, we saved over $400/year on our homeowner’s insurance and ended up with MORE coverage than we had initially. We also saved another $200/year on our auto insurance.
Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach You to be Rich has a great post on negotiating car insurance rates if you’re interested in a detailed plan.
I plan to check on insurance rates every few years, just to make sure we’re getting the best deal. I’m still doing the “little things” to save money, but tackling some of the larger expenses can boost those savings in a significant way.
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Hi beth; how do you find the time. I loved the square foot gardening, sam has a new project on his to do list. see you ! n