The Johnson Crew!

It's the year 2022 and all the prices are rapidly raising and yet our paychecks are staying the same. Wait. What? Yeah. Okay, this is a real problem, but without getting into it, let's talk about ways that we can cut back on spending right now. This is not going to be a nickel and dime kind of list. You're not even going to have to change your standard of living.

How great is that? I'm going to share seven simple strategies to help you shrink your bills. I would highly recommend grabbing a pen and paper or just typing on your computer and taking some notes so that you can actually go and implement these things after you watch the video. Number one, your internet bill. I feel like most of my friends and I all pay different prices. Why is this?

I don't really know, but there is a way to be sure that you're getting the best price and that is simply calling your internet provider. Let me explain. So, I put a reminder in my calendar every 6 to 12 months to call Comcast. That's our internet provider. And I ask them, "What are your new promotions?" Because typically when you sign up for internet, you're on a promotion for about 6 to 12 months and then when that runs out, you're just on the standard rate.

And if you have never called, you're probably paying something that you don't need to pay. Comcast changes their prices frequently and they come out with new promotions. Um we really only use internet, but sometimes when I've called, they've said, "Well, the double play is actually cheaper than just paying for internet." And so, even though we don't use a home phone or even the TV service cuz we just use streaming services, um we'll get that bundled in.

We still don't use it, but it still lowers our monthly bill. So, it's it's totally worth it. It's great. Sometimes I've called and I've saved $20 a month. Sometimes I've called and kept the same price per month, but gotten a higher internet speed. You could save as much as $100 a month. Some people I've talked to, their bill is crazy high and they don't even use the TV service anymore or their phone service anymore and they've just never called to cut it off.

So, this is totally worth calling. It only takes about 15 minutes. If you're like me, I do really hate getting on the phone with companies and I hate holding and all of that nonsense. Uh but Comcast is pretty good, actually. And so, I'll set that reminder in my calendar and I'll call them during my kids' quiet time in the afternoon. Just takes me 15 minutes and it's really, really worth it.

The important part of this is that if you're signing up for a promotion, find out how long that lasts and that's when you put the reminder in your calendar is to call a few days before that promotion is ending so that you don't end up getting a higher bill the following month. Please let me know if you go and do this. I would love to know what your savings are after you made this phone call.

And you can drop that in the comments below. Number two, subscriptions. We're probably all guilty of signing up for a free trial and then forgetting to cancel the subscription or even using something for a little while and then not really having the need for it anymore. So, an important way to figure that out is going on your credit card statements, your bank account statements, and you need to be checking those every month for a myriad of reasons, but what we'll focus on right now is just to see if there's any subscription that you're being billed for every month, bi-monthly, whatever it is.

Some of these subscriptions are yearly, so it's important to check every month and that way you can see if there's something that you need to cancel. This has saved us a lot of money in the recent years. We've gotten better at making sure that we're checking all those things. In the past, there have been times where we waited, waited, waited and finally looked at the account, we're like, "Oh my goodness, we've been paying for this subscription that we haven't used in the last 6 months.

How silly." Um another good place to check is on your phone. Um I have an iPhone. On the iPhone, in settings, there's a subscriptions tab, and you can click on that and see what you're currently subscribed to on your phone, see what apps you're subscribed to, and then you can easily cancel those subscriptions on your phone. Another great reason to be checking your accounts monthly, regularly, is that sometimes you have things like Comcast or some other bill that goes up after a while.

And if you aren't checking regularly, you can't keep tabs on that. So, make sure you're checking, and then if that happens, you can call that company and find out if it's a reasonable um upcharge, or if there's something that you need to figure out, and maybe they've got a new promotion that you can sign up for. You get where I'm going with this. So, be keeping tabs on your expenses by looking at your bank account and credit card statements monthly.

And side note there, if you ever are charged a late fee by any company, and really you're just a day or a couple days late, um don't be afraid to call these companies and explain yourself, and ask if they're willing to waive the late fee. A lot of places will do this. A lot of them have a certain number of times a year that they're they will allow you to do that.

So, don't be afraid to call, um especially if the late fee is pretty big. It's definitely worth calling and getting that removed. I won't tell you how I know that one. Honestly, simply just monitoring your accounts on the regular will help you know how much you're spending in each category, how much money you have, and these two things alone will help you be more conscientious when That's a hard word to say.

Uh when you are making spending decisions. Number three. Install Honey and Rakuten. If you already have these, awesome. Great. If you haven't heard of these or have never installed them into your web browser, they are amazing. I love having these two things installed. Let me tell you why. They help you get coupon codes automatically added on shopping sites and they also earn you cash back rewards just on any spending that you do online.

So, that's pretty awesome. So, like just recently when I got on Comcast website, I saw that Rakuten if you were signing up as a new customer was offering $125 cash back. Pretty crazy. The way it works is you install it as an extension to your web browser and so when you get on a website, a little tiny window will pop up on the site from Honey, from Rakuten and will tell you what kind of cash back you can earn.

And then for Honey, when you go to pay, that's when it runs all the different coupon codes that are available and a lot of times I'll get 10 to 25% off. I'll usually get a free shipping code. So, it is super helpful. And then Walmart, that's where I do all my grocery shopping. Honey doesn't have coupons for Walmart's site, but Rakuten will give you 1% cash back and since that's where I'm doing a lot of spending every month, that starts to add up.

So, that's kind of cool. I'll take it. And I do have my referral links for each of those in the description box below. This is not a sponsored video and anybody can get referral links for either of those companies. So, you can send it to your friends and if they sign up, I think you get like $10 back, something like that. So, thank you in advance. Number four, double check your medical bills.

Okay, a lot of times we think, "Oh, this goes into a system. There's no way it's going to be wrong. It's fine." and we just pay it and we move along. But, it's still people who are entering the data and people make mistakes. So, do not just let that bill come and go and you just sign a check and move on. Double check those things. There have been so many mistakes on our bills over the last several years that, yeah, it's annoying to call and deal with, but the money is really worth it.

So, got to do it. We've had mistakes ranging from $20 to $1,000. Um the $1,000 one has only happened once and that was because they didn't use the right code when they submitted it to our insurance company. So, which I didn't even really know that that's what it was at first. I just saw this giant bill that I wasn't expecting and called right away like, "What is happening?" Um so, don't be afraid to call, double check things, question things.

You don't have to call and be a jerk. I do not do that. Um but call legitimately asking, "Is this correct?" and double checking things. Mistakes can be made and you don't want to have to pay for those. Number five, do your research before you buy. Okay, this could go, you know, in a lot of different directions, but specifically I'm talking about services that you're going to be paying for monthly and annually, not just big product purchases, but that's a good place to do it, too.

I'm talking auto insurance. You really could do kind of like Comcast, but maybe just call every couple of years and see if there's a way to lower your bill. You could always go and call one or two other auto insurance companies and compare their rates. And if you love your insurance company, you can bring those rates to them, give them a call, let them know what you got quoted, and a lot of times these places they want to compete.

They want to keep your business, so they a lot of times will lower your rate to whatever you found. So, don't be afraid to try that. If you're in the market for a new house and you're going to have to get a mortgage, this is a huge place where you have got to do comparison research. Don't just go with whatever mortgage broker your realtor suggests. I would recommend researching between three and five different mortgage brokers.

And once you research the first one, you're going to know all the different things you're looking for to compare. So, just you can write it down on a piece of paper or if you want to get super nerdy and organized like me, you can make an Excel sheet with the different categories. It doesn't have to be that complicated though. And you can ask each company what their interest rate and all the different categories, what you need to know, and you can compare those companies.

And again, you can take that information back to the broker that your realtor suggested and see if they can match it if you really want to try to go with them. But there are a lot of different pieces and parts to buying a house specifically wrapped into the mortgage piece where the different companies can vary and you can save a ton of money not just up front but over the 30-year life of your loan.

So, very worth researching this. And along with that, you're going to need home insurance. Again, research three to five companies and compare them. And you can do this with business insurance and health insurance. Uh for health insurance, if you or your husband's company does not pay for your spouse and your kids to be on the policy, usually that policy is quite expensive to get added onto. Everybody does it differently, but do a little bit of research to know what's available to you so you're not just being gouged unnecessarily.

Um so, we ended up, since we own our own business, uh nothing in the marketplace even seemed affordable. And so, we ended up going with Medi-Share, which is like a Christian sharing plan. It's not exactly like insurance, but it it does work similarly. They can explain it better on their site, but I can tell you that we have had it for the last 5 years and really like it and feel like it's been a great financial setup for us.

And I do have a referral link to that as well below, and that's again, if you sign up for um Medi-Share, you can get a referral link to then send to your friends. So, it's something anyone can get, but if you are interested and you want to use my link, I super appreciate it. Number six, kind of along that note, ask about self-pay at your doctor's office and dentist office because these offices have to bill the maximum billable amount that the insurance company allows.

And so, sometimes it's actually cheaper to just not go through insurance at all and self-pay. Um so, it's worth asking, and you don't have to go in there and pretend that you don't have insurance. You can just say, "Can you tell me what it would be to use my insurance versus self-pay?" You can ask these questions. It's so weird to me that like prices are so hidden and muddied because of the insurance company, and that drives me crazy.

Um especially because we're a family of six, that's a lot of different medical expenses we're having to deal with throughout the year. Um So, do not feel weird or like you're being annoying to ask the front desk people this question. It could be a very big difference in what the cost would be, so it's totally worth it. And a lot of people that I've asked this to are totally understanding and like want to do what's going to be best for me.

They're not like, "Uh." So, don't feel bad, just ask what the difference is between the two. My last tip for you, number seven, is to use GasBuddy. If you've not heard of this app before or just haven't downloaded ever on your phone, um I do have a link below for that as well. I'm trying to put as many as I can in here so you can easily go and do all of these things.

GasBuddy basically pulls up a list of gas stations that are near you and tells you what the price is. And so, I'm not one that's going to like go somewhere if it's like 5 cent difference necessarily, or I'm not going to go out of my way, but I'll look and see, all right, what's going to be along my route or maybe just another street over um on my route between my house and wherever we're going.

And I really only started doing this this year when gas prices went so crazy cuz it felt like, man, I am potentially wasting a lot of money if I go to the wrong gas station because in our area, I've seen a difference of like 70 cents in just our like 5-mile radius that I'm driving around in most times. Isn't that crazy? So, worth looking at. I've got like a 21-gallon tank, so you're talking like almost a $15 savings each time.

So, it's worth it. It's worth checking. Uh it's not like it takes a lot of time. So, that's a useful app in this time of crazy gas prices. That's all I'm going to share today because I don't want to overload you, but when I started making this list, I came up with a lot more. So, if you do like this kind of video, let me know in the comments below if you want to see a part two because I've got a lot more I can share.

I just didn't want to overwhelm you. And you know, sometimes when you get too many tips, it's like you're frozen. You're paralyzed and you don't know what to start with first and it's too hard, and then you do nothing. So, I didn't want to do that to you. So, let me know in the comments if you want to do a part two, and if you like this kind of video, definitely give it a thumbs up.

Super appreciate that. And if you're new here, my name is Sarah and my channel is all about homeschooling and life as a family of six. So, if that interests you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button below. This is a great community here on YouTube and we are all here for each other trying to help another mama out. So, we'd love to have you join along and join us here every week.

So, thank you for joining me today and I'll see you next week. Ways that we can cut expenses. Spensals. Pennies. The way it works is it you uh