Saving money is always good
Every so often I take a look at our contracts etc. with utilities and the like to see if I can get better options and plans. A couple of weeks ago I was looking at our satellite boxes we have for the TV and realized that they were now five years old and were large and bulky and silver. All our other TV equipment is black!
So I looked online at Shaw’s website to see if new versions were available and how much they cost. It turns out they did have new models which were much smaller and black and had additional features, but they were $199 each and we ideally needed two. Far too much money just on a whim of changing so I looked at Bell.
It seemed that we could get a better deal from Bell as new customers so I phoned Shaw to ask if they could do any better pricing on the unit. At first he offered me a discount so that we paid $150, but I said that was still too much as at the end of the day we didn’t have to change them. He then said he could offer me one for $99. I said could he offer me two at that price, he said no only one would be $99, the other $150, so again I declined and said I would not bother. He then told me to wait whilst he checked something out.
He came back to me a few minutes later saying that he could do both units at $99 after all. I said if he could do both units for a total of $99 he had a deal. The line went silent – I feared I had gone too far – but then he said okay! So I got two new satellite units for a total of $99 plus tax.
We later sold the old units on Kijiji and got back our money.
Yesterday I did the same with our cell phone. We were on a contract for our iPhone and although our phone usage was low, we used quite a bit of data. We were paying $65 plus tax per month, but last month went well over the 1GB limit and doubled our bill, so I wanted to know what we could do about it. I looked on the website and found the next level up was $85 per month with 2GB of data, so I called to make sure this was the best deal.
The guy I spoke to asked how we used the phone and what services we required etc. I explained our situation and he suggested a plan that would cost less, but give us more data usage but less caller use, which was fine by me. After going through the options we are now on a plan which offers 6GB of data, voicemail, 150 mins calls, unlimited evening & w/e calls, caller display, texting etc for $55 per month. So we have a lot more for a lot less money. Brilliant.
It definitely pays to check these things out every so often. It really does.




