Taking Advantage Of Work Benefits - Mobile Phone

I'm really lucky that as part of my job I get my mobile phone charges paid for. This saves me a fortune as you would expect. I haven't even seen a bill in years.

I work for a telecommunications company so have a good understanding of how people in Australia use their phones and the benefits available if you know what to look for.

When you sign up to a mobile phone provider (or signing up to a new one if you’re changing companies), it's really important that you read and understand what you're signing up for, before signing anything! It's a contract the same as any other contract, so please read the details.

Make sure you understand what you get for your commitment, flag falls, rates, cancellation fees, the total cost of the contact etc. If you don't understand or are unsure about something, don't sign anything until you've had your question answered to your satisfaction.

Before you use your phone to enter competitions, download ring tones, send photos or SMS people, make sure you understand what you'll be paying. Premium services attract premium charges. This particularly applies to using your mobile to access data service or send emails (if you have a newer handset with these capabilities).

There are also a number of ways you can save money on your mobile bills. Find out who you call that are with the same phone company. Most companies offer same network discount rates or even free calls on the same network at certain times of the day. An important thing to note is some of the smaller providers actually lease their network from the big companies (Telstra and Optus) so the benefits may even extend past your specific company.

If your bills are still too high, it might be that you're on the wrong plan. Call the customer service department and get them to check if you might be better off on another plan. Plans change all the time and if your current plan no longer suits, see what’s available to meet your new needs. A word of warning on this one though, make you’re your usage patterns has changed for a good 3 months, if it's just a one month blip, you may want to stay where you are as often if you switch to a new plan you may not be able to go back to the old plan if your usage pattern changes back.

Remember, if you do happen to receive an unexpectedly high mobile bill, you should always contact your service provider in the first instance. They really want to keep your business if at all possible, so why not take advantage of it!

To recap:

• Read everything and understand it before signing anything
• Ensure you know what you paying before you use your phone
• Take full advantage of same network call rates and free call times
• Make sure your phone plan still meets your ongoing usage patterns by reviewing every 3 months
• Always call your current providers customer service call centre before cancelling
• If you have a very high bill you can't pay, call them straight away to make payment arrangements
  

Brown Bagging Update

Today's shop was a personal best to date, only $18.13 for the whole weeks lunch fixings, bargain! Granted there were some leftovers from last week, and I'm pretty much stocked for butter and condiments these days, I was still chuffed though. My deli meats for my rolls came to less than $2 for the whole week!

There were people in the kitchen today actually watching us make up today's lunch, asking us questions about our routine, while admiring our lunches and being shocked at how little it all cost. I think we're becoming quite famous, well on our floor at least.

One girl said we should get our own cooking show!

Gift Cards To The Rescue!

I was in Coles yesterday doing my weekly shop, standing in the checkout queue and a thought stuck me 'I wonder if I can pay for my shopping with gift vouchers?'

So I whipped out all the gift cards I had in my wallet. I seem to accumulate a lot of these somehow, mainly through work rewards and incentives, but I've also got in the habit of claiming them back from my credit card reward schemes whenever I've got enough points.

Sure enough, my shopping came to just under $50 and 3 x $20 Coles Myer vouchers later, I walked out with cash in my wallet and my credit cards untouched. Sweet!

My mission this week is to locate all the gift cards I can find around my work desk, at home and in my handbag and see what I've actually got to play with.

I think I'd always 'saved' them to buy 'nice things' or 'treat myself' but didn't get around to actually using them, so now I can use them to buy things I actually need, and save my hard earned cash for paying off extra debt!

I really don't need any more stuff, so I think this is a far more effective use for them. What do you think?

Big Win Number 1

I have to say I’m pretty chuffed with myself. I paid off my first credit card today, woohoo

Credit Card 5 - $0 Paid in Full 21/09/2007

It was both my lowest balance and my highest interest rate, so regardless which snowball method you follow it’s all good. It was even one of those pesky store cards.

So the $345 that I was paying every two weeks on that one will now roll onto the next focus card, Credit Card 7.

Move Changes – Travel Cost Savings

My company just moved locations from the CBD to a more suburban technology park. This series outlines the money related changes I've made for myself as part of the move.

I think the most amazing money saving moving out here has offered me is my daily travel costs.

I used to drive to work every day and park in what I thought was the cheaper option of 'earlybird parking'. I was paying $18 a day for the 'privilege', plus paying $40 a fortnight in petrol driving to and from home, which also covered my regular leisure travel.

This was a massive $5060 a year (allowing for a 46 week working year).

My company provides free shuttle buses to the campus from my nearest railway station, which I can actually walk to if I choose, or catch another bus to get to (it's about a 20 minute easy walk).

10 trip bus tickets cost $13.60, so that's a maximum of $27.20 a fortnight, assuming I catch the bus to and from the station morning and evening. I've been walking home most nights and walked to the station twice in the last two weeks, so it could stretch out longer, but for budgeting I’m assuming bus each way each day.

This is only $625.60 a year (allowing for a 46 week working year) in comparison. I haven't put any petrol in my car for the last two weeks, so I'm assuming that I can halve my petrol budget, which reduces it to $460 a year for regular driving, for a new total of $1085.60.

So a saving of just over $3970 a year! That’s best part of paying off a credit card right there, all by itself.

I'm just gobsmacked.