March 28th, 2014 
Jessica 
One of the things I have had to learn over the years is how to be more confrontational with bill-collectors. I am not talking about being angry or mean on the phone to a perfect stranger. I am talking about politely calling a company to question a bill, and request a better deal. As the protector of your pocketbook, you need to advocate for your family’s finances.
When I first subscribed for Internet with AT&T, it cost me $38/month. However, about every 6-12 months my Internet bill goes up again. Today I received a bill for $46/month. Whenever this happens, I call AT&T and talk to a representative. The same thing happens every time; after a few minutes on the phone and a brief explanation of the charges, the representative offers me a great promotional rate. Sometimes I get faster Internet, or an even cheaper rate than before the increase. Today, my phone call brought my bill back down to $39/month and tripled my Internet speed.
Never hesitate to make a phone call when you receive a questionable bill. I pay my auto insurance bill every 6 months. One year ago the bill was $477. 6 months ago it was $431. This month my auto insurance bill was $503! I called my Auto Insurance company with my concerns about the $72 bill increase. My insurance representative explained the reason for the increase, and then asked if he could call me back in 20 minutes. When he called back he had found the same coverage with a different company for $444.
I can’t promise you that every time you call you will see results, but keep it up. Call your service providers (Insurance, TV, Internet, Cellphone, Medical, and Utilities) regularly to see if you can reduce your expenses. You might be pleasantly surprised!
How have you gotten results when you called to question a bill?
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We recently had our internet bill increase too. So we called and the billing department said there was nothing they could do. So we searched around for other options (we live in a comcast monopoly area, so there wasn’t much). Finall found a way to get internet a little less, so we called to cancel our current policy. When we told them we were going to cancel, suddenly they had a much better rate for us!
Isn’t that always the way of it? I’ve had the same thing happen in the past. I’m glad you got a better rate!
Yeah, I’m going to start studying my bills more closely for sure. Ha
Good! 🙂