How to Lower Time Warner Internet Bill and Save $240
If you read personal finance blogs, you will see people finding ways to lower the monthly bills on Internet, Phone, Cable connection bills. I have been doing that for last few years and saved bunch of $$$. Our Time Warner Internet bill went up from $34.95 to $54.95. By default you will get Road Runner Standard 7 Mbps connection.
How to Lower the Bill
I called Time Warner Customer Service last evening and asked to speak to Customer Retention department, they handle requests like cancellation and discounts to bill. Don’t waste your time explaining the problem to Customer Rep who answers your call first.
Usually companies will give low monthly rate, if you can show a competitor with lower price, but this time around, I just asked to lower the rates to same $34.95 and they gave it to me for next 12 months.
It took about 5 minutes including the wait time and savings over $240 over next 12 months. Same rules apply to Dish Network, Vonageor other service providers. Let me know if you had success in lowering monthly bills?
Now Open – Cafe Curry Leaves at Morrisville, NC
Cafe Curry Leaves – New Indian Vegetarian restaurant is now open in Grace Park Complex located at intersection Davis Drive and Morrisville Carpenter Road ( behind Quizos, Starbucks). I’m sure after disappointing food at Rajbhog at Morrisville, if Curry Leaves can serve tasty vegetarian south India food and Chaat, it will a big hit among residents of Cary and Morrisville.
6105 Grace Park Drive, Grace park
Morrisville NC 27560
Tel# 919.467.2600
Here is our Review of Cafe Curry Leaves. So, did you had a chance to try out the new restaurant? If so, leave a comment below.
Harris Teeter e-VIC customer deals
There is another way to save inspite of tons of coupons and deals going around in grocery stores. Harris Teeter has this e-vic saving only for its e-vic customers.
What is e-vic?
Most of us will be VIC customers at HT but not many will know about this e-VIC. All you need to do is to register your VIC code online with other details and you become an e-VIC customer.
http://www.harristeeter.com/promotions/e-vic/e-vic_benefits.aspx
You will be getting the e-VIC customer deal to your mailbox every week and the best thing I loved is that you need not carry any coupons to redeem the e-VIC offer. Enjoy Shopping ! Enjoy Saving!
How to Increase Call Quality in Vonage
We were talking to our family and friends to pass our Diwali greetings. It’s such a wonderful feeling to talk to friends and family members for the first time from US without the worry of phone bill/balance/recharge/time remaining/… Thanks to Vonage World Calling Plan.
I noticed another something different while talking to India through Vonage. We were using Reliance to call India before Vonage World Plan was introduced, always during festival time, new year,.. Reliance lines will be busy, we have to try many times, before call will connect. That was not the case with Vonage (Maybe Reliance could be different if we tried today)
Increase Vonage Call Quality
Eventhough we didn’t experience connection issues during our calls to India, call quality was less. There were noise disturbances during the phone call. Many of you might not be aware of one of the features offered by Vonage, which will allow us to increase the call quality by changing the bandwidth used by vonage connection.
- Go to Login to Vonage Account > Features > Bandwidth Saver
3 Bandwidth options (30, 50 and 90 kbps) will be listed. Set the bandwidth to 90kbps and within few minutes, noise disturbances in the call was almost gone. If you have dial-up internet connection, this might slow down your internet connection, but with High Speed Cable/DSL connections, you will not find any impact to your browsing speed.
How I Got $30 Discount on ATT iPhone Bill
I received a bill from ATT in my name and address. Bill had a phone number that is different from the number I have. When I called ATT Customer Care, they asked me to ignore the bill, since it was not associated to my account.
After 30 days or so I received another bill and I ignored it, since I already spoke to Customer Care. Within 30 days I received call from a Collections company that I have a bill due from ATT and it was forwarded to collections.
ATT Customer Service Phone Call
Immediately I called ATT Customer Service (CS) to ask about the bill. CS agent asked me lot of questions and I spent over 20 minutes explaining how I got new iPhone account from ATT Store and blah blah..
CS gave the name of the company and few other numbers that was associated with the phone number. But, none of the details were familiar to me. CS said I could be victim of identity theft and forwarded my phone call to ATT Fraud Monitoring department.
When I got my new iPhone 3GS account, I was moving from T-Mobile to ATT. Since I got the phone early in the morning, I had to wait till 9 AM to transfer my current phone number to ATT. So, they setup a new account with temporary phone number.
After ATT transferred the phone number from T-Mobile, they didn’t close the temporary account. So, I was billed for 2 accounts at the same time. That was the bill sent to collections by ATT.
$30 Phone Bill Credit
ATT Fraud CS forwarded my phone back to ATT CS and after 10 minutes of hold, I was informed that problem will be solved and they will inform the collections company. Next question from CS was
Is there anything else I can do for you?
I asked for a credit for the inconvenience and time I spent on phone. After few minutes hold, I was given $30 credit towards the monthly bill.
So, if you ever encounter any issues in service or billing error, ask for a credit. Sometimes you might get additional minutes or credit to your bill.
Spend $200 to Save Power Using Google Powermeter
Recently Google announced their first device partner to use PowerMeter. Before that What is Google Power Meter?
Google PowerMeter is a free electricity usage monitoring tool that provides you with information on how much energy your home is consuming. Google PowerMeter receives information from utility smart meters and in-home energy management devices and visualizes this information for you on iGoogle (your personalized Google homepage). And, Google PowerMeter is free.
Save Money using Power Meter
To use the Google PowerMeter you will have to install a smart device.
- Do I want to save money? Yes
- Do I want to save money on Electricity? Yes
- Do I want to monitor Power Usage and Save money? Yes
- Do I want to use Google PowerMeter to monitor Electricity? Yes
- Do I want to spend $200 to use Google Powermeter? No
- How much I’m willing to spend? Less than $25
New TED 5000 series of device costs around $200. Even though Google PowerMeter is free, for individual homes, it doesn’t make sense to spend that much to save power.
Mortgage Rates are Low – No Cost, No Escrow, 30 Year 4.875%
Mortgage Rates are back to all time low. Few rates that are available in Triangle area ( Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Morrisville)
- 30 Year Fixed, No Closing Cost, No Escrow Low – 4.875%
- 15 Year Fixed, No Closing Cost, No Escrow – 4.375%
I already have 4.875% without Escrow Account. I will refinance again, if I can get 4.625% No Closing Cost Loan. Why are you still waiting, call your broker and lock in the low rates.
Shop around to find the lowest rate. Rates varies between brokers and lenders. If you have to pay closing cost for 4.875% call a different broker. Remember – Its all about saving money! Don’t try to be with same broker, if he’s not giving you the best mortgage refinance rates.
Vonage iPhone App to Call India – $0.07 per minute
World Calling plan had vonage free calls to India, but we have to use the landline. People around the net, started talking about calling India using iPhone or blackberry using same plan and some were considering Lingo, which offers plan to call from Cell Phone to India for free. ( It comes with 2 years contract)
Apple approved Vonage iPhone app, that will allow calls to India for 7 cents per minute. Reliance India Call and AirTel Call home has the same deal, but Vonage iPhone app uses Wi-Fi, so your Cell Phone minutes will not be affected.
This is very cool feature. Using Reliance and Airtel will use the cell phone minutes, but not the case with Vonage. I haven’t tried it yet, but planning to give it a try.
It would be nice to make free calls to India using Voip from iPhone that includes option to use World Calling Plan. But, this is a good start for Vonage.
How to Take Care of Your Wife
I got forwarded email “How to Take Care of Your Wife”.
In the world, one single rule applies to the men: Make the Woman happy. Do something she likes, and you get points. Do something she dislikes and points are subtracted. You don’t get any points for doing something she expects. Sorry, that’s the way the game is played.
SIMPLE DUTIES
- You make the bed (+1)
- You make the bed, but forget the decorative pillow (0)
- You throw the bedspread over rumpled sheets (-1)
- You go out to buy her what she wants (+5)
- In the rain (+8)
- But return with Beer (-5)
- You check out a suspicious noise at night (0)
- You check out a suspicious noise, and it is nothing (0)
- You check out a suspicious noise and it is something (+5)
- You pummel it with iron rod (+10)
- It’s her pet (-10)
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS
- You stay by her side the entire party (0)
- You stay by her side for a while, then leave to chat with a college buddy (-2)
- Named Tina (-4)
- Tina is a dancer (-10)
HER BIRTHDAY
- You take her out to dinner (0)
- You take her out to dinner and it’s not a sports bar (+1)
- Okay, it’s a sports bar (-2)
- And it’s all-you-can- eat night (-3)
- It’s a sports bar, it’s all-you-can- eat night, and your face is painted the colours of your favourite team (-10)
A NIGHT OUT
- You take her to a movie (+2)
- You take her to a movie she likes (+4)
- You take her to a movie you hate (+6)
- You take her to a movie you like (-2)
- It’s called ‘DeathCop’ (-3)
- You lied and said it was a foreign film about orphans (-15)
YOUR PHYSIQUE
- You develop a noticeable potbelly (-15)
- You develop a noticeable potbelly and exercise to get rid of it (+10)
- You develop a noticeable potbelly and resort to baggy jeans and baggy Hawaiian shirts (-30)
- You say, “It doesn’t matter, you have one too.” (-8000)
ENJOY THE ‘BIG’ QUESTION
- She asks, “Do I look fat?” (-5) [Yes, you LOSE points no matter WHAT]
- You hesitate in responding (-10)
- You reply, “Where?” (-35)
- Any other response (-20)
COMMUNICATION
- When she wants to talk about a problem , you listen, displaying what looks like a concerned _____expression (0)
- You listen, for over 30 minutes (+50)
- You listen for more than 30 minutes without looking at the TV (+500)
- She realizes this is because you have fallen asleep (-10000)
So how many points did you score.
Update on Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Although President Obama has put off an immigration overhaul until next year, the federal agency in charge of approving visas is planning ahead for the possibility of giving legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, the agency’s director said Thursday.
We are under way to prepare for that,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the agency, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in an interview. Mr. Obama has told immigration officials that a legalization program would be part of legislation the White House would propose, said Mr. Mayorkas, who became director in August. The agency’s goal, he said, is to be ready to expand rapidly to handle the gigantic increase in visa applications it would face if the legislation, known as comprehensive immigration reform, passed Congress. Via NewYork Times
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