Friday, February 15, 2008

Can you save money on your Garbage Bill?

Well, I have discussed how to save on your phone bill, and I have also touched upon your cable and satelite bills...but...what about garbage?

This is debatable. First, every area of the US has many different trash and recycling providers. None of us are probably using the same company, or have probably heard of each others. BUT...like every other bill you pay, it is important to call and question it.

First of all, you might be paying the lowest price you can. But then again, maybe not???

Here was my situation. We are lucky enough to have two competing garbage pick up providers for my neighborhood. Although I called both, they were very comparable in price. So, that really didn't make my decision any easier.

But, what did? Well, you know those nice huge wheely garbage cans that most trash companies provide, one of my trash collection companies provided it with the service and the other one you had to rent for $10.50 every three months.

Now, the benefit of the company where you rented it from was that you could choose not to rent it and get some of the garbage cans you can buy from Home Depot or some other hardware store, or you could buy it from them for $75. Well, first we decided to buy our own garbage cans and save the money. But, after a year, we decided we missed that heavy duty, large, plastic eye sore garbage can the trash company provided. So, what did we do? We bought it. Why? Because after only 22 months, we would have paid more than we could have bought it for initially anyway.

On top of now saving on the fee for the waste wheeler, we also make sure to always pay our bill with out Citi Home Rebates credit card. Click here and scroll down until you see Citi towards the bottom of the page. Click on that, and it will take you to all their credit cards...including the Cit Home Rebates Card. If you read my article on the benefits of credit cards, you know that this card is one of my favorites! So, we then get another 6% off our garbage bill ( and all other utilities ) each month through this card.

So, pick up your bill today and look over it. Are you being charged for one waste wheeler ( as my bill used to say )? If so, call you company and ask if you can purchase it from them instead. If they say no, ask if you can have it returned and you will use your own garbage cans. If you have a waste wheeler but don't see a charge on there, it might be imbedded in your price. If it is not a garbage can you are allowed to keep once your service is over, call them to see if you could buy it and have your price lowered. They might say no...but it will take a few minutes to call and ask.

But, let me give you a little situation to show you how much we have saved. At $10.50 every three month for 4 years ( which is how long we have lived here ), we would have paid $168 for a garbage can! Come on! Seriously! That was a well spent $75 for us!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I've been enjoying your blog, and I was glad to see the format change so that readers don't have to scroll past the initial tally every time.

Our garbage company offers different rates for different sizes of service. The default is 37 gallons weekly, but there's a cheaper 20 gallon service available as well. And our county subsidizes compost bins, so you can keep your food and yard waste out of the garbage.

Carrie @ Moneysavingmethods.com said...

Thanks for the feedback, Rebecca. I had been trying to find a new way to categorize my savings, so my articles came to the top. Being new to blogging, I didn't know how to design it. But, I took some time learning the HTML code for drop down boxes, and wah, lah! Glad you like.
Also, thanks for the input on your garbage!! That sounds funny. But, I am glad you understood the point of my article. Too many times, people just go with the standard packages or don't call and question bills...every company usually has some type of way for customers to save money! And, if you can compost and do other great things while saving money..that is a bonus! You have inspired me to write my next post today on recycling!

Melonie said...

I'm glad you touched on this - very few people do. I used to get funny looks when I pulled out the trash and recycling at my old house - until I explained to people that by recycling everything I could, I had dropped our household garbage bill from 2 large containers down to one large container - saving myself about $10 a month. When I later became a single mom for a time, that made a huge difference as we dropped down to a single small container and I saved further. When I remarried, the habit was well in place and the garbage bill didn't change. It adds up! :-)

Georganne said...

I love that I'm not the only person thinking about this! I just visited all the free recycling places in my area. I can now recycle many more things than before. As a consequence of that, I only need my garbage removed once a month or less. I called my garbage company and they now only charge me per visit! By my calculations, I will save over $100 this year from that phone call. (And what a great motivation to recycle!)

 
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