Some big companies don’t care about you…so do less business with them

“Your call is very important to us”…How many times have you tried to call one of the companies that you do business with, only to be greeted by an automated phone message telling you how important you are? Without even looking at your home services providers, I can already tell you how many companies tell you that— every single one of them.

It’s almost a joke at this point.

We live in the age of instant everything and every day, new technology comes out to help make our lives easier, but the companies that you pay on a continual basis aren’t using technology to make your life easier. These companies would be better off just having a message play on repeat with something to the tune of “We don’t really care about you…we just want your money” and then they could just tell you that you are going to be waiting for a very long time.

You work hard for your money, and you, as a consumer, have a choice of where to spend that hard earned money. The average American spends $109 per day which comes out to roughly $3,270 per month, yet the average American only saves ~4% of their income a year. At that rate it would take you 25 years to save one year’s worth of expenses. That’s crazy.

To think about it another way, you are giving away 96% of your income to the companies you do business with, but how many of those companies can you honestly say really care about your business? Sure there are the edge cases of companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Publix that are known for exceptional customer service, but the majority of companies care so little about customer service and their interactions with you that instead of hiring more people that actually care about you to service your needs, they hire some crappy call center that’s hard to understand and frustrating to deal with. Even worse, they hide that terrible call center behind a long-winded phone tree that just adds to your already existing level of frustration.

It’s insulting really.

If someone slapped you in the face every time you said hello to them, you would probably stop saying hello to them, so why do we keep going back for more from our companies when they don’t have the decency to treat us like real human beings? At the very least you would find another way to deal with them.

Now, obviously when it comes to things like your mortgage or car payments, you can’t just stop paying them. But each consumer has plenty of home service companies (Comcast, Verizon Wireless etc) that they do business with that take plenty of that 96% of your spending. Well, what happens if we paid them less?

If the alternative to spending so much is saving more, then why aren’t more people doing it? The reason is simple, most people don’t set a plan in place that allows them to put more of that money into their very own pockets, and not into the bank accounts of corporate America. So lets fix that.

The easiest thing to do is pick out your monthly bills and see which ones are essential (mortgage/rent payment, car loan) and which ones are not (cable/internet, cellphone, credit card APR). From the selections in the second category, 35% of people don’t know that they can actually lower their own bills and pay these companies less.

The reason we don’t know is that companies obviously aren’t going to tell you that you are over paying, but you as a consumer can do something about that. Call your cable company once every couple of months and see if they can offer you a better deal than what you are currently paying. Better yet, cut the cord and switch to streaming services like Amazon Prime or Netflix. These are much cheaper options than paying your current cable bill.

Call your credit card company and tell them you want a lower interest rate (APR). If you have been with the company for a while and pay your bills on time, they will most likely lower your APR meaning that you will pay them less interest, which results in more savings in your pocket.

Check your current monthly data usage on your cellphone bill. Chances are your cellphone provider has you signed into a data plan that far exceeds your usage. Have them downgrade your plan to lower usage. Even if you are on a lower data plan and go over slightly from time to time, it’s still a cheaper option than over-paying for a data plan that you don’t need on a monthly basis.

Car insurance is another bill that we all pay that many people don’t know you can lower. Your existing insurer may not lower your monthly payment, but once a year you should shop around for a lower quote from it’s competitors. If you moved recently there’s a chance you qualify for a lower rate based off of your new neighborhood, so take the time to make the call and save yourself some money.

Everyone wants to feel financially secure, but the truth is we live in an age where we are all giving away too much money to companies that don’t care about you. Most people chalk this up to just how things are but they don’t need to be that way. Stop paying companies so much by setting a budget and making sure that you are addressing the bills that you pay that can be lowered and start doing that today.

96% of your income is too high of a number for you to be giving away, so lets make it our goal to get that number closer to 75%, with the savings going to you, the informed consumer, and not to big companies.

For more money saving tips, make sure to always check gethuman.com or download the app.