How do you value your time?

How I made $350 in 15 minutes

A day consists of 24 hours - that's 1,440 minutes. Nobody has 30 hours. A day is a day for every living being. No matter what race, religion, gender, etc,
time is a currency which trades at 1.0x across the globe. This is a short post to help you think about where you spend your time, and how to small bit of time to make a big impact on your bottom line.

Story time!

When we first moved to the east coast, we signed up for internet service. The first six months were at a special promo price and after that we were paying nearly double @ $80/month.

Every 4-6 months our price increased a few dollars... By the end of year #3 we were north of $100/month!

I wasn't overly joyed with that price and I've heard of people calling their cable / phone / internet company to save $$$ so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

Here's how it went:

🎵 Ring Ring 🎵

Customer Service Agent: Thank you for calling your Internet Supplier, how may I help you

Me: Hey there... I'm a little concerned with our bill as it's been steadily increasing over the years, it's up over $100/month now and I feel like we're just paying too much for internet. What can we do?

Customer Service Agent: Let me transfer you to our customer retention department. Please hold.

🎵 Insert cheesy hold music 🎵

Retention Department Agent: "Hello Mr. Ells, how may I help you?"

Me: I repeat what I told the last person.

Retention Department Agent: Let me see what I can do. Yes I see we can offer you a savings of $10/month for 12 months. That's the most I'm authorized to give you but if you call back in a year we can review your account again at that time.

Me: "Wow, that's great.. Thank you!"

End of call

=====================================

Wow, $10/month for 12 months...  that's $120 (and let's not forget about taxes I won't have to pay on that $120!).  All for a quick phone call.. .I was PUMPED!

Fast forward 12 months.  Life gets busy, and I didn't call back.. And honestly, it was only $10, I figured I'd call them next month. Which is exactly what I said the following month... and the month after that... until I forgot entirely.

Before I knew it... a year had passed and our bill was now back up to $130/yr. 💿Insert record scratch sound here 💿. Hold the phone - we went from $80 to $130 in under five years? That's a 60% increase!!! 

Within five minutes I was back on the phone with the Customer Retention department. I gave them the same story about our internet being overpriced. But get this - they didn't offer me a $10 credit this time. Noooooo friends... We received a $25/month credit for the next 12 months.. And the cherry on top was they gave us a free upgrade to a faster plan!  What!!!

Let me replay that for you..
$25/month for 12 months... don't forget the savings on the tax... that's just shy of $350 over the year... And it only took me 15 minutes!!!

Let me ask you a question.. Is $350 more or less than what you make in 15min at your day job? It's a heck of a lot more than I make, so this is obviously a great use of my time!

Have you've heard the old adage "A penny saved is a penny earned"? I follow this philosophy 100%... I always consider a price reduction or a discount as income when I can attribute it back to me putting in a little time/effort to realize those savings. And that's as good as cash in my pocket and out of someone else's!

So folks, that's how I earned $350 in 15 minutes. And there are plenty of other ways like this you can earn tons of cash with very little time/effort!

My challenge to you --> think about your monthly bills for things like internet, cell phone(s), landline(s), cable or satellite, (fill in the blank).. How would reducing those expenses by 10% or 20% affect your disposable income at the end of the year? What if you could double those 'savings' by employing other efforts? I hope that makes you curious because that's exactly what this website is all about.. so keep reading!!! :)

Justin