Readers offer their best tips for getting discounts on your monthly bills, searching for small items in your backpack, and avoiding wasting time in the shower.
About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, email it to tips at lifehacker.com, or share it on our tips and expert pages.
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Use Auto-ay as Leverage to Reduce Monthly Bills
Mrjeremiahross shares a helpful tip for lowering monthly bills:
Auto Pay is loved by some and hated by others. I have stayed away from Auto-Pay due to bad experiences in the past, but have recently found them to be much more advanced than they were 10 years ago.
More importantly, I have found that many companies will provide discounts for both loyalty and bill pay. Bill Pay appears to be a new tactic that I can only assume is a strategy for keeping their incoming revenue consistent during a time of delayed receipt.
The following is a quick summary for reducing monthly expenses.
What You Will Need:
1) A Netflix Account (preferrably on a second monitor), or DVD, to make the process less monotenous. (May I suggest Dead Again or In the Mouth of Madness for retro expense)
2) A credit card for Auto Pay (While you can use a debit card, this is much more secure as if there is an error in the future you are playing with Visa's money…not yours.
3) A list of your monthly payments
4) A browser window for accessing account information
5) Your spouse's information (if applicable)
Once you are prepared for war, start speaking with live human beings at each company
The Intro:
Hello (Rep's First Name), I am particularly fond of your service and do not want to leave your company…I am, however, evaluating (Competition X) and would like to give you the first opportunity to keep me. It would be a shame if I had to move to another company, but you know how times are.
The Questions:
1) Do you offer a discount, or free service, for auto pay?
2) Do you offer a loyalty discount
3) Are there updated packages that would reduce my monthly costsWhat Will Happen:
You will be transferred to several reps…watch your movie on the second screen, and keep your account information at hand.
Tips to Remember:
If you don't treat other people nicely, they won't be nice to you. If you treat your reps nicely, you will be surprised at how helpful they become.
This seems more of an extension of the just ask method, but the customer loyalty/automatic bill paying method may very well be a helpful angle.
Mark Backpack Pockets with Buttons for Easy Access
Photo by Jinx!.
PrairieMoon shows us an easy way to avoid rummaging through backpacks:
This is a low tech / no tech idea. I mentioned it as a tip sometime last year. I'm sometimes in a walking-around situation where I need my camera and a pen to be in a certain place in my laptop bag.
One side of the bag has a compartment with a button sewn on. So I can reach down without looking, and know where the camera and pen are, by touch.
You don't need a button for it though. Some other unique marking will do as well. Maybe an empty key ring on one side of the laptop bag, but not the other, something like that, attached to the zipper.
Cool Down Your Shower for a Speedier Morning Routine
Photo by brionv.
Benjamin lets us know one way to motivate yourself to move faster in the morning:
I like my showers pretty hot, which is problematic because it gets so comfortable that I end up not wanting to get out back into the cold, real world. My solution was pretty simple: I just realized that if I cool down my shower a bit (not to the point where it's cold, but to the point where it's just comfortable) then I'm much more likely to do what I need to do and get out of there. Less of my morning is wasted, and I can spend more time eating breakfast, reading the news, etc. before I head off to work. Of course if you have self control this isn't a problem, but...sometimes I need to trick myself to stay motivated.
Use Plastic Toothpicks to Clean Keyboard Gunk
Kristwy shares a tip for cleaning those hard-to-get places in your keyboard:
Clean under your keyboard keys with plastic toothpicks.
Simple and effective.