Benjamin Clark

This is part one of what I suspect will be many posts referring to my personal finances. The gist of the situation is that I've been taking some things--student loans, credit cards--for granted over the last few years as I completed degree after degree, but now I've entered the workforce as a non-student and I'm finding that I'm lagging behind my peers in financial confidence. As such, I'm utilizing the power of the Internet to play catch-up. I've been finding some great advice all over the Web, and today's find was no exception.

... I gave a call to the cable company today to see if we could get a better deal for her. I simply called ... and went directly to the cancel service option. I explained I had a better deal from one of their competitors (they asked which offer and I gave the company name and the offer), but really didn’t want to go through all the hassle of changing if they could give me a similar deal. While they didn’t match the deal, they did drop the rates significantly over what she had been paying. [Personal Finance Advice]

It's certainly worth investigating, even in a monopolized area like Tallahassee. Granted, the cable modem is far superior than, say, dial-up or DSL, but the article above seems to suggest that the mere threat of lost business might be enough to get a discount.

Of course, I just opened my account at Comcast, so I'm still in the introductory rate anyway. In a few months, I'll revisit this.

I also called Discover Card today and started the ball rolling on a lower interest rate, as suggested by many--another 15 minute call that could end up saving me tons. Thanks to one minor mistake involving an incorrectly forwarded address (and an incredibly rude customer service agent), I have one blemish on my otherwise flawless credit report. I'm still optimistic that they'll be able to help me out, though.