Today I needed help moving some very large items such as a 250 pound TV and so I decided to hire the help of a moving company. I was comparing rates and this company happened to charge about $100/hour. I figured that they could get the job done fast anyways based on the reviews I read.

What ended up happening was that the guys were an hour late for the job as apparently they were oblivious to the call time. The person told me how the company was phoning him to verify the schedule which he was unaware of as he was doing another job. I thought that was a weird answer and that then brought up a topic on how he wasn’t actually an employee for the company but rather they simply subcontracted the work to others.

That was kind of surprising as I thought the company had its own internal staff and equipment. The person then explained to me how they basically got paid about 30% of the total bill. What was really interesting afterwards was that I looked up the number/company that the guys operated if I dealt directly with them and I immediately found a listing online of them advertising their moving services for about half the price at $50/hour.

I was just thinking how that is quite a substantial difference if you were to cut out the middle man. That can be true for almost anything when it comes to buying goods or services and is a great way to save money.

In a more conspicuous note that was related to this situation, the guys were scheduled to do the job at 9 am and as mentioned they told me that they were doing another job. Yet with the research I did I found out that they posted an advertisement about their service on a site at around 8:50 am today. Makes you wonder huh? Now there’s a nightmare too for people who are the middle man as they will get all the rap for the job’s end result and happenings.

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Around this time of the month I would get my cell phone bill and as you all know I switched to a new plan not too long ago. This month was my first billing under this new plan. I was just looking at the bill compared to last month on how much money is going to be saved once I saw this:

Granted every month it is a little different, just looking at the $55.93 total from last month to $17.87 this month while getting more features than before is quite a substantial difference. If those numbers were consistent, that would roughly mean a $456.72 savings a year.

While many people say who cares to a little bit of savings on various things, a little bit of effort to get a better deal can sure look nice in the long run.

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Today I was looking at the phone bill for a business line and there was a long distance fee charged on it. This was odd as no one ever uses it for long distance calls. Upon investigating, this was apparently some kind of monthly fee to make the rates cheaper. Of course, it makes no sense to pay for it if you don’t use it, so I proceeded to phone in to get it straighten out.

From what I gather, it seems like it was added on as they assumed that I would save more money that way. As an example, without it a long distance charge would be at least 40 cents a minute and with the plan it would be just over about 6 cents a minute. Of course, that was kind of the angle that was used to hopefully try and keep me on the plan.

A lot of times it does sound like a smart thing to do as the potential savings sound like a lot if you do use it for even that small amount of time. I can only imagine how many people just don’t bother canceling such plans as a result even if they don’t use.

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One of my friends was telling me how he decided to change phone carriers as the rates seemed to be a lot better compared to what he was currently getting. So, he went ahead and signed up with a new company. When he received his first bill, he was definitely surprised on how many different charges there were for various things he had no idea about.

As an example, I guess most people who have a cell phone obtain something on their bill such as a “system access fee” and everyone charges a different rate. I believe I mentioned this before, but many times fees like those sound like some kind of government tax when really it’s not. I think it is worst when it comes to businesses as it seems like commercial accounts get hammered with all of these little extra charges as I guess it is easier to justify especially if it comes to things where the choice is pretty limited in getting an essential service.

Ironically, sometimes the more expensive places end up being cheaper in the long run as they are billing you everything upfront that is necessary for them to serve you while remaining profitable. This is an extreme generalization, but it’s usually the places that try to sell you solely on price that have an endless amount of ways to add more to your bill afterwards. I guess the best way to avoid being surprised with hidden charges is to not just look at what’s in-front of you but rather everything that’s around it as well. Makes sense in more ways than one when you think about it.

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