Not that we are poverty-stricken by any means, compared to the genuinely poor. We have a home, a car, a caravan and we run the airconditioning when the weather is hot in summer or cold in winter. I had just become weary of the endless cycle of attempting to budget when most of our pensions disappear on direct debits or loans on the day we received our payments.
We are currently unable to pay our latest Telstra bill. So this week I resolve, much as I loathe the idea, of visiting a Telstra shop (again) and review our plan to reduce, rather than raise the cost (again).
Telstra, in my opinion, has lowered its standing to below that of used-car salesmen. In order to discuss my bill with the telecommunications giant, I can only do so by attending our nearest Telstra establishment, over one hundred kilometres away. For other queries that could be answerable by phone, the majority of their call centre staff are overseas with quaint names and pronunciation of English I don't understand. Each time I have gone to Telstra for assistance, I have required a cut lunch, a water bag, endless patience and a good book. The last twice we have been there, our bills have gone up, rather than the promised down. Give me strength.
However, I do live in hope. I have just undertaken a major review of all our insurances, except for the Forbes' Building insurance, which we are tackling on Friday. And surprise, surprise, we were dumbfounded to learn that our long-time insurer has been fleecing us for years. And when I announced my intention to change health insurance, I was told by Western Australia's largest health provider that - I would not get the same level of care with another fund and I would not be able to attend our hospital of choice.
These were both bald-faced lies. However, I had done my homework and checked both these "facts". I had enlisted the help of a comparison mob to find equivalent health coverage and was breathlessly told by our original health fund that the staff accept commissions. Duh...did I believe they worked for nothing? The sour grapes were caused by that fund's refusal to be part of this marketing body.
Just to be fully informed, I spent an hour or so in the office of our new health fund, checking all the fine print. I also confirmed that our new fund was delighted to cover us in the same hospitals and the same ancillaries as the previous crowd. In fact, we will receive more rebates than before. The icing on the cake was that we will save over fifty dollars a fortnight...
Are we with...a particular health fund? Not anymore. Given their aggressive language and quite false attempts to keep our business, I decided that parting company was in our best interests. And then I started thinking about all the other insurances we had with this company.
In a conversation with our principal financial institution, the subject of insurance arose. Later that afternoon, an amiable and competent chap named Sean rang me to discuss the state of our other direct debits - cars, caravan, house and contents. After much preliminary discussion, I revealed the figure that he needed to beat was one hundred and ninety dollars a fortnight.
He paused, then nonchalantly announced he had halved our insurance payments. Actually more than half.
My turn to be speechless. Which doesn't happen very often. I asked Sean to check. He confirmed the details. And when he sent through the details via e-mail, I went through each policy with a fine-tooth comb. All was above board and as he had explained.
So, I will launch forward into battle in the coming days with Telstra, followed by an investigation into our commercial building insurance.
So far, we have reduced our outgoings each fortnight by a whopping one hundred and forty-six dollars and seventy-five cents.
Not bad. Wish we'd undertaken this task last year...
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