Kiplinger

62 Super Deals and Discounts for 2019

Money

Deals on donations

Marie Kondo may have you determined to jettison items from your home (after kindly thanking them, of course). But before you load up the SUV and drive to the dump, consider partnering with a charitable organization that will take your stuff off your hands for free. The Salvation Army offers a free donation-pickup service. The charity accepts clothes, household items, books, furniture and even cars, and it will move items up or down a flight of stairs. Many of Habitat for Humanity's ReStores will remove furniture, as well as building materials such as lumber and bricks, from your home for free.

If you have gently used clothes, accessories or shoes, you can mail in your donation: Companies that partner with Give Back Box, such as Levi's and Amazon, let you download free shipping labels online. Place your donated items in any shippable box, print and attach the shipping label, and send via UPS or the U.S. Postal Service.

Hire a haggler

Negotiating a new rate for your cable, internet or phone service takes time and, often, a willingness to play hardball. We tested two negotiation services, Trim and Billshark, that will go to bat for you--for a hefty cut of the savings. Trim claims it can lower your bills by up to 30% for a fee of one-third of your total yearly savings. Billshark charges 40% of your savings. If they can't wrangle a better deal, you don't pay anything.

Trim snagged a $5.68 refund (and charged a $1.87 fee) for a "cable outage" fee soon after we signed up for the service. Trim also highlighted a rarely used subscription service on a credit card account. Billshark said that our internet bill was as low as it could go but also informed us when rates would likely go up. The savings so far have been underwhelming, but both services will continue to monitor our accounts, so it's a no-lose proposition.

Save on gas

Even when gas prices are going up, driving across town to save a few cents

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