There are lots of ways you can reduce this cost by changing services or technology, but what if you like the service you have, or want to improve it? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep your current services (or add new ones) while at the same time saving money?

You probably can

Cable, phone and satellite services all rely on the fact that most people don’t pay much attention to their bills once they’ve set up their service. And when people sign up for promotional service agreements, most continue the service at the higher price once the promotion expires. But these companies also know it is much more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one. And they know that today’s customers have options. Where once you had a choice between poor quality broadcast TV or cable, today you can choose between high quality digital broadcast TV, cable, satellite and IP (Internet based) TV services. Phone service, once the province of Ma Bell, can now be obtained via cable or a multitude of VOIP (Voice over Internet) services, not to mention cell phones.

You might wonder why all this competition doesn’t seem to result in lower prices. Actually it does – you just have to ask for it.

Sure, you can bounce from service to service – taking advantage of new-customer promotions every year or two. But service changes can be annoying – sometimes involving installation, configuration, service calls, and other delays. Instead, if you’re happy with your service, just give your current provider a call and ask them what they can do for you.

In many cases you’ll find that today’s service plans are less expensive and have more features than the legacy plan you’re currently using – and that you can switch to them for no cost without any negotiation at all. Services that have one or two year contracts may let you into a lower cost plan just for extending your contract. Sometimes companies will just give you the latest new-customer discount or bundle if you ask for it. If you hint you’re considering switching to someone else, they might offer additional discounts or rebates as well in order to keep you happy.

You don’t have to be a tough negotiator to get a good deal. On the contrary, the nicer you are the more the agent will likely go out of their way to help you – after all, your savings are not coming out of their pocket. Here are some phrases to try:

• Am I currently getting the best deal you can offer me?
• Are there any bundled deals that can save me money? (Especially useful if you are using 2 or more services from the same company).
• I’m seeing offers (describe offer) from a competitor. I do like your service, but it’s hard for me to resist the savings. Is there anything you can do to be more competitive?

How well does this work? I spent 45 minutes on the line this morning with my phone/TV/Internet provider, added a whole bunch of features to the phone line and got an offer to reduce my annual cost by $282 plus corresponding taxes. I actually reduced my cost even further through another feature change – but that is a topic for another article.

The Paulson Money Tree comes with a distinctive plastic stand

The year 2008 saw the introduction of some of the most exciting fictional gadgets of all time, some of which had great but short-lived success, and others that will continue to dominate the industry for years to come.

Though no longer on the market, the LoanMaker-2008 Subprime will never be forgotten. Sold for just $49.99 on late night TV, anyone could just enter their names and point it at a house. Within minutes the LoanMaker would generate a qualifying income number, upload the data to a broker and fund a mortgage, enabling hundreds of thousands to afford their first, second or tenth speculative home.

Few individuals keep proper track of their health records, but help arrived in the form of the MacIsBack-72. This portable device with USB attachment could plug into any computer, download and digest thousands of pages of medical records from doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, and encrypt them in a form that was both secure and irretrievable. A small LED on the device displayed current health status: green indicating “fit to be president”, and red indicating “fit to be president”.

One normally doesn’t think of a gadget as a solution to depression and mental health issues, but the Obaminator-08 proved more effective than “The Secret” or any other self-help book. The device was activated by entering a small $5 donation into a slot. This triggered a lyrical and eloquent cadence from the gadget’s built-in speakers that quickly induced a trance during which individuals stared at CNN while chanting “Yes we can” for several hours. This was followed by a flurry of community organizing and a dramatic improvement in spirit and mental health. The manufacturer has not yet announced plans for an upgrade in 2012.

The Palinator Automatic Gift Registry gadget saw wide use in high end stores. Unlike other devices that actually require you to go to the store and select items, the Palinator, using a built in and proprietary algorithm, chooses gifts for you. Not only are they entered in the registry, but they are automatically bought and shipped. Options for payment include “I promise to return them”, “I don’t know who paid for them” and “I can see Russia from my living room”.

The Paulson Money Tree has become a bestseller late in the season, and no surprise there. Who would have known that your parents’ old complaint that “money doesn’t grow on trees” would turn out to be so wrong? Operation turns out to be remarkably simple: set the Money Tree down and scare it. Within minutes large sums of money start appearing out of nowhere. With settings starting at tens of billions and running up to the trillions, the Paulson Money Tree is a sure winner this holiday season. Early reports of side-effects (such as the sudden collapse of all banks within a 10 mile radius of the gadget) have been dismissed by the manufacturer as irrelevant.

Looking for non-fictional gadgets? Check out:

2008 gadget of the year
The ultimate guide to the geek gift guides
Top five gifts for people you hate.
Top five gifts for kids that might change their lives.
Top five gifts for the unemployed.
Top five gifts that are really green.
Top 5 less expensive off-brand alternatives to name brand gadgets.
Top 5 gifts for a healthy new year.
Top 5 toys for future inventors

In terms of choosing which site to focus on, the following table can help you get a sense of the key differences between them. Be sure to visit their online help systems for more details and the latest information. These refer to individual freelance membership only. Project counts are for today.

Can they really work for you? The answer is… maybe.

Even though all four do focus on technology jobs, there is a surprising variety of work available including writing, graphic and art, marketing and other administrative and service jobs.

All four sites allow clients to post job listings, and freelancers to bid for jobs, usually in an auction style format. They include tools to manage bids and the job process, and a system to manage payment. They also provide various degrees of services to resolve disputes or to escrow funds. Elance and oDesk offer a series of tests that providers can take to demonstrate skills in various areas, giving confidence to clients that a freelancer can do the work, and helping skilled freelancers to promote themselves.

Elance is the oldest of these sites and the most popular. RentACoder, despite its name, also supports non-technical jobs. oDesk focuses on hourly jobs as compared to fixed price projects.

Here’s what you need to know about these sites before you start:

• If you bid on a job, you’ll be competing with people around the world. In fact, you’ll be amazed at how little people in some parts of the world will bid. That’s because a few dollars an hour can work well in a country where the average wage is a couple of hundred dollars a month.
• Many of the projects posted are unrealistic – people asking for a clone of ebay for under $500 for example. What ends up happening in these cases is that usually somebody ends up getting ripped off (either the client or the consultant who underbid or fails to deliver).
• A lot of projects go bad. They get cancelled. Or the consultant who bid on the work never delivered, or delivered poor results. Or the client has unreasonable expectations, or doesn’t actually know what he wants.

So can you get work and make money on these sites?

Yes, but you have to work at it and use care.

• If you take a fixed price project, make sure the scope of the project is very clearly defined ahead of time, and that the client understands that any changes will cost extra.
• Don’t be afraid to bid higher. Smart clients will choose based on qualifications and not just on price. And you really don’t want the stupid clients.
• Take the time to learn how the site works.
• Be patient – at first you may find the number of jobs limited because you don’t yet have a ranking or experience.
• Be more patient – a large number of the projects on all of these sites are unrealistic, poorly defined, or obvious attempts to get something for nothing (or very little). There are good projects – but they’ll take time and diligence to find.

Though the promotional material for all of the sites include testimonials from happy businesses and consultants, the truth is that most of what these sites provide is low cost outsourcing for small and medium size businesses.

For more information: I highly recommend Thomas Friedman’s Book “The World is Flat” as essential reading for those who wish to learn how to survive in the global economy.

A brief comparison of the four sites can be found here.

If you’re lucky, it’s a configuration error – maybe brought about by some new software you installed. Or maybe a virus, but one that’s not totally destructive.

If you’re unlucky, it’s hard drive crash. And the cost to recover your data can exceed $1000 (assuming it’s recoverable at all).

Backing up your critical data: files you need, irreplaceable family photos and videos – costs pennies. The CD or DVD burner you probably already have will do the trick. An external USB hard drive will also work. There are even online backup solutions (though those are less than ideal for large amounts of data such as video and music). But none of them will help you if you don’t use them.

Remember – hard drives are disposable items! They do not last forever. In fact, any hard drive more than 5 years old is living on borrowed time.

I’ll be writing more about backup solutions later. But for now, take 5 minutes and burn a DVD with the data you can’t afford to lose. Get in the habit of doing that at least once a week. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but if you do – making that backup will be the greatest investment you ever made.

Learn more: Why do hard drives crash?

Just because the economy is tanking and a long recession is being forecasted doesn’t mean we need to give up our love of technology and gadgets. It just means we need to get a bit smarter about it. Buying a new toy only to have it sit and gather dust is no longer in the cards. And a gadget that breaks down and causes us to waste hours waiting to talk to a tech support person halfway around the world who doesn’t understand the problem is more likely to be a major problem rather than a frustrating annoyance.

On The Thrifty Geek you’ll read about technology and gadgets with a close eye to the budget. Reliability, support and total cost of ownership will be given equal weight to features and design. And whether it’s a consumer product, tech toy, or web site, the value and usefulness of the technology will always trump marketing hype.