What you can actually do about rising prices

A lot of advice on "what to do about inflation" sits somewhere between unhelpful (cancel your Netflix) and fantastical (lobby Congress). This post tries to do something different: rank the actions a typical household can actually take, by typical dollar impact per year, with sources.

You won't agree with every number — every household is different. The point is to be honest about which moves move the needle and which don't.

Tier 1: The big ones ($500-$3,000+/year per move)

1. Re-shop your home/auto insurance every 18 months

Typical annual impact: $400-1,800

Insurance is the most under-shopped recurring bill in the average household. Insurers count on inertia: they raise rates on existing customers because they know most people won't compare. Get three quotes (you can do it in an afternoon online), and if your current insurer isn't competitive, switch or use the quotes as leverage. Recent data from large brokers suggests a typical switcher saves 12-25%. On a household paying $3,500 across home and auto, that's $400-900 per year.

2. Lower your effective electricity bill via plan/usage shifts

Typical annual impact: $200-1,200

Two paths here:

• Plan shift: if you're in a deregulated electricity market (Texas, parts of the Northeast, Ohio), check whether your default plan rate has crept up. Many people are paying 30-40% more than the cheapest fixed-rate alternative in their zip code.
• Time-of-use shift: in markets with TOU pricing (California, Arizona, parts of New England), running dishwasher, laundry, and EV charging at off-peak hours can cut bills 10-20% with no lifestyle change.

This isn't "turn off your AC." This is paying less for the same kilowatt-hours.

3. Carpool or transit-switch for 2+ commute days/week

Typical annual impact: $900-1,500 (see the carpool math article)

The biggest single recurring cost a household can attack via behavior change is driving miles. Two carpool days a week saves a typical commuter ~$900-1,200/year between fuel and operating costs. Public transit can save more, depending on pass cost and city.

4. Refinance if mortgage rates fall enough — but only enough

Typical annual impact: $1,000-4,000 (when applicable)

The rule of thumb: rates need to be at least 1 percentage point below your current rate to make refinancing worth the closing costs for most homeowners. If you refinanced in 2020-2021 at sub-3% rates, you almost certainly should not refinance now. If you bought in 2023-2024 at 7%+, watch rates and be ready.

Tier 2: Solid moves ($100-$500/year)

5. Cancel one streaming subscription you don't actually watch

Typical annual impact: $100-200

Yes, it's a cliché. But the median American household pays for ~3.6 streaming services and actively watches ~2 of them. Dropping one nobody opens is the easiest 10 minutes you'll spend.

6. Switch your phone plan if you've had the same one >3 years

Typical annual impact: $200-600

Major carriers introduce new, often cheaper plans every year and don't move existing customers to them. MVNOs like Mint, Visible, or US Mobile offer essentially the same network access (they ride on Verizon/T-Mobile/AT&T's infrastructure) for $15-30/month versus $60-90/month. Switching takes about an hour.

7. Buy generic for the 10 grocery items you buy every week

Typical annual impact: $300-700

Not "all groceries" — most people overestimate generics savings on items they buy occasionally. But for the items you buy weekly (milk, bread, cheese, pasta, cereal, coffee, paper goods), generic-vs-name-brand is a real ~20-30% gap. Multiplied across 52 weeks, it's a meaningful number.

8. Reset your "thermostat baseline" by 2-3 degrees

Typical annual impact: $100-350

Each degree closer to the outside temperature saves roughly 3% on heating and cooling. Going from 72°F to 74°F in summer and 70°F to 68°F in winter is barely noticeable to most people and saves real money in high-bill states.

Tier 3: Worth doing but won't change your life ($25-$100/year each)

• Stop using bank ATMs other than yours. ($50-100/year for habitual offenders)
• Cancel the gym you don't go to. ($300-800 if you really don't go)
• Use cashback credit cards on routine spending and pay them off monthly. (1-2% of spending, so $300-700/year on typical household spending)
• Drink filtered tap water instead of buying bottled. ($150-300/year)

What we'd avoid as advice

A few common "tips" we'd push back on:

• "Skip your daily latte." Real savings, but tiny compared to insurance or carpool. Don't deprive yourself of the small things if the big things are unaddressed.
• "Buy in bulk." True for staples with long shelf life. Not true for produce, dairy, or anything you'll throw out — wasted-food bulk buying loses money.
• "Coupon everything." The time return is usually terrible. Stick to digital coupons in the apps of the 1-2 stores you actually use.
• "Drive a smaller car." True over a decade, mostly false in the short run — buying a new car to save on gas almost always loses money, because depreciation eats the fuel savings several times over. Keep the car you have.

The honest ranking

If you have one weekend to attack your monthly bills, in order:

1. Quote your insurance. Highest expected value per hour invested.
2. Check your electricity plan. If you're in a deregulated state, this is free money.
3. Find one carpool partner. Lower probability but high payoff if it works.
4. Audit your subscriptions. Quick, easy, slightly satisfying.

Everything else stacks on top of those.

We're going to keep this list updated, and we'll write follow-ups on each of the bigger ones. If something here saved you actual money — or didn't — we want to hear about it.

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Numbers in this article reference J.D. Power 2024 Auto Insurance studies, EIA residential electricity data, AAA's "Your Driving Costs" 2024 report, and BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023.