Employee Benefits

Don't forget to check with your employer to find out about all of their benefit plans. In addition to the standard medical, dental, flex spending accounts and so forth, they may have programs to get you discounts on stuff you already use. For example, my husband's employer offers a lot of discount programs. By going through them I was able to get 50% the purchase of my cell phone, 3% off my monthly cell phone bill, a great discount on our homeowners insurance, and a 0.25% discount on our mortgage. They also have discounts setup with various major retailers.

Not everyone is lucky enough to work for a company with benefits like this. My job offers only the basic medical, dental, life and 401k. But it is worth checking with you HR department to see if your company offers anything similar. If you do have it, make sure to take advantage of it whenever you can.