A kitchen table at evening covered with a fanned stack of blank statements, a highlighter, a calculator and a phone, with a hand mid-note.

The Fixed Costs Course

Find every recurring charge a household pays, work out what each one is actually priced on, and lower the ones that move — without cutting the cover you needed.

Written in full8 modules32 lessons8 worksheets5 hours

Hold a seat — $129 Read lesson 1 free

What this is

Ask anybody to name the recurring charges leaving their accounts each month and they will get to six or nine and stop. Then they read twelve months of statements and the real count is somewhere between fourteen and thirty. That gap is not extravagance. It is the defining property of a recurring charge: it is designed to stop asking for your attention after the first one.

This course closes the gap and then works the list. Eight modules: find every charge including the ones that never touch a bank statement, classify each by what it is actually priced on, locate the cheaper published tier that existing customers are never moved onto, run a scripted twelve-minute call that gets the change approved, lower insurance by changing an input rather than by removing cover, do the quantity half of the utility bill with a $30 meter, build the renewal calendar that stops the whole thing unwinding, and move the money on the day it appears so it is not absorbed.

It is deliberately unglamorous. There is no investing in it, no side income, and nothing that depends on a market. It is the arithmetic of your own outgoings, done once properly and then rerun annually in about half the time. This is a household budgeting course, not tax, legal or financial advice. Anything that touches a contract you have signed is a question for the person who wrote it or for your attorney.

When you finish, you can

Produce a complete register of every recurring charge in your household, including phone-billed, app-store and payroll-deducted charges, sorted by annual cost.
State your household's true fixed monthly floor — the number below which spending cannot go without cancelling something.
Classify any charge by its pricing basis and name the one move that reduces that kind of charge.
Find and cite, in writing, the cheapest tier a vendor publishes for the thing you already buy.
Run a scripted negotiation call, get transferred to the department that can approve it, and close with written confirmation and a diarised reversal date.
Lower an insurance premium by raising a deductible you can actually fund or by correcting your own file, and name the three cuts never to make.
Measure the largest electrical loads in your home and run a whole-house water leak test from the meter.
Hold a twelve-month renewal calendar covering every charge, with act-by dates set before the notice window closes.
Cancel a service in a way you can prove, and raise a dispute when a cancelled charge reappears.
Capture every saving automatically on the day it lands, starting with the deductible reserve.

Who should not buy this

Anyone looking for investment advice, side income or anything that depends on a market. There is none of that here.
A household in active collections or facing foreclosure — that needs a licensed counsellor now, not a course.
Anyone who wants to cut insurance to the bone. Module 5 spends its whole length arguing the other way.

The modules

All 8, with every lesson title.

The Standing-Order Audit

Find every recurring charge you have, including the ones that no longer appear on a statement you read, and put them on one page in order of size.

The bills you cannot name
Most households can name six recurring charges and are paying between fourteen and thirty. The gap is the whole opportunity.
Reading twelve months, not one
Annual and irregular charges are invisible to a one-month review, and they are usually the largest discretionary lines you have.
The charges that never touch a bank statement
Phone-billed services, app-store subscriptions and payroll deductions sit outside the statement and outside most people's mental total.
The one page
One row per charge, sorted largest first, with the four columns that the rest of the course fills in.

Module 1 in full →

Worksheet — The standing-order register

One row per recurring charge. Fill the first seven columns from your statements; the last four are filled in by Modules 2 through 8. The example row shows the shape. Sort the finished sheet by annual cost, descending — that order is the order you work in.

The standing-order register
Charge (as it appears)	Vendor	What it is for	Billing period	Amount	Annual cost	Where it is billed	Last price change	Contract end / renewal date	Published cheaper tier?	Action
EXAMPLE ROW — replace	Example Telecom	Home internet	Monthly	$79.99	$959.88	Checking ****1234	Rose $10 in March	Out of contract	Yes — same speed, promo tier	Module 4: call retentions
—	—	—	Monthly / Annual / Quarterly	—	= amount x periods per year	Bank / card / phone bill / app store / payroll	From the statement history	From the agreement	Module 3 answers this	One of: keep, downgrade, renegotiate, cancel, replace

What Each Bill Is Actually Priced On

Every recurring charge is priced on one of five things. Knowing which one turns a vague 'it is too expensive' into a specific, answerable question.

The five pricing bases
Usage, capacity, risk, access, or nothing at all. Each one is reduced by a completely different move, and using the wrong move wastes the call.
Usage-billed: power, water, gas, fuel, data
You are billed for a quantity, so the only two levers are the unit rate and the quantity, and they are pulled in different places.
Risk-billed: every kind of insurance
The premium is a function of the risk you present and the deductible you accept, so the lever is your own file, not the salesperson.
Access-billed, and the ones priced on nothing
Subscriptions, memberships and fees priced purely on what the market will bear are the softest lines on the page, and they are soft in both directions.

Module 2 in full →

Worksheet — Pricing-basis classifier

Copy the charge names from Module 1's register into column one, then classify. The right-hand column is the only move that works on that basis; anything else is a wasted phone call.

Pricing-basis classifier
Charge	Pricing basis	What the vendor is measuring	The move that works	The move that wastes the call
Power	Usage	Kilowatt-hours plus a fixed delivery charge	Change the quantity; check whether supply is separately competitive where you live	Asking for a discount on a regulated delivery tariff
Home internet	Access	Nothing physical — the line is already installed	Ask retentions for the current promotional tier	Arguing about speed you do not use
Auto insurance	Risk	Your record, your vehicle, your deductible, your mileage	Change the deductible and correct anything wrong in your file	Asking for a discount without changing an input
Streaming service	Access	Nothing — pure inertia pricing	Cancel; re-subscribe the month you will use it	Downgrading to a tier you will still not watch
Water	Usage	Consumption plus a fixed service charge	Find the leak first; most large water bills are a running toilet	Negotiating a municipal tariff

1 further rows in the downloadable sheet.

The Tier That Is Never Offered

Most large recurring vendors publish a cheaper tier that existing customers are never moved onto. Finding it is research, not negotiation.

Why the cheaper tier exists and who it is for
Acquisition pricing and retention pricing are different products sold at different prices, and you are on neither by default.
Finding it in writing
The tariff, the rate card, the plan comparison page and the regulatory filing are all public, and one of them names your cheaper tier.
Lifeline, hardship and income-qualified tiers
Utilities, telecoms and insurers run legally-mandated or voluntary low-income programmes that are almost never mentioned on an inbound call.
The annual price walk
A charge that rises quietly every twelve months is a policy, not an accident, and the record of it is your strongest single argument.

Module 3 in full →

Worksheet — Published-tier finder

One row per vendor from your register. The point is column four: a URL or a document name. A tier you cannot cite is a tier you cannot ask for by name, and a request without a name gets 'there is nothing available'.

Published-tier finder
Vendor	What you pay now	Cheapest published tier for the same thing	Where it is published (URL or filing)	Difference per year	Eligibility conditions
EXAMPLE — replace	$79.99/mo	$49.99/mo, same speed, 12-month promotional tier	Vendor's own plans page, dated	$360.00	New and re-contracting customers
—	—	—	—	—	—

The Call

A scripted, twelve-minute phone call that gets a bill lowered, including the exact sentence that moves you to the department that can do it.

Who you are actually talking to
The first person who answers is measured on call time and has a discount ceiling; retentions is measured on saves and has a different one.
The script
Six sentences: what you have, what it costs, what is published, what you want, what you will do otherwise, and silence.
What you will do otherwise
The only leverage a household has is the ability to actually leave, and it only counts if you have already checked that you can.
Getting it in writing and diarising the reversal
A promotional rate that nobody diarises reverts, and the reversal is how a household ends up back where it started in eighteen months.

Module 4 in full →

Worksheet — Call sheet and outcome log

Print one per vendor. Fill the top half before you dial — especially the alternative, which you must have checked — and the bottom half while you are on the line. The reversal date is the most valuable field on the page.

Call sheet and outcome log
Field	Fill before dialling	Fill during the call
Vendor and account number	From the statement	—
Current charge and start date	From the register	—
Published tier you are asking for, by name	From Module 3	—
Your specific alternative (vendor, plan, price, date)	Checked, not guessed	—
Name of the person you spoke to	—	—

7 further rows in the downloadable sheet.

Insurance Without Becoming Underinsured

The one category where cutting the number can destroy you. How to lower a premium by changing an input rather than by removing cover.

What you are actually buying
A policy is a list of named perils, a limit, a deductible and a set of exclusions, and only two of the four are yours to move.
The deductible lever
Raising a deductible lowers a premium immediately, and it is only safe if the money is actually sitting somewhere you can reach.
Correcting your own file
Insurers price on facts they hold about you, and some of those facts are wrong, stale or missing a discount you already qualify for.
When not to cut
Liability limits, replacement-cost cover and the flood or earthquake question are the three places where saving the premium is the expensive choice.

Module 5 in full →

Worksheet — Policy comparison sheet

One column per policy or per quote. Compare like with like: a quote that is cheaper because its liability limit is a quarter of yours is not cheaper, it is a different product. Never fill 'annual premium' before the four rows above it.

Policy comparison sheet
Line	Current policy	Quote A	Quote B
Insurer and policy number	—	—	—
Liability limit	—	—	—
Dwelling / vehicle limit and valuation basis	Replacement cost or actual cash value	—	—
Deductible(s)	—	—	—
Named exclusions that matter to you	—	—	—

5 further rows in the downloadable sheet.

The Energy and Water Audit

The quantity half of every usage-billed charge, done with a $30 meter, a flashlight and one Saturday.

Find the biggest load first
A handful of appliances account for most of a household's power, and measuring beats guessing every single time.
The running toilet and the leak
A large water bill is almost never behaviour; it is a leak, and the meter tells you within twenty minutes whether you have one.
Envelope before equipment
Air sealing and insulation return more per dollar than replacing a working furnace, and almost nobody does them in that order.
The rebate that pays for it
Utilities and states publish rebate schedules that routinely cover a third to all of the work, and they are claimed before the job, not after.

Module 6 in full →

Worksheet — Load and leak audit

Top half: every plug load you measured, ranked by annual cost. Bottom half: the water tests, with a result and a date. A blank result line is a test you did not run, and the most expensive line in any water bill is the test nobody ran.

Load and leak audit
Item	Measured draw	Hours per day	kWh per year	Cost per year at your rate	Action
EXAMPLE — second refrigerator in garage	120 W running, 45% duty	24	473	$66	Unplug it, or accept the cost knowingly
—	—	—	= W x hours x 365 / 1000	= kWh x your rate	—
WATER TEST — meter still with everything off	Pass / fail	—	—	—	Fail means a leak somewhere on your side
WATER TEST — dye in each toilet tank, 20 minutes	Pass / fail per toilet	—	—	—	Colour in the bowl means a leaking flapper
WATER TEST — irrigation zone by zone	Pass / fail per zone	—	—	—	—

Contracts, Renewals and the Calendar

Auto-renewal is the mechanism that undoes every saving in this course. The fix is a calendar, and it takes forty minutes to build once.

The auto-renewal machine
Notice windows, rollover terms and evergreen clauses are designed around the fact that nobody diarises a date twelve months out.
Building the renewal calendar
One recurring calendar, one entry per charge, each set for the day before the notice window opens, not the day it closes.
Cancelling cleanly
In writing, to the address the agreement names, with a date and a reference, and keep the proof — because the charge that reappears is common.
The zombie charge
A cancelled service that keeps billing is a dispute, not a negotiation, and the card network's rules are on your side if you act inside the window.

Module 7 in full →

Worksheet — The twelve-month renewal calendar

One row per charge. The 'act by' date is the one you put in the calendar, and it is deliberately earlier than the deadline. Set every reminder to repeat annually the day you create it, or you will build this sheet again next year.

The twelve-month renewal calendar
Charge	Renewal date	Notice period required	Act-by date (renewal minus notice minus 14 days)	How notice must be given	Reminder set?
EXAMPLE — replace	14 March	30 days, in writing	29 January	Email to the address in clause 9	Yes — annual repeat
—	—	—	—	—	—

What to Do With the Money

A saving that is not moved somewhere on the day it appears is absorbed within two months. Where it goes, and in what order.

The absorption problem
Money freed inside a current account does not stay freed; it becomes invisible spending inside two billing cycles.
The deductible fund comes first
Module 5 raised your deductibles, which was only safe on the condition that the cash exists. This is where that condition is met.
The annual-lump trick
Several of the charges you kept are cheaper paid annually, and the money you have freed is what lets you switch to annual billing.
The annual rerun
This whole course is a ninety-minute job once a year, and the second run takes half as long because the register already exists.

Module 8 in full →

Worksheet — Savings ledger

One row per change you made. 'Verified on statement' is the column that matters — an agreed saving that never appeared on a bill is not a saving. Total the annual column and compare it to the fixed monthly floor you computed in Module 1.

Savings ledger
Charge	Old annual cost	New annual cost	Annual saving	Date agreed	Verified on statement?	Where the money now goes	Reverts on
EXAMPLE — replace	$959.88	$599.88	$360.00	12 March	Yes — April statement	Deductible fund, automatic transfer	12 March next year
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

On completion

Pass the final assessment and the certificate is issued the same minute.

The final assessment draws from every module and shuffles. There is no limit on retakes and no time limit on the course.

The School of Life Hacks

Certificate of Completion

This certifies that

Dana Whitfield

has completed every lesson and passed the written assessment for every module of this course.

The Fixed Costs Course

Rob Yeager, Instructor

Issued 8 September 2026

LH-2026-0184

school-of-life-hacks.vercel.app/verify/LH-2026-0184

Every outside number in this course comes from one of these

EPA WaterSense — Fix a Leak Week (household leak figures) — https://www.epa.gov/watersense/fix-leak-week
EPA WaterSense — Start Saving (fixture and irrigation programmes) — https://www.epa.gov/watersense/start-saving
Lifeline — FCC/USAC phone and internet discount — https://www.lifelinesupport.org
LIHEAP — Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program — https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/programs/liheap
U.S. Department of Energy — energy saving guidance — https://www.energy.gov/save
ENERGY STAR rebate finder — https://www.energystar.gov/rebate-finder
CFPB — how to dispute a charge on a credit card bill (60-day written notice) — https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-do-i-dispute-a-charge-on-my-credit-card-bill-en-61/
CFPB consumer tools — https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/
NAIC — find your state insurance department — https://www.naic.org
National Foundation for Credit Counseling — https://www.nfcc.org