Mare Swallow, a training and development consultant in Chicago, picked out a new primary credit card for her wallet. Out went the old American Airlines card, and in came the Southwest Airlines card. “I still pay a fee, but I get free flights so much quicker,” she said.

She also reported, with apologies, that a phone representative for this newspaper cut the price in half on her Sunday-only subscription. “The way I think of it is when I find a savings like that, it goes right into the phone bill or into the savings account,” she said.

A four-figure swing is possible in just a few hours, as Ryan Schneider proved recently. “I redid the cable package, got every channel that I wanted and got rid of some I hadn’t used in a year, and saved about $50 a month,” he reported.

His next move was to consolidate some brokerage accounts, moving away from one that had higher fees. That saved another $500 a year without any loss in service. “It was totally worth it, and it took an afternoon,” said Mr. Schneider, who runs the credit card business for Capital One and lives near Washington. “I think it was raining out.”

I missed out on a sunny day during my most recent tuneup, alas, and my savings weren’t as impressive. But much of what I accomplished improved my peace of mind, and it’s hard to put a price on that.

Here’s how my day went down:

DESSERT FIRST Because I knew I would spend the bulk of the day dealing with insurance, I started off by rewarding myself with a little cash. We’d had $50 sitting unredeemed with Chase that we earned on a credit card we no longer use. And the same thing was true with $41 we’d made using a Capital One Visa. In under 10 minutes online and on the phone, that money was on its way to our mailbox.

PHONE PAYMENTS Capital One would have allowed us to take a statement credit, but we no longer use that card regularly. The last recurring payment attached to it was Verizon, from back in the day when it didn’t accept American Express. We tried to switch the payment during last year’s tuneup, but the change never went through, and it took me until now to try again.