There are many loves in my life…my wife, my son, my parents, my two English bulldogs, and Digital Cable with DVR. While all of the above can cost money, only the Digital Cable bill makes me feel like an idiot. OK, sometimes paying the vet bill makes me feel pretty stupid, too.
Normally, I toss my bills aside when they come in because I pay them automatically with eBill. Last week, I was putting the finishing touches on this blog at my home office and I caught a glimpse of my Time Warner bill. What I read, square in the middle of the page in red ink surrounded by a black box, made my blood run cold. “Total Amount Due: $126.73″.
I’m an ESPN addict and I watch cable news like it’s my job, but $126.73?!?!! My wife and I decided that if I’m going to take “What are you saving for?” seriously, cutting this bill down would be a perfect start. We concluded that high-speed internet ($45.00 of that bill) was one of those “can’t live without it” type items, but digital cable and DVR could go. We called our cable company and reduced our package to basic cable, which would change our monthly bill from $126.73 to $63.58. That will save us $63.15 every month, and $757.80 each year!
Will I miss DVR? Oh yes! Will I kick myself when Monday Night Football on ESPN starts up this season? Probably. Will I dig having almost $800 of my savings goal already taken care of? You betcha! MacBook Pro, here I come!
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This blog asks a simple question: "What are you saving for?" Its goal is to help people set savings goals, develop a disciplined and/or systematic savings habit, and build a corresponding community of like-minded people as a support network. By laughing, crying, and discussing how we each approach this topic together, we should find it much easier to save together. So what are you saving for?
Let me tell you, I did the exact same thing last month. I have satellite, though. I have an HDTV, but have never had HD programming. I decided last month to take the plunge and was able to lower my bill. HBO is $14.99, HD is $10. I canceled my HBO, especially since the Soprano’s isn’t on anymore, and added HD… and to top it off the new HD dual tuner came with a DVR for free with no monthly service fee, so my Satellite bill is $58. I did the same with my phone, I cancelled all those features that I don’t need and cut my bill by $15.00 down to $50 to include high speed.
FYI. my DSL is only $29.99 and it is 3.0 mb/s through my local telephone company
and PS.. it is fast enough to play COD4 on PS3.