Thursday, March 20, 2014

Cable costs......a major expense.

I am currently paying 183 dollars for an extended basic cable package (includes home phone, internet, television). When we signed up for the cable, we had a home phone (we no longer have this, got rid of a home phone a few years ago), and we needed internet access. The extended basic cable package did not have premium movie channels, but it did have lots of kid friendly cartoon channels, lots of sports (we don't watch sports channels), and a few extra news stations (We like CNN).

So, I asked the kids to write down on a piece of scrap paper the other day their favorite TV channels. It's time to get back to the basics at home. My husband is on the phone with the cable company to get rid of any channels from 100 plus. My kids, husband, and I  like to watch the following:


15 Local News Channel
18 Public School Channel (provides real time updates)
39 CNN
44 USA
49 TBS
56 Animal Planet
61 AMC
63 SCI FI
67 Cartoon Network
69 True TV (my kids are into reality shows)
72 Food Network

The one kid who will have a hard time with this, will be my special ed kid. He's a major TV watcher, loves to listen to any and all of the kid channels that are channel 100 plus. I'm going to have to talk to him this afternoon when he gets home from school.

My husband called to see if the cable company could give us a reduced rate. He was quoted 147 dollars. It's a 30 something dollar savings. It's a start.

1 comment:

  1. I hear your pain. At our one year anniversary living here, I received the "now that the year is up letter" advising me that what I was paying was a teaser package for new customers and my new rate was going up-A LOT! We only have had cable tv and internet, no phone. Every time I called, the customer rep would try to sell me the bundle with a home phone, which, I repeatedly had to point out, would cost me more $. I dropped my land line years ago and never missed it.

    I dropped our cable package down to basic plus family (the one notch above plan). What we do miss is BBC America-we all have our preferences. It wasn't worth paying an extra $60 or so a month, however.

    In the meantime, I did a free month of Netflix, then took a promo for $8.99/mo for a year. So far, so good. Not sure if we'll keep it once the year is up-just what would the "normal" cost be?

    I don't even watch much TV. Cable bills burn me. : (

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