The following post is by MPFJ staff writer Travis. Travis is a customer blogger for Care One Debt Relief Services, and also appears weekly at Enemy of Debt. Travis candidly shares his personal journey to pay off $109,000 of credit card debt and the tips he’s learned along the way. As a father and husband he provides a unique perspective on balancing debt, finances, and family.
“Dad, my TV stopped working,” said my son as he came down the stairs. No investigation was necessary, because I knew exactly what had happened.
A letter had arrived a few weeks prior stating that our cable company was going completely digital, and as of a certain date every TV was required to have a digital cable box in order to receive the signal. One box would be provided free for a year, but any additional boxes would cost $6.99 per month.
We currently have three televisions with cable boxes attached as part of our multi-room DVR system, but we have two TVs that did not; my son’s TV, and one in our guest bedroom. I wasn’t particularly happy with the requirement to have a $6.99 a month box attached to every TV. The reason given for dumping the analog signal is to free up bandwidth for more high definition stations and faster broadband service. Seems like progress, but with progress comes a price tag.
That afternoon, I picked up a cable box for my son’s room. My wife and I decided that the guest room would no longer have a television, since it’s silly to pay $6.99 a month for cable to a room that is used only a couple times a year. Even though our cable bill would not be changing due to the extra cable box for a year, we used this opportunity to review our cable package and see if there’s anything that we could do to decrease our overall bill.
I opened our latest cable bill, and went through it line by line. We evaluated each service for value in relation to how much it cost and how much it was used. Like an episode of Bar Rescue, I’ve agreed to open the books and share the process with you, the readers of My Personal Finance Journey. Let’s get started.
- Cable TV Service Gold Package: $99.99
- DVR Service: $19.99
- Digital Receiver Rental: $27.96
- Internet Service: $49.99
- Phone Service: $19.99
- Taxes and Fees: $20.44
Total Bill: $238.36
Package Summary:
We currently have a cable TV, broadband internet, and landline phone service bundle through Charter Communications.
TV Package Analysis:
Our cable company has really simplified its offerings in the last two years. Gone are the seemingly limitless ala carte options to choose from. We now have three packages to choose from: Select ($79.99 per month), Silver ($89.00 per month), and Gold ($99.99). We currently have the Gold package, giving us every channel offered by our cable company. However, in reviewing the channels offered by each package, we only watch the channels in the Select package. I can’t remember the last time I found something on the premium movie channels that I wanted to watch, and I never watch the obscure sports channels. We have an opportunity to save $20 a month if we move to the Select package.
Equipment Rental Analysis:
Honestly, I was shocked to see how much I’m paying for the combination of the DVR service and the equipment rental. We could dump the DVR service, but given the new requirement of having a digital converter on each TV, we’d just exchange the DVR boxes for basic digital tuner boxes which cost the same amount each month to rent. We’d save the $20 a month without the DVR service, but we actually use that all the time.
Phone Analysis:
I honestly cannot believe we still have a landline. I think the only reason I keep it is because we’ve had that number for close to 20 years now, and I’m afraid that someone won’t know how to get a hold of us. But honestly, the only non-telemarketer that calls our home number is my parents and they could simply be told to call my cell phone number.
If we dump our landline, we’d save an additional $20 per month.
Broadband Analysis:
There’s really no option here. My cable company used to have different speeds available for different prices, but that’s no longer the case. We currently have 30mps service, and it’s scheduled to move to 60mps by the end of the year as part of their system upgrade. The only other option we would have is DSL, which isn’t fast enough to support my connection to my employer.
Final Analysis:
Our analysis shows that we could easily cut $40 a month from our cable bill, and not even have to alter our lifestyle or television viewing habits. That means that right now we’re really just wasting $40 each and every month.
The point of this article isn’t to debate whether cable TV is worth the money, or if we should go with a different solution. That is a different post, one that I’ve already written and concluded that at this time, cable television fits our family’s lifestyle the best. It is within our budget, and we consciously choose to spend our money on it. It could very well happen that sometime in the future we may decide that cable TV is no longer worth the money we spend on it, and go in a different direction. The point of this article is to drive home the fact that my wife and I periodically review all our expenses and look for ways to get as much value as we can out of the services we choose to have, and look for ways to maintain the lifestyle we want while not wasting money in doing so.
During this review cycle, we have identified $40 that we could cut from our cable bill without affecting our lifestyle at all. Our family’s lifestyle and needs are constantly changing and evolving, meaning that evaluations of this kind are always a good idea from time to time.
Now, it’s time to give my cable company a call.
How about you, readers, do you periodically review your monthly expenses? How often?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Image courtesy of NayPong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
