So I’m with Comcast (in one of those areas with not a lot of options I know of) for all three major services. I’m strongly considering doing something to lower specifically my cable TV bill (basic cable, $70/month), since I now have an Apple TV box and I don’t watch $70 of TV a month.
However, it’s like pulling teeth trying to figure out what my options are. Then there are articles like this which say that I may not be able to save much, if at all, because of the fact that I currently bundle (as far as I know), and lowering one may cause the rates of my other services to go up.
We’ve just gone thru a similar exercise, altho we’re not with Comcast. It was a bit of a challenge - I’m not much for TV except for the news and maybe half a dozen programs, but my husband really likes to watch. We do have Netflix and we’ve been watching more and more series there.
Our solution - still in progress, but complete by the end of the week, I hope - was to drop digital service entirely, giving us a decent lineup of channels while losing only 2 or 3 we used to watch regularly. It not only saved subscription costs, but turning in the digital cable box was another $10/month. We looked into satellite TV, but the initial savings with the teaser rates would disappear pretty fast and rise pretty high and we’d be doing this same thing in a couple of years.
We’ve also got the lowest tier service on internet. I honestly didn’t notice a difference in speed from when we were at the top tier since we’re not gamers of Skypers. And it’s still way faster than if we’d gone with Verizon’s bundle.
Finally, we’re about to drop our land line. Wireless service here in the boonies has gotten lots better since we moved here. I do want to get a couple of handsets that have bluetooth so we can have phones in several rooms rather than always have to find the main cellphone. And we’ll be using a prepaid plan - we don’t need data and we use very few minutes every month. Honestly, most incoming calls are ignored - I love caller ID!
Anyway, bottom line will be a savings of about $50/month, even breaking the bundle. Once upon a time, I’d have considered that to be chump change, but as retirees, suddenly, it’s significant.
I’d definitely like to hear more about how you got the information on what to “lower” to, what services those lower tiers contained, how much they cost, and how you figured out your savings — that’s what I’m mainly concerned about right now.
It’s further complicated by the fact that my cell phone is a plan in which I get $25 worth of minutes that roll over after 3 months if I get more minutes, or else they expire. I’m honestly not sure if that’s enough to cut the landline entirely. Maybe I don’t get or make enough calls, but I’m not sure how to tell either way. It just makes me a tad nervous having that non-smartphone of mine be my ONLY service — perhaps because I tend to ignore or not think of it most of the time, because I tell everyone to try my landline first so I don’t use up the limited minutes so quickly.
I phone them every year or two, and threaten to cancel completely, and mention words like Internet, and ask them to rummage around and see if they can apply some promotional discount to my service. If they can’t, I call back in a few days and get a different call-center operator, sometimes different personnel have different lists of promotions that they can offer (I have no idea why, but this often seems true).
Also, I always imprima el dos por espanol, you get through a lot quicker because they have more bilingual operators than necessary, so they’re not so busy. And I think the company is more willing to offer a deal to increase their Hispanic demographic base.
I worried about the bundling cost savings for a while; but ultimately I just said screw it. I’m paying for Internet only. I have always been a member of Amazon Prime, I pay for HuluPlus at around $9.00 / month.
Here’s my 5 cents worth on cutting cable. It’s a very freeing experience. I miss ESPN but I seriously have a better piece of mind. It’s been long enough where the idea of waiting for a show to come on seems foreign to me. If you want that option w/ cable you’re probably also paying for DVR service. By my calculations I saved around $130 month when I cut cable; and have not regretted it once.
If you lived in Ontario you could get free satellite tv through Shaw, which I discovered only recently as they don’t advertise this deal.
To qualify you must have not paid for cable tv in 9mnths I think it is. Complete the form, mail it in, they call you for a time to come and install your free dish and they mail you the box, which they hook up at installation.
You only get a half dozen stations, none American, but hey, it’s free!
(Provided through special Arts Funding, so everyone gets access to the [tax supported] CBC !)