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Ditch Cable and Still Enjoy TV
- Image via Wikipedia
Cable is expensive. If you have more than just basic cable, you are probably paying at least $65 per month or more, just for TV. How can you save on television, without stealing cable?
The good news is that, in the internet age, it is possible to fully enjoy TV without having to pay exorbitant fees to the cable company.
Basic Cable
Basic cable generally runs about $15 per month, but it usually comes with a $10 per month discount on internet access if you use cable for that. For $5 per month, you can get all of the local broadcast channels, including the news and weather, which we use in the morning while getting ready for work.
Netflix
We watch movies. We watch lots of movies. Spending $14 per month for an unlimited 2-at-a-time plan is a no-brainer for us. It has also enabled us to scratch the movie itch without resorting to HBO or incessant movie purchases, which used to run $100+ each month. When you include Netflix instant in the equation, which gives us a ton of older movies to choose from at a moment’s notice, we are more than covered for our movie obsession.
Hulu
Hulu.com has a metric crapload of TV shows and movies available for free. They are moving towards a partial pay model, but most of their content will still be free. But, you don’t want to crowd your family around a 15-inch laptop screen to watch something, you say? Fine. We went to our local computer parts store and bought cables and converters to go from the video-out and headphone jacks on the laptop to the inputs on our VCR. That cost about $30 for 2 extension cords and 2 converters. We use the analog outputs, which allows for cheaper converters. The quality after conversion is no worse than watching a movie in the VCR.
TiVo
TiVo comes with a Video-On-Demand(VOD) section, if you connect it to the internet. It’s mostly free, with hundreds of channels to choose from, ranging from trailers to full shows and movies. I have a season pass to TEDTalks, which are always impressive and usually inspirational. There are many more channels to choose from.
Torrent
I’m kidding. I’m not advocate piracy. This is just search-engine bait.
As you can see, it’s entirely possible to save money on cable, without missing out on anything you care about. How do you save money on TV and movies?
My Credit Cards
This announcement is a bit premature, but not everything that’s premature has to end in an evening of disappointment.
At the beginning of the year, I transferred the balance of my last credit card onto two different cards, each with a 0% interest rate. One card got a $4,000 transfer and the other got $13,850. The approximately $415 in fees I paid for the transfer saved me nearly $1500 in interest this year.
The card that got the big balance is the card we use for a lot of our daily spending. On my statement dated 2/18/2012, the balance on the this card was $14,865.23. At the same time, the smaller card had a balance of $3,925.09, for a total of $18,790.32. When I started my debt-murder journey in April 2009, it had peaked at just under $30,000.
When my payments clear later today, that balance will be gone.
That is nearly $19,000 paid down in 8 months.
Now, the inheritance we picked up did accelerate our repayment a bit, but only by a few months.
Starting from $90,394.70 in April 2009, we have paid down $63,746.70, leaving $26,648.00 on our mortgage.
I’m more than a little excited, which–as usual–is the cause for the prematurity.
New goal: pay off the mortgage in 2013.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-19
- RT @bargainr: Life in North Korea is absolutely dreadful http://nyti.ms/dAcL26 #
- RT @bitfs: Weekly Favorites and Gratitude!: My Favorite Posts this Week Jeff at Deliver Away Debt threw together the .. http://bit.ly/9J0gGo #
- @LiveRealNow is giving away a copy of Delivering Happiness(@dhbook). Follow and RT to enter. http://bit.ly/czd31X # #
- Baseless claims, biased assumptions, poor understanding of history. Don't bother. #AnimalSpirits #KeynesianCult #
- RT @zappos: Super exciting! "Delivering Happiness" hit #1 on NY Times Bestseller list! Thanks everyone! Details: http://bit.ly/96vEfF #
- @ericabiz Funny, we found a kitten in a box last week. Unfortunately, it was abandoned there, not playing. Now, we have a 5th cat. in reply to ericabiz #
The Story of Sammy: Complete
This is the complete collection of the Story of Sammy. Sammy is a guy I met after my mother-in-law died in the spring of 2012. My wife and I decided to help him launch a….
Read the stories. It’s better that way.
Part 1, in which we meet Sammy, learn of his dreams and offer to help.
Part 2, in which Sammy jumps into business with both feet, teaching teenagers the value of work.
Part 3, in which Sammy shows us what crackheads and the homeless can accomplish if given the chance.
Part 3.5, in which…holy drama, Sammy!
Part 4, in which I am disappointed.
Property Managers
As of last Monday, we don’t have any tenants in our rental house.
That makes me sad.
It makes me sadder that we were too nice and gave them an extra week free to get their stuff moved out.
Now we get the fun job of painting, replacing the linoleum, and probably cleaning the place up to get it ready for new renters that we haven’t found yet.
New renters.
Ick.
Now, we could put an ad on Craigslist and try to find renters ourselves.
Background checks.
Credit checks.
Interviews and walk-throughs.
Then, when we find someone, we’ll be collecting rent and dealing with any whiny issues that come up.
Yuck.
Or….
We can hire a property manager. The big name property management company in our area charges a $99 set-up fee plus $80 per month.
That covers:
- Rent collection
- Coordinating maintenance
- Accounting
- All of the other mundane details
If we add on the tenant-finding service, we’ll be paying them one-month’s rent, but they’ll handle the showings, advertising, background checks, and the lease. And their average tenant placement is 19 days. Another house in the neighborhood that used them had the house rented in about a week.
That moves our landlording firmly into the passive side-hustle category and all it costs us is (essentially) one and a half month’s rent with the added bonus that we’ll be asking the right amount for rent according to the market, instead of guessing. Our last tenants were probably paying $300 too little.
I think the property managers are the way to go, but I have absolutely no experience here.
Have any of you used a property manager? Was it good? Bad? Hell-on-Earth?
