The Cable Bill

One of our goals is to reduce our monthly expenses. After reading posts on ways to cut costs, we decided to cave in and hack away at our BrightHouse cable bill. We had been paying $103 per month for our promotional cable “package” which included digital cable, a DVR unit, digital phone, and Internet. I had called a few weeks back to return the DVR unit and service but was told I would have to also remove the digital cable and would end up paying almost the same amount as we would no longer qualify for their digital bundle discount.

Steve and I decided to dive in deeper and analyzed what we really needed. Internet is a must and I was hesitant to give up the landline (even though we all have cell phones). We get basic cable as part of our HOA (which means we pay for it through our dues and thus actually pay more than $103 per month). We had been having some Internet connectivity issues lately and had considered switching to FiOS, which is now available in our area. Steve suggested we try Skype for our phone service and found an adapter at Amazon for $10 that will allow us to use our regular phones.

We canceled BrightHouse completely, except for our HOA basic cable with the channels we normally watch. Verizon installed FiOS for $59 per month and signed up for Skype with unlimited US calling and a local online number for $5.45 per month. We have our TiVo unit, which we were lucky to have been able to pay the lifetime service fee 4 years ago when we purchased it, so we can still record our favorite shows and watch them at our leisure. In the end, we are saving close to $40 a month without really giving much of anything.