Ever take a close look at a service provider's bill. It's shocking the little costs that providers put on these bills which quickly add up to an overpriced bill!! In an attempt to reduce some of my monthly expenditures (now that I'm making a redonkulously low first year teacher's salary), I've been going over all my service providers' bills with a fine-toothed comb to see where I can cut some costs. Cell phone? Nope, no cutting there. Electricity or gas? Nope, no cutting there either. Cable bill? Tah dah! Oh yes! There's some cutting to be done there! I realized that my cable/internet bill, which is at a whopping $130 per month, was just too much money for something that I use so rarely. It was time to slice up that bill. But how?
Well, first and foremost, because I watch such a miniscule amount of television, it's inane for me to pay for 300 channels. Of course, I still want to have at least the basic channels in my house. After all, I need my daily Judge Judy fix! Therefore, I dropped my service to a basic cable package - 20 channels; $10 per month. That's what I call affordable. Let's continue to look at my itemized bill. Hmmm, excuse me, but what's this $7 per month fee? Oh, the cable modem for my internet access! Ummmm, you mean the same modem which I can purchase for $50 on Amazon? You mean the modem that I've now spent more than double that amount in rental fees over the past 16 months? Oh, THAT modem? Yyyyyyeah! I'm an idiot! Time to return that piece of junk to Comcast and buy my own. How much for the HD DVR? $20 a month? Ummmmm, time to return that. Although I do still have the HD converter box because I can afford $2 a month for that! After all, I'm not a barbarian!
My cable/internet bill has gone from $130 per month down to $70 per month and almost nothing has changed in my television viewing! Although I will say the infuriating thing about Comcast is that they actually were going to charge me $2 for making these changes that is until I lodged a complaint over their nickel and diming and they decided to waive the $2 change fee. Of course, it wasn't about the $2 but the principle of the fact that they were actually going to charge me $2 for something that took them 30 seconds to change. What?!?!?! I loathe service providers, even though I used to work for one! Then again I loathe that service provider, too. I do wish there might be a way to reduce the $60 per month for internet, but I do want the high speed internet, which does make my life easier so I suppose I'm stuck.
Due to my cost cutting, I am now happily covered on my television viewing for a reasonable amount of money. Although I will say that I'm fairly lucky that the few shows that I watch are either on the basic cable channels or available to stream online for free, like The Daily Show. I don't know what I'd do with my daily Jon Stewart fix, but fortunately, I don't have to worry about that! I think it might be time for everyone to check out their service providers' bills. It's shocking when you discover how much we are being nickel and dimed to death by these vipers!
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