Comments on: Can You Live Without That Service?

By: RP

RP — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:25:49 +0000

I find it interesting how many of the comments here assume a lot of entertainment is a need.

Isn’t there something else lacking in our lives if we need a lot of entertainment?

By: resa

resa — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:46:48 +0000

i am laughing, because i just last week realized that there is a $4.99 plan at netflix. one movie at a time, max of 2 per month. we were on the one at a time $8.99 plan, but we really only used it for the kids anyway, and they allllllwayyyys keep the movie 2 or 3 weeks! (so they can see it 4 times before they send it back, LOL).

$4 month for no change in service sounded good to me!

By: sm4k

sm4k — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:57:18 +0000

My wife and I had this mentality when we were getting on the ‘get out of debt’ train. First we sold her Mazda RX8 that we still owed a considerable amount on. We felt that if we really decided that we missed the car enough (we do miss it, just not enough for a car loan), we could always go out and buy another one.

Then we tried it with Cable TV. We unplugged the cable and used services like the local library and Hulu for two weeks, and decided that we could live without it. Our friends think we’re crazy because we finally upgraded from our single 23″ tv to a 42″ LCD now that we’ve got extra money and the prices are low enough, and we don’t even pay for cable–but it’s great!

By: angela

angela — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:55:51 +0000

One more thing I would suggest is if you are not a heavy cell phone user, see if it would benefit you by switching to a pay as you go plan. We did this…purchased $100 worth of air time each for my husband and myself. By doing that it loaded 1015 minutes on each phone at a total cost of $200. We also have 1 year to use them up. I tracked our bills and noticed we only use the phone about 150 minutes each, per month. That will last us both over 6 months, at a cost of $200…where as we would have paid around $474.00 for 6 months…this saved us over 1/2. We are also are more conservative when we talk on the phone now as well.

By: Sylvie

Sylvie — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:45:56 +0000

Thanks for the reminder about conducting a 30-day trial. I forget! I think I have to choose between All or Nothing, when in actuality there are lots of other options.

By: angela

angela — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:33:23 +0000

One thing I can suggest is a substitute…instead of Net Flix use the Red Box…typically you can Google a code for a free movie (DVDONME – is currently working). If you are cancelling magazines, try going to Library and getting them. You find different ways to save all the time; you just need to dig to find what you are looking for. Sometimes searching is half the fun.

By: neal

neal — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:11:02 +0000

thanks, I just dumped a five dollar per month web service that I barely ever used. Five dollars never seemed like enough to care to bother canceling, but I added up all the months it sat there unused and I spent close to $100, all money that basically went down the tubes.

By: Battra92

Battra92 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:25:05 +0000

I gave up photography a few years ago thinking that I could no longer afford the cost of pro-film and processing. A 36 exposure roll of slide film costs me about $10 including the processing if you go cheap. Scanning can be quite a bit more depending on who you use. So this was a considerable cost saver to me and I was saving at least $30 a month.

I was miserable without it. I’ve tried everything from getting more into drawing and even bought a DSLR. I missed my film too much and I am now blissfully spending money on this hobby again. I just have to get better at it as my skills have dropped considerably.

By: IRG

IRG — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:15:12 +0000

I’d agree that for many people cutting out newspaper and magazine subs is a good cost-cutter. But not if they arebusiness expenses, as they are for us. We need to know what is being written up (we’re PR/marketing/content/sales promo consultants)and everything can’t be found online.

We did drop two print paper subs and try to go online to their web sites, but we’re finding we are spending more time than we did when we could just read the actual papers. We haven’t yet compared our time costs (charge per hour versus cost of sub). I think we may yet end up back with the print editions (everything is NOT posted online, plus we actually look at ads, again, for business reasons). Time IS money also.

As for Netflix. When we first joined almost five years ago, we had a three at a time membership. We’ve since switched to the basic one at a time. It includes the watch online option, which is great. Especially since they now include some TV shows.

Given the cost of DVD rentals and the cost of going to a movie here, the netflix rental is very cheap entertainment. (One movie ticket here costs more than the monthly fee!) We figured it out once and realized our per unit cost was well under $1 a year based on the number of movies we watched. (It’s really cheap entertainment for us when friends are over. And yes, if you have friends close by, you can even share a sub.)

As for cable. We live in a city where you simply cannot get the basic channels consistently without it. (We’ve tried. With antennaes, converter boxes, TV tuners for the PC, etc.)

We closely evaluated what we actually watched/taped, and compared it to the various “tiers” offered by Time Warner. it’s one clever company cause they break up the popular channels and you end up having to get three tiers for any decent channels (not talking premium). So, for now, that expense isn’t getting cut. If the signals somehow become available when the switch is made in June, then we’ll reconsider.

I hate paying for cable, but we cut back elsewhere.

We are watching a lot more on our PC and when we can get most of what we’re interested in, we’ll downgrade our cable.

Cost is relative and it’s not just about paying down debt with the money you save from these types of cuts. It is quality of life.

We don’t have the time/energy/resources to go out so home entertainment for us, the family and friends, is relatively cheap (even including monthly cable) compared to what it costs for say an evening at the theater or a concert (which we really, really miss and only do now when we can get discount tickets).

We don’t spend on big vacations, or big ticket items, so these things are a good value to us and a solid ROI on our $.

FYI: We do use the library as much as we can for a lot of things. But it still costs $4 a visit in public transportation (going up) and that can add up for what is considered “free.” (And videos can only be rented for a week. So basically at times, it would cost us $4 to rent only one video since little is available at our branch! That’s NOT a good investment of time or $. We watch something like 8 or 9 movies on netflix for a bit under $10 a month. Do the math.)

By: 60 in 3 - Health and Fitness

60 in 3 - Health and Fitness — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:33:31 +0000

I canceled my cable TV, my 4 everquest accounts, my magazine subscriptions and cut down on my heating bills. It’s amazing how easy it is to live without those things. I did however keep my Blockbuster online (same as Netflix) account since I did the math and the $20 a month was worth it.

By the way Trent, the same approach works for physical fitness. You’d be amazed at how easy it was to live without some of the unhealthy things you now consider a necessity. Fancy cheese, wine with dinner, the occasional candy bar are all easily forgotten once you try to go without them for 30 days. :)

Gal

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:28:31 +0000

We have gradually downgraded our Netflix from 30-a-month, to 2- and now one-a-month unlimited. Because it is an ‘unlimited’ plan, we also have access to instant movies online. This has been a real value to us. It is less than $10 dollars a month. Now if I could only convince my wife to drop our satellite TV and our land line!

Trent – after seeing all the conservative books that changed your life, I was shocked to see you read Harpers!

By: BillyRayBob

BillyRayBob — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:25:24 +0000

My wife and I have decided that we’re going to cancel our DirecTV account as soon as our “favorite” shows have ended their seasons in the next few weeks. I mostly watch the news all day and we watch our shows together after dinner. No kids to babysit in front of the bube-tube anymore. We live in a VERY rural area (80 miles to McDonalds or WalMart) so cable or even an outdoor antenna is not an option. This one decision will save us $80 a month! Instead, we are going to start raising chickens again, start a garden and read more. Face it people, TV and movies are crap anymore and the News will drive you to drink. Hey!… I’ll probably save on booze too!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:22:58 +0000

Umm the point about the $400,000 being worth $180,000 in Kansas is lost on me. $180,000 in Kansas would make you quite wealthy. $180,000 is about 8.5 times more than the poverty line.

By: chere

chere — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:14:53 +0000

after my husband moved out recently and took the tv (agreed upon and fine w/ me) I found that i didn’t miss it. I’ve cancelled cable @ 60/month. I watch some programs on the computer, and listen to much more music on internet radio. My time is much quieter and I’m focussing on myself, reading, and it’s pretty cool.

By: ida

ida — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:07:05 +0000

To Sophia’s outrage over the couple making $400,000 ($180,000 in Kansas): keep in mind that these people don’t get any tax breaks. They pay a higher percentage of their income to income tax (state and local) and they are phased out of almost every deduction the government offers. They then get to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Their kids get to pay the full cost of their college education and they are not considered for financial aid of any kind. This is true even if they have more than one child (or even themselves) enrolled in college. Try to imagine how much money they have to save for taxes, college, and retirement every month. If they are self employed, they get to write a large check to Uncle Sam four times a year. There is talk that they will recieve less (or even no) Social Security even though they have paid the most into the system. To top it off, the government has stated that they are going to tax these people even more in the future. This is the price for being productive and successful? Isn’t this the kind of behavior we want to encourage? If you want to make $400,000 (or $180,000 in Kansas), choose a profession that will offer that kind of pay. But don’t be envious of someone who has done that. They are paying too much to society for you to be jealous of their income.

By: Lizzy

Lizzy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:00:11 +0000

If you would like to get rid of cable (or do not have it to begin with), go on the internet. Most t.v. networks broadcast their shows on the internet. Hulu.com also has a good selection of movies and t.v. shows.

By: Dale Hanks

Dale Hanks — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:52:09 +0000

I recently cut the newspaper. I read the whole paper, everyday, and I was pretty sure that I was going to miss it. I don’t. I found the comics online. And considering that I am an avid recycler I feel better because we “reduce” rather than recycle.

By: partgypsy

partgypsy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:26:42 +0000

Not gonna give up Netflix, totally worth the money, we look forward to getting the films in the mail plus can watch selected videos off our computer. But we pay $17 a month for basic cable. We are going to try to do the converter box + rabbit ears to see if we can ditch cable completely (gotta be able to watch Lost : ))

By: ad

ad — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:40:50 +0000

I love Netflix. We don’t have cable or a fancy TV or a Blu-Ray player, but our Netflix stays.

Whenever I’m tempted to cut things down to the bare bones, I remember that we dug our way out of debt, we have a healthy savings account, and it’s okay to spend some money on the things we use and enjoy.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:12:23 +0000

Great article! There are so many ways to enjoy your time that doesn’t involve spending extra money. Often, we will sit with the kids and play a game ,or weather permitting, go outside and ride bikes, walk, work in the yard etc. Nothing wrong with a splurge occasionally and we do, but it is the exception. Thanks for the tips and advice you offered.