We recently replaced cable with Sling TV. We get HGTV, FOOD Network, ESPN, etc. Our cable bill was nearly $150 a month and we now pay $25 and includes some upgrades.
If only I could deactivate Amazon...
What money saving tips do you have?
We recently replaced cable with Sling TV. We get HGTV, FOOD Network, ESPN, etc. Our cable bill was nearly $150 a month and we now pay $25 and includes some upgrades.
If only I could deactivate Amazon...
What money saving tips do you have?
nectarine / 2521 posts
I started buying meat in bulk from zaycon foods. I can get chicken a $1 less a pound, it just requires work on my part to cut it up and freeze it, but I pay $83 for 3-4 months worth of chicken and no excuse to never have food on hand to fix. It's kept our grocery bill in check!
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22276 posts
We buy meat at the meat market, stock up on staples when on sale so I almost always have something to cook at home. That's my most recent tip!
coffee bean / 28 posts
-We recently got rid of our cable service and only use hulu and netflix which took us from $180/month to $14!
-I buy most of my produce when on sale and chop and freeze all of it so I always have veggies and some fruit on hand for cooking and smoothies. (The price of fruit fluctuates a lot where I live)
nectarine / 2173 posts
I've been buying our staple grocery items like bread, milk, eggs, coffee, butter at Grocery Ourlet. All organic items for so much less than other stores!
cantaloupe / 6634 posts
@sapphire: I always forget about Grocery Outlet! I recently switched from Raleys to Walmart Market and save 50 bucks a week!
cantaloupe / 6634 posts
@homestylecreations: Such a huge difference! We also have Hulu and Netflix...so it's closer to 40 bucks a month. If only I could lower our cell phone bill.
cantaloupe / 6131 posts
We got Culligan over bottle service and that saves us $40 a month. We only have Netflix, Hulu, and NHL Gamecenter. Sometimes MLB runs a Father's Day special where you can get the rest of the season (beginning in June) for $50 and we will spring for that if they have it. My husband started juicing which actually saves us money bc he replaces certain meals with juice instead of food. We brew coffee at home. In warm weather we sub out sides for baby greens that we buy in huge tubs from Costco and eat salad and maybe some brown rice that we also get in bulk and always keep on hand in the rice cooker. We crockpot meat, shred it, and freeze it for all kinds of meals. We use ATT Uverse for Internet at home and use Skype and their VOIP for landlines or to videoconference with grandparents. We eat a lot of eggs (in lieu of meat) since we can buy very good quality ones for less than conventional meat.
pomelo / 5866 posts
Well fuel costs went down so that means more for my budget, yay! We save about $70 a month.
nectarine / 2148 posts
We just got rid of cable and now only have Hulu and Netflix. We did buy a hdtv antenna so we still get basic channels. We will do something different with our cell phones once our contract is up.
@Skadi: we are still using our normal cable company for Internet.
honeydew / 7235 posts
@Eko: @homestylecreations: @simplyfelicity: we have looked into getting rid of cable, but what did you do about WiFi? They bundle ours so we barely save by canceling the cable.
grapefruit / 4291 posts
I resist the urge to buy lunch while I'm out with the littles during the week - eating at home can save me $20 a pop!
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
@hellobeeboston: same here. Just internet is pretty expensive.
GOLD / wonderful olive / 19030 posts
WE are in the process of cutting cable and only doing Hulu/Netflix (and maybe SlingTV if we feel it is necessary) this will save us 100 bucks a month.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
@simplyfelicity: tell me about this sling TV! I'm checking out the website right now! I'd have to get the amazon fire stick tho.
pomelo / 5298 posts
For all of you cutting conventional tv? Do you watch a lot of sports? That's pretty much all we watch at home and I figured that would be challenging without conventional tv service.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
@MamaG: I know, DH needs the big channels for all his sports!
cantaloupe / 6634 posts
@snowjewelz: You just need some kind of media streaming device (whether roku or amazon fire stick) and then you can sign up for sling tv on the homepage. It works like regular tv but you can't record. You can watch shows that have already aired within a certain time frame. There is the basic package that's like 15 bucks a month but we pay an extra 5 dollars to get Tru tv.
grapefruit / 4988 posts
We also got rid of cable. We stream Hulu and also bought an HD digital antenna so we can still watch basic channels for free (including most of the pro sports we want to watch), plus they are in HD which is better than what our old cable was.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
@catlady: How's the reception? And what basic channels do you get?
grapefruit / 4988 posts
@snowjewelz: It's not bad. I think it largely depends on your area (mine actually has pretty bad reception just generally, but then again we can't even use cell phones in the house!). The channels we get are the basic ones like Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. If you google around, you can find sites that use your address and will guess what channels you'll be able to get.
nectarine / 2148 posts
@hellobeeboston: What company do you use? We use RCN and bundle our cable and internet, no phone. Our cable and internet was $120/mo. and just internet we pay $40.
honeydew / 7235 posts
@Eko: Verizon FIOS, we tried to cancel cable a year ago and it was only like a $30 savings it made no sense. The bundle is much cheaper than doing it a la carte. Booo. We got rid of DVR at least.
nectarine / 2148 posts
@hellobeeboston: Is RCN in your area? We had comcast when we first moved to the Boston area and RCN kept sending us so many promotional fliers that we ended up switching because it saved us about $100/mo. and they waived any installation and start up fees and gave us multiple free movie channels for about the first year.. I've had a lot of friends that switched to RCN because they are sooo much more affordable than Verizon or RCN. But, if you bundle in your cell phones I am not sure how much you would save. Just a thought.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
We went with Frontier, apparently, there was a big demand for cable free packages, so they created one that is just a land line and internet.
We don't watch any sports though, and we use Netflix and sometimes Google Play for shows.
persimmon / 1431 posts
I 've been trying to convince DH to cut cable for a couple years now, but he loves that we just record shows we want to watch. Grrrrrr. I think cable is such a money waster!
pomelo / 5509 posts
@snowjewelz: We have an HD digital antenna and get a surprising amount of channels aside from basic networks. We didn't know which channels we'd be able to get ahead of time, but in addition to CBS, ABC, PBS, NBC, and the CW, we get TBS, TV Land, Women's Entertainment, C-Span, Ion, and some randoms like This TV (a classic film channel). It's pretty decent!
grapefruit / 4187 posts
We only get cable during football season, then we cancel and go the rest of the year without it.
I don't have time to shop at multiple grocery stores/markets, but I find that buying more food each trip (so spending more) actually saves us a lot of money. If there is always something to make then we don't have to go out for dinner and DH eats the leftovers for lunch. I don't even shop sales as much as I could because I find it's not worth the time (there aren't really any sales at my grocery store because it's in a wealthy area). The key is just having a ton of food at home to choose from and backup options that keep you from having to make a trip just for one thing.
cherry / 248 posts
@eko what kind of HDTV antenna do you have? We've been talking about getting rid of cable but I didn't know how I'd get the basic channels sounds like the hstv antenna would be the solution.
cantaloupe / 6397 posts
@MamaG: We basically only have cable for the sports. It's insane. We even splurge for NFL sunday ticket... I can't even add it all up in my head because it makes me woozy!!
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