13
Jan
This year we’re encouraging you to take our money-saving challenge. We’re not asking anyone to go too crazy with a severely frugal lifestyle. We are just asking you to cut back on one thing every month in order to save up approximately £750 ($1200) before the end of the year. Can you save more using our plan? Definitely! But at the very least you will have this nice little chunk of money to use for something special (or just for paying down your debt).
January’s Challenge: Cut Back on TV Expenses
In January we’re asking you to try to do something that most people don’t want to do: cut back on watching TV. Specifically, you can save a lot of money if you’re willing to give up your cable or Satellite television.
How to Do It
Doing this seems simple at first glance. All that you need to do is to call up your television provider and cancel your subscription. However, you are going to run into a few glitches when you try to do this. Here’s what they are and how to handle them:
- They’ll try to convince you not to cancel. Every single time that you try to cancel any type of service, the company tries to get you to stick with them. They’ll probably offer you a really good deal to keep your television service. If you’re already feeling wishy-washy about taking this challenge then you’re going to easily fall into their trap. The first thing you must do is commit to canceling the service before you make the call. And then you need to make sure that the only thing you say during the call is, “that sounds like a good deal but I just want to cancel my service”. Repeat this until they do so even though they’re going to tempt you with deals.
- Your bundle might be affected. Many people these days bundle their television service with other services like their cable Internet connection and their home phone service. You have two options here. First, you could get really frugal and give up all of these services. Alternatively, you would want to take the time to assess how unbundling is going to affect your budget. Make sure that you do some comparison shopping to replace your existing services with more affordable services if need be.
- You can’t bring yourself to give up television. Some people will find it just too tough to give up TV altogether. That’s okay; just take a long hard look at the services that you’re using and see if you can scale back in any way. Cut back to basic cable instead of keeping all of the channels. Get rid of your TiVO or DVR. Consider watching more television on your existing Internet connection so you feel less deprived as you cut back on cable.
How Much Money Can You Save
The amount of money that you can save if you do this challenge obviously varies depending upon the type of television service that you have, the deal that you got when you signed up and the costs associated with things like unbundling your service. A basic cable service costs the average person somewhere between £30 and £45 ($50 and $75) per month. This does not include any special programming packages, premium channels or digital TV services. Satellite TV costs are often higher than this. We believe that the average person can meet January’s goal of saving £60 ($100) by choosing to cut back drastically on television service.
How to Save Even More
Some ways that you can save even more with this challenge include:
- Commit to making this a year-long challenge. The amount of money you save with this year’s challenge is going to be a lot higher if you take the early steps and extend them throughout the rest of the year. Could you give up TV for the rest of 2010?
- Sell your television. If you aren’t going to be using it anymore anyway then you might as well get rid of it. Make some extra money and stick it in your savings account. Selling all but one TV in the house or downsizing to a smaller TV are other options.
- Use your TV time to do your budgeting. During the time of the day when you would normally watch TV, do something that will help you save money instead. Budget. Work out a debt repayment plan. Read a frugality book.
Things to Consider
Before you go ahead and do this challenge, you’ll want to consider a few things:
- The financial effect of unbundling your service (as described above). Make sure it’s financially a good move to cancel your TV service.
- Any contracts that you signed. Most people can cancel TV service without any financial penalties but there are rare cases in which a special deal will come with fees for cancellation. Make sure that this doesn’t apply to you before canceling.
- Reconnect fees. If you truly think that you can’t give up television for more than a single month then you need to think about what it will cost you to resume service when the month is over. Wait until there’s a good deal; maybe you can even get a better rate than what you were paying before. Be aware that there may be reconnection fees which defeat your savings plan.
Alternatives for the January Challenge
There are some people who will not be able to do the January challenge. This may be because they don’t want to commit to giving up TV. It may be because the financial savings aren’t worth it due to some of the aforementioned issues. Or it could be because they’ve already given up television. Here are some alternatives to help keep you on track with this year’s money-saving challenge:
- Give up your movie and Internet TV subscriptions. Do you pay to receive DVDs in the mail? Do you rent a lot of DVDs at the local video store? Do you have streaming Internet TV subscriptions that cost you money? Give those things up this month to start saving on your video watching.
- Stop going to the movies. Are you someone who doesn’t watch a lot of TV at home but who loves to go out to the movies? That’s probably costing you a lot of money. Give it up!
- Find free entertainment. Some people don’t like TV at all but they do spend money on other forms of entertainment like live music, art events or going to the theatre. Figure out where you spend your entertainment budget and give it up for the month of January.
Fun Fact for the Month
Cable television rates are on the rise. They’ve risen steadily year upon year. Learn to cut this out of your life now and you’ll end up saving a lot in the long run.
Other Blogs on Giving up TV
Many other frugality blogs have discussed the topic of giving up TV to save money. Here are some of the best posts on this topic:
- Wisebread says to watch your favorite shows but not to pay for them.
- Get Rich Slowly discusses cheap alternatives to TV.
- An eHow article has a great tip on negotiating a lower TV service price.
- Young and Frugal makes a good case for giving up cable.
- An Exercise in Frugality discusses Life After Cable.
Can you do it? Make a commitment in the comments below and check back with us to let us know how you’re doing!
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1
Hi Kathryn,
Not sure I can live without telly to be honest but it’s a brilliant thought.
Hey, take a look at my blog ‘Bob Versus’. I challenge things. My latest blog is about how I took on Christmas! I got presents for my entire family without spending a penny and it’s all legal! Have gander:
http://bobversus.com/?p=256
Cheers me dears