31 Days and 31 Ways to Save : Cutting Cable Costs

Are you spending a small fortune on cable or satellite tv? The average Canadian household spends I would guess at least $100 a month on tv. That is $1200 a year! What could you do with that money? Spending a small fortune on cable does not work for me.

What does is is cutting the cable costs. There are many ways to drop your cable costs each and every month. Some are less radical then others but let me share what has worked for me.

Recently I cut the cable at our house as both my daughter and I have laptops. We watch alot of media online so this made sense. All of my favorite shows I can find online the day after they are on tv and guess what there are less commericals and since I am already paying for my internet connection it is free.

I also ordered Netflix. Here in Canada it costs me $8 a month and you can have 2 devices watching at any one given time. This works for us as Rachel can be watching her favorite animated shows which are on Netflix while I watch a movie.

We have also cut our cable. We choose to view online. We also bought an antenna that allows us to get 7 channels ( we live in a basement apartment), other friends using an antenna are getting more.

So do you want to cut your costs after hearing what works for me? Here are some of the things you can try:

1. Call your cable provider and tell them you are thinking of leaving, see if they can offer you a better bundle.

2. Get rid of theme packages that you are not watching all the time. Come on do you really need them?

3. Do not order Pay Per View movies, or sporting events. You can get a theme package or two for the cost of these. If you love movies I do recommend Netflix or how about using your local library. We use ours alot and the Toronto libraries have many great choices.

4. Get rid of the cable box. If you have a new tv most come with a buildt in scanner thus taking $5 off your bill each month or if you need a box buy one outright from many of the big box stores.

5. Go on a Media diet. Cut the cable and choose other sources for media input and watch what you are watching there is alot more to do then sit in front of a screen.

6. Go radical and cut the cable and instead of buying an antenna you could even build one.

All of these would work for me and I hope they work for you as well. Now I am off to We are That Family to see what is working this week for others.

And if you want to get radical and build your own antenna here is a video I found on doing so: