Like it or not, the grim reality behind your normal TV subscription is that it’s taking up a significant portion of your monthly bills and it’ll keep on increasing….unless you do something about it.
If you’re thinking about cutting down the service as the only way to be frugal with the whole thing, it’s not going to work because of one simple reason: it’s still considered a leisure purchase in an average American household, despite the growth of Internet subscription channels like Netflix and Hulu Plus.
In fact, the American time use survey summary published by Bureau of Labor Statistics back in June reveals that everyone age 15 and above are engaged in some sort of leisure activity, and watching TV was the activity that occupied most time (half of all the leisure time spent; almost 2.8 hours each day).
So now that you’ve noticed that cutting the TV service completely is out of the question, here are some practical ways to save money on your service:
1. Search for bundles
When you opt to use different companies for home services such as TV subscription, telephone and internet, it translates into a higher price because companies don’t usually offer any price discounts or benefits on single service packages. On the other hand, you can save a significant portion on monthly bills by subscribing to multiple services from a single company like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast.
Another way to be frugal with the bundle option is to search for promotions on multiple service bundles–like a FiOS promotion code for the Verizon triple play bundle or a U-verse promotion code for AT&T U-verse service. However, note that promos can vary from double play to triple play services, so you should search and select the one that includes the TV service as a part of the bundle. Doing so will result in extra savings.
2. Talk to the service provider
Only a few cable TV companies are kind enough to offer service improvements or existing package upgrades to customers who pay their bills without any delays, while others don’t care as long as the customers continue to pay without rocking the boat. The latter also offer new channels, promos and free giveaways to attract new customers, without offering the same benefits to existing customers.
Don’t let the same happen to you; pick up your telephone, call your service provider and negotiate for a better deal/service if you’ve been a loyal customer and have never had any defaults on bills. Taking this action may just get you a few months of free service or an upgrade in existing prime TV channels.
3. Eliminate extras
It’s unlikely that you’ll be watching all the channels provided in your TV service, so you can ask the provider to discontinue the ones that you barely switch to. Also, prime channels aren’t only limited to HBO and Cinemax; they can extend to sports and entertainment channels that you may haven’t heard of before.
These prime offerings are accompanied by extra costs, so you can eliminate them all together. Don’t procrastinate on downgrading or discontinuing extra channels; instead call your service provider today to start saving.
photo credit: samsungtomorrow via photopin cc
How do you save on TV services? Feel free to leave comments below.
Or go bold, like me, and ditch it all together. Most of what you can watch on TV you can stream for free over the Internet (most major stations offer this directly via their own websites) and what you can’t get for free is fairly cheap but paying any amount definitely stops me in my tracks and makes me think 2x about the expenditure so I rarely fall into the trap of using it for background noise.
We did that for a while as well. Actually, we have basic cable for free now with our community, but rarely watch it. And we still have Netflix and Amazon Prime (Prime more for other reasons) which give us everything else we could want on demand which I definitely prefer to “regular” TV. Not fun being chained down by your entertainment. lol
Over the air tv is also still free – we get about 20 channels and sub channels with our antenna that cost $100 up front but no monthly bills.