Financed a brand new car with money saved from Rogers

[Porta]

If you're looking for a way to save some cash, it might be time to review how much you're spending on the frills of communication and entertainment.

About 20 years ago, when we were talking about these bills, we were specifically talking about phone and cable. On average 20 years ago, this would be 2 separate bills, and most people had one home phone number and a cable television package. In total, the most you'd be paying for these services was less than $100.00, but on average people would spend about $60.00 per month for access to these services.

Fast forward 20 years, and we've added Internet access and cellular plans to the mix. Today, it's not unusual for one household to carry personal telephone numbers (cellphones) for each person, have at least one home phone line, a cable television package, and Internet access. When you consider that many voice communication and television entertainment are internet based, the very idea of paying twice (and sometimes) three times for the same service (Internet) to me has become ludicrous.

When looking at the raw numbers (in averages, of course), this breaks down to the following:

Cable Television: $50-$140 per month
Home Phone: $50 (1 line)
Cellular: $30 per phone
Internet: $50 per month (Average use)

In a home with an average of 3 cellular plans, this comes out to as much as $350 per month, but many people pay more when you factor in overage charges, added features, long distance and/or more robust packages (increased data usage, higher bandwidth, more channels). In fact, it's not uncommon for a household budget to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $400.00 - $500.00 per month. This is what our average was, in a 3 person household. In 20 years, we had quadrupled our home communication/entertainment budget.

There are alternatives out there, and there certainly isn't a need for redundancy with several phones or access to television programming.

The one Rogers service we did keep was our wireless package, but we did perform a major review of our package. In fact, this is something we like to do every 6 months because pricing structures change rapidly and your provider will rarely review your services... you have to be diligent on this one. With the "My 10" calling feature combined with a family plan, there aren't many extra numbers we would ever call that would incur text/voice charges outside of what is included within the plan. This takes care of most of the long distance canadian calling that we do, the only exception being the rare one-off numbers we call once in a blue moon. So far, our plans have remained within our provisional limits, and that keeps our cellular bill in check, just over $100. Before our "review", our bill for 3 phones had climbed up to $250 per month for these same three phones, and most of it was due to changes in their "package pricing". Like I said, review your plan very, very regularly!

We switched our telephone and internet access to Canadian based Tek Saavy. The home telephone line was substantially downgraded to a VOIP package, for which we pay just over $10 per month (plus long distance, if any). We approach long distance with our My 10 numbers, particularly numbers that we call somewhat frequently. This means that our VOIP package takes care of the random in-city calls both inbound and outbound that need to be made (calling a pizza, doctor's office, local friends, etc.). Our Internet package carries the telephone which means if it goes down, so does our home line but so what.. that's what we have cellphones for! It's not like we spend hours on the phone like a teenager in the 60's. That's what Internet communication services like Skype or Facetime is for. In total for both home telephone and Internet, our bill is less than $70.00 per month and includes 300GB of bandwidth! Previously, we had been averaging $225.00 per month for 2 home lines and a robust internet package that only gave a cap of 120GB per month... which more often than not, we went over (and incurred overage charges).

As for cable television? We don't need it... so it's gone! Actually, we haven't had a single cable television package since 2008, and we haven't missed it. That's not to say that we don't have access to the same great shows that everyone is keeping up with this season, and our access to this content is entirely legal and legitimate. Like most people, we have regular programs that we enjoy, and we like to rent a movie right from our living room from time to time as well. Also like most people, we have an average of 3 hours per day to spend on home entertainment outside of other activities (work, school, activities), and a good chunk of that is spent on the internet instead of in front of the boob tube (TV). The internet brought a huge change to home entertainment versus 20 years ago, when channel surfing and paying for a blanket of hundreds of channels to fill that empty void of time in the evening made more sense. Our family watches at most 3 to 5 new programs per season, offered by less than a dozen different channels. Instead of channel surfing, we browse programs and pick and choose what we want to buy and watch. We do this through Apple TV using iTunes and Netflix. Netflix costs $7.99 per month, provides access to more programming than we could ever possibly watch, and if there is something this season that we just "have" to see right away, we buy a season pass from iTunes. Season passes cost anywhere from $10 to $40 depending on the show, the most we have spent in an entire season on purchased season passes was $90.00... that's 4 months of programming, averaging out to $270 per year! Compared to the $140 per month cable bill we received monthly, this already is a huge savings.

In total, our monthly savings by reviewing and reallocating our services total about $300.00 per month. We literally used that saved budget to finance and insure a second car... a 2012 Nissan Versa Sedan with a rate of 0%! This investment is more valuable and necessary to our growing family than redundant telephone numbers and unnecessary added costs to access television programming.

Hope this helps you save a few bucks too!

[hopesdreams]

Your a really smart with money! Thanks for sharing

[Shwa Girl]

nice savings
welcome to smart canucks

[Gsxrboy]

This was extremely well written, thank you for this. When I help those looking for a budget, I always put cable tv as an expense that is not needed. With OTA (Over The Air Antennas) you can get high definition tv for free with a $30 antenna. I also have apple tv with a netflix subscription.

[Porta]

Thanks guys! Fun forum you've got here, and informative!

Agree Gsxrboy... I can't believe people still pay for conventional cable, considering the cheaper, more convenient alternatives today!

[anicas_stash]

Great read and congrats on your savings, Porta!

I'm also with Teksavvy and even won a Boxee from them even before I signed up. I use a Terk indoor antenna so I get access to the free channels. I watch TV shows that I miss through the Boxee and borrow DVDs from the library. My Fido plan is $35/monthly and has more features than I need but I'll start using them in January as I've been too busy with work and school this year. It really helps to look at utility bills and finding creative ways to cut costs. Why pad the pockets of the big companies when there are other options and we can redirect savings to other important things?

[zarkys]

Thanks for the great article! Like others have said- very well written!!