We just finished a one year, new home package with Shaw that gave us almost every channel, hi-speed internet, a brand new HD PVR, new modem/wireless router and home phone for roughly $88 a month. It was a fantastic deal which saved us around $80 a month.
Now that the offer expired my wife and I sat down and decided how much we really wanted to spend on this kind of entertainment. Spending over $2000 a year on TV, phone and internet seemed a little excessive to me. Having a home phone that costs us less than $30 a month is a must. After growing up in a small town and using dial-up, hi-speed internet is also a must and anyone who has used dial-up will agree with me. That leaves TV as the only service we can really change.
When I was a child, TV was the ultimate form of entertainment. I remember watching some amazing TV shows that helped shape my sense of humor and will be forever engrained in my memory. As I grew older I judged all the new television programs based on my memory of past shows and came to the conclusion that TV programming is going downhill. Just watch an episode of Jersey Shore and you'll see what I mean. That being said, as I watch episodes of my favorite shows from the past, it seems like I might have given them too much credit. Watching an episode of "Dukes of Hazard" or "A-Team" in my thirties makes me laugh at how corny those shows really were. I've come to the conclusion that television has been headed down a slippery slope a lot longer than I thought.
We decided to limit the amount of channels to keep the costs to a minimum and to allocate the funds to perhaps a holiday fund instead. By cutting our services from $168 to the bare package of $100, we are going to save $68 each month. Over the course of a year, our savings will add up to $816 which is a huge chunk of a nice vacation somewhere warm. By limiting the channels we watch, we can also spend more time on other hobbies and perhaps more updates on a certain blog.
With more and more TV programs available online for free, it makes perfect sense to watch them there, rather than pay for it through a cable bill. Some may not know it, but GlobalTV.com and CTV.ca are excellent sources to watch some of your favourite TV shows for FREE. So now instead of planning which TV shows to watch this winter, we can spend more time planning our next holiday getaway.
2 comments:
Good idea. I watch some shows online as well. I find there are generally less commercials compared to cable.
The online commercials are usually 15-30 seconds which is a lot easier to handle then regular TV.
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