The Challenge: Stay Connected (& Entertained!) and Save Money

My husband, Tim, and I share a love of movies. When we were dating, we’d often run to the video store (gosh, that sounds so antiquated now) and rent movies. Without fail, one of us would forget to return our rental and we watched our late fees stack up. We immediately started a netflix subscription as newlyweds and we’ve never looked back!

In an effort to reduce costs in other ways, we took a look at our entertainment and communications expenses. A combined cable or dish package with phone and internet can run on special (usually for a limited time) at $100 and costs simply climb from there. Add cell phones to that, plus movie rentals, and you’re often looking at hundreds spent in this category.  We looked into other options and decided to try the following:

Netflix (3 movies at a time per month (unlimited) for $14.99
Verizon High-Speed Internet (no home phone needed) basic plan: $19.99
Verizon Cell Phone Family Plan: $90
(These are the companies we used, but other companies offer similar services. In fact, AT&T bundles cell and internet in some areas, but not where I live)

After using this system for 2 years, we discovered that we didn’t miss cable or a home phone! We lived with family and then moved into our own home after this time and decided to try a cable package again. I thought I needed a home phone and loved using the DVR with our cable package! Once the special ran out, though, I discovered that we were looking at somewhere around $150 to enjoy this package with DVR rental and service fees!

We decided to ditch cable once again and returned to our old system. I was pleasantly surprised to discover yet again that this system works for our family! All of our communication and entertainment needs are met, but at a lower cost. Plus, we actually waste less time surfing channels or simply watching what’s on because it’s there!

 If you’re considering trying out this type of plan, here are a few tips:

1. If your partner is reluctant to try a plan like this, get out your bills, do a little research on local costs, and do a side-by-side comparison. Then, write down what you’ll do with your savings.

2. When using Netflix, don’t be tempted to try a plan to get more than 3 movies at a time. If you read the fine print, you’ll see that Netflix has a policy to ship movies to customers who rent fewer movies first. At one point, we decided to try 4 or 5 movies at home at a time. Since shipping turnarounds were slower, we found that we paid more, but received approximately the same number of movies as a cheaper plan.

3. The $19.99 internet plan is not lightening fast, but it does the job. If this is an issue, you can select a premium plan for about $10 extra.

4. If you’re going to ditch the home phone, but sure your cell phone plan has a generous amount of minutes, talk to your extended family and friends about joining the same network, and take advantage of unlimited evenings and weekends.

5. Check out hulu and tv channel websites to watch shows online. You can work these shows into your schedule, instead of scheduling around them. Don’t wait until the end of the season to do this, though, because tv channel websites don’t usually make the entire season available at once.

6. If you own an Xbox 360 and have an XBOX live account, take advantage of “Watch Instantly.” This is especially great for television shows. You can also access “Watch Instantly” online. This has made me a true Netflix believer and I wish I didn’t even have to deal with DVDs!

7. If you can wait a short amount of time for tv to come out on DVD (and this happens so quickly now), you’ll be able to watch tv shows commercial-free, at your own leisure, plus experience the instant gratification of having the next episode right now.