Part of the journey to a more sustainable and self-reliant life is eliminating unnecessary expenses. Analyze your spending and eliminate the fat; we’ve gone through this exercise several times over the years and we always find something that can go. One of the biggest ‘luxury’ items people spend money on is cable TV. Remember when TV was free? The average American is now paying $64 a month just for basic cable, not to mention all the add-on movie channels, sports channels or just expanded basic; I personally know someone who pays $230 a month for cable they rarely watch!
Time to cut the cord folks; YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc., can replace most of your TV watching for a fraction of the cost. How many channels are you paying for that you never watch? If you’re ok with wasting money, fine, but literally hundreds of thousands of others have dumped cable with many more to come. I know, some of you will insist that you have to have that local TV news, but even if that’s a priority for you, are you paying for other services you aren’t using? Some folks have gone back to putting an antenna on their house to pick up free broadcast HD TV (you do need a special antenna and converter box or HD ready TV to watch).
Still have a land-line? Seriously? Even my elderly parents have moved on to cell phones. When was the last time you even used that thing?
We cut the cord 2 years ago and never looked back. Not only are we saving money, we actually spend less time watching movies and more time actually talking to each other. What a concept!