I’m not one for making New Year Resolutions because, I’ve learned (from past experience) that I’m not good at keeping them … they are usually forgotten in a matter of days or weeks. I am a great believer, however, that new habits or changes can be made any time. So, I vowed that this year was about getting tough on household spending. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not much of a spendthrift and I do regularly evaluate our spending, but I also recognise it’s very easy to overlook the way money is spent. It’s so easy to get into the habit of doing things a certain way because that’s the way we’ve always done it. I’ve decided to take control, be brutal and get tough!
So, my first challenge was to reduce the amount we were spending on Pay TV.
Here’s what we had before today:
- Foxtel: $164.00/month for the Platinum HD Package with included Entertainment, Entertainment Plus, Sports, Movies, Drama, Docos, Kids Channel and a second IQ3 Set Top Box.
- Stan: $10.00/month
- Netflix: $13.99/month
Since installing the above, we haven’t rented any movies from our local DVD store nor have we purchased any DVDs, so that’s saved a few dollars anyway.
After chatting with my hubby, we agreed to leave Stan and Netflix as they were. We all have favourite shows on each and it’s great having such a huge selection of movies.
We both agreed, however, that the cost of Foxtel was way too high. At $164.00/month, this equated to an eye-watering $1944.00/year. We logged on to our account to see what we were getting for our money and decide if we still needed all the channels that we’d originally signed up for.
Time to make a phone call!
I spoke to two different consultants, indicating that I wanted to reduce our costs. Both worked very hard to encourage me to retain my full service exactly as it was with the first consultant offering a package discount of $20.00/month and the second consultant offering a discount of $30.00/month. We decided instead to cancel the second IQ3 box in our bedroom as we weren’t using it all that much … a saving of $25.00/month as well as cancelling the Kids Channels and the Documentary Channels … a further saving of $20.00/month.
Neither consultant was willing to offer a discount on the package that remained (I did ask) but our account has still been reduced to $115/month or $1380.00/year … a saving of $564.00/year … not bad for a single phone call!
Once my bill reflects our new pricing and I’ve returned the second IQ3 box, I do intend to call back and request a discount on the remaining package. I’m quietly confident that another discount will be offered to retain us as customers but time will tell. If not, I’m willing to cut back to just the Sports Channels for my hubby and maybe even cancel the service altogether.
So, tell me, do you also find pay TV eats into a huge chunk of your budget? What other big savings have you made lately?
Here are some other great money saving ideas:
