I'm a huge technology fan. I think it kind of runs in my family, and I hopped on that band wagon pretty early. I'm not very smart when it comes to technology, but I definitely appreciate that it's there for me when I need it. It can, however, add up VERY quickly when you start snatching up new gadgets, upgrading your old ones, or collecting .99 cent apps on your phone.
I've found a couple ways to cut down on our tech expenses but they didn't all come easy. It took me a while to finally make the FINAL, cut-it-off call to our cable company, but I honestly haven't looked back. Sure, there were calls to them with threats to cancel, then came the discounts, free movie channels, introductory offers, and such. I realized that by caving to the offers I wasn't fulfilling the real goal I had in calling...to cancel so I could save real money. The free movie channels were fine except we probably watched two movies in those six months, and I really didn't want to be spending $70 a month on TV that I sometimes felt burdened to watch (you know that feeling when your DVR is full and the only way it can keep recording is if you have a weekend marathon of all the episodes of Chuck, Biggest Loser, and The Office). There were times I would turn it on "just to see what was recorded" and find myself hypnotized by that glowing screen for hours on end. I had to say no more, so I broke up with my cable company and suddenly found out that there really are more hours in the day!
I still need a fix from time to time, though, so we bought a $20 HD antennae from the store (after my husband attempted to make an HD antennae that only sorta kinda picked up a small signal every once in a while if he was holding it and touching the tv at the same time) and found out that some of the public broadcasting channels actually have some useful information. We also use the free version of www.hulu.com (there's a paid version that's $8/month...too rich for my blood) and can watch almost all the same shows that we were previously paying $70 a month for. I don't even miss some of the shows I used to watch. Come to think of it, I can't even remember some of the shows I used to watch even though at the time I would be mad if the DVR didn't record it or stopped working half way through.
I've also heard that www.netflix.com is similar to Hulu with slightly different offerings (also $8/mo), so you can check both of them out and decide which would be more appealing for you.
I can't say that I've given up TV altogether, but at least I'm not paying my cable company to suck hours out of my day (okay, let's be honest, I paid them and GAVE them those hours of my life willingly, but it's so much more fun to just blame them than look in the mirror).
Some other time we'll talk about saving money on phones using things like skype, Magic Jack, and a variety of other options that will probably pop up between now and when that post actually gets written.
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