TRANSCRIPTION: As your budgeting and thinking about your household bills, some of those are our costs that you have less control over reducing. In general you have less control over things like water usage and electricity, unless you are employing some of those energy savings techniques or water saving techniques and certainly those are all really good things to do not just for your home, but also for our planet as well.
Programmable thermostats such as the Ecobee are a great way to lower your electrical bill, but in some of the other areas that you have a lot more flexibility such as your cable bill or your TV bill. For a while my husband and I were living in different cities because of the military and we did not feel like paying for cable into houses. So he cares about cable less than I do. Apparently I’m pampered but he skipped cable for you know, six seven months until I moved down and insisted on cable the very same week.
There are antennas that you can get from the store such as Walmart, Amazon, or your local hardware store that you can just plug into the back your TV do a channel scan and you get all your local channels for free. If you have favorite cable shows that you want to watch there are certainly some streaming devices that you can plug into your TV as well and you can stream some of your favorite channels for a very low cost and sometimes even free.
There’s Roku, Amazon Fire are great options. If your TV is Wi-Fi enabled or a little smart TV then you can certainly use some of the streaming options. I have a Amazon Prime membership I got lots of content through Amazon Prime at no additional cost so that’s not free but since I’m already paying for the Amazon Prime membership each year it’s essentially free. Then Netflix I know they just recently raised their monthly fee not that long ago. Disney Plus just came out that’s another streaming option.
So the only danger with all of these streaming options is it’s very tempting to sign up for all of them. You know, you’ve got Hulu you’ve got Netflix so you’ve got Sling TV, YouTube TV, Disney Plus … all of these can really add up quickly. Before you know it a $9.99 charge each month times six or seven is about what your cable bill would have been anyway.
I got YouTube TV. I really only saved $30 a month so it wasn’t that dramatic so then if I go add on another service basically right back where I started. But YouTube TV has been great especially as I travel. I can watch YouTube TV no matter where I am and I actually stream it on the airplane.
YouTube TV with sporting events because that’s the one thing I saw with some of the streaming like my husband had this box where you could stream oh yeah things through that but there was always a lag with this soccer game YouTube TV is actually one of the ones that is does very well the sports because you have all the sports networks actually has the most and they were official sponsor of major like baseball and they really promoted heavily during the World Series so right I have Comcast NBC Sports Washington so I can watch my hockey games no matter where I am in the United States. That channel typically doesn’t show up in some of these other services all my sports are on there even local sports and locals channels, so it’s but it’s 50 bucks a month, oh for YouTube TV what it gives you unlimited DVR.
Another area you can look to save costs is like maintenance costs, you know, you can for one make sure you’re maintaining your major appliances so that they last longer. I I know there’s a option of there for home warranties. I don’t know how you feel about them. I look at them as like an insurance policy but you do have to read all the fine print on those because they’re a lot of exclusions, especially on the lower price plan, so I actually don’t do home warranty.
I prefer to just put money into a savings account for unexpected expenses like an air conditioner not working or plumbing costs.
I do the same thing. I just beef up by emergency account. I would have paid for the warranty I put off the side because technically over time you will not need it.
Some good local HVAC companies that offer a programs where you pay an annual fee and then you get all the service calls you need during that year. I know additional charge but I know my in-laws have a plan like that and their plan actually includes twice a year they come out and service the HVAC system, you know, spraying and fall to make sure fully operational and then they also get the mother kind of maintenance included as well, so the maintenance is something that’s easy to overlook, but it’ll definitely pay for itself.
What do you think?
Do you agree? Let us know and we’ll play or read your comments on the show. Call 989-888-ROCK (7625) and record your thoughts or just email us to podcast@rocklandusa.com
Website: https://rockonthemoney.com/
Subscribe to the podcast – all links located here: https://linktr.ee/rocklandusa
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/your401k/
