Well that was surprisingly easy...

[thistlechaser]

There are horror stories about how hard it is to cancel your Comcast service, so I was dreading having to call in and cancel my TV service. But I said I was going to do it at the end of my vacation, and that's today, so I did it.

Hold time was 3-4 minutes per their recorded message, but I think it was closer to half that.

The guy asked me once why I didn't want it (I lied and said I was giving TV up -- I figured I needed a reason that would be hard to argue against), and then he tried to tell me about promotions to keep both it and my Internet service as a package, but I interrupted him and said no thanks, and that was it. Maybe 30 seconds of basically effortlessness to cancel it.

Unfortunately my Internet service goes up a bit without the TV package. It was about $65/month with TV (for a total of about $150), and it's $82/month stand alone. Not great, but better.

Next thing I have to look into is my cellphone plan. That's $100/month, which is crazy. ...man, Verizon was even easier to deal with, I didn't even have to call in. With a couple clicks on their website, I got more data (which doesn't matter much, since I never used the limit on what I had) and cut my bill nearly in half. I feel silly for not looking into this sooner!

So that's about $100 a month saved, which is a start... Even if I get a raise in December (which SHOULD happen, but "should" might not matter), I still need to make more cuts in my life. Some will be easy (Ellie New Cat is no longer going to get the very best catfood there is -- she was on it for years to lose weight, and still needs to lose weight so clearly it's not doing the trick) and I'm giving up Amazon Prime (my mother is going to let me piggyback on hers when needed), but some will be harder (I really need to look into a smaller apartment, though I just signed my lease a couple months ago, so it will be a while yet before I can move. I don't want to move. ;; )

Life is rough when you live in one of the most expensive places in the country and don't have a paycheck that matches...

Comments

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Good for you on saving that money!
I'm glad it wasn't as hard as you feared!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's a little jarring right now to not have TV, but there are a whole lot of online sites that stream live TV, commercials and all. So right now I have one of those on the second monitor and it's an okay substitute.

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

Housing costs in your area are stupidly expensive...I hope you can find some other easy ways to cut expenses. Would it be possible for you to do some freelance work on the side?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Maybe in the future, but right now I don't have the experience yet. That's also why I can't move on from this job yet. One day I'll likely go to a different company, and (hopefully) get a pay increase at the same time. Fingers crossed.

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you need to move!

Seriously, though, those sound like some really expensive packages. Or perhaps TV/broadband/mobile is more expensive in the States? And I though everything was more expensive here.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Everything's pretty expensive here, yeah. If only my pay matched!

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

I've used the "I'm leaving!" tactic a few times now to get a better deal from my cable company. 100Mb/s internet with no cap is a wonderful thing. :)

Although the discounts do expire after a year or two and you have to be careful to renegotiate them before they start charging you at the normal exorbitant rates.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought of that, but I'm so lazy I'd just let it roll over into the new rate after a year. Like my cell phone plan -- how long ago could I have saved 50% by just checking their website? Arg!