Have I mentioned already how I listen to Dave Ramsey, and I have a very passionate love/hate relationship with him?
Well, in case you are just wandering here because you googled “pekid” or “flea bites on babies” or one of my other top search requests, let me say: I listen to Dave Ramsey. I hate him because he’s pretty self-righteous about everything, but I love him because he’s self-righteous because he’s usually right.
He’s most often the podcast I listen to when I run because I can completely go on auto-pilot and just listen to his Dr. Phil-like cadence or I can hone in on his astute financial advice, especially when it comes to family planning or financing a funeral before you actually NEED one. (Yes, I’m THAT person.)
People (like me) always call into his show and (like me) have a hard time managing their money and (like me) they always say that they’ve given up all of the extras, but (like me) typically they haven’t. They’ve given up the obvious stuff.. like not buying new furniture every month, or not seeing a movie twice a week, or whatever.. but have they REALLY tightened the belt? Um, no. Not really.
We’re very much that way. Sure, we don’t eat out often.. but we grocery shop twice a week. And we don’t pay a lot for our cars.. but we’re not really conservative with the gas we put in them. We say that we’re not living in luxury, but.. well, hell, we’ve got expanded cable AND TiVo.
This is when Dave gets all uppity. “Stop it!”, he’ll yell. “Get on the poor diet! Beans and rice, rice and beans! You can live on it! It’ll keep you full enough!”
::sigh:: I’m.. well, I’m about to get on-board.
We had a snafu in our cable billing this month (it’s an automated draft) where it didn’t go through. Rather than contact us, which they said they did but OH HELL NO THEY DIDN’T, they just terminated our service today. To say I was livid when I called them may have been an understatement. I actually made Bryan leave the room because I knew how I was about to get. We’ve NEVER been delinquent, I said. We’ve had service with you for four years now and have NEVER been delinquent. This is how you treat your long-standing customers?
Unfortunately, Call Center Cathy wasn’t very sympathetic.
When I hung up the phone, I realized.. why do we even HAVE cable? Bryan and I went years without having cable and we were just fine. So.. maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time to give up the cable. And maybe.. even.. ::gulp:: the TiVo. ::HOLD ME::
I’m thinking just going cold turkey for six months. No cable, no TiVo. Just to see, you know? If nothing else, we’d have some extra moolah at the end of the six months and we’d have a good idea of how realistic it is.
Sweet Baby Jeebus, Dave Ramsey. What have you done to me?
We got cable right before we landed in huge financial trouble and have to move back home from AL and I still regret it. I was so nervous about signing the contract for 2 years and then all my worst fears came through. I can live with basic cable and no DVR but I do love having it. Mostly the TV is just for background noise while I do other things, so I shouldn’t care if I have it or not.
We dropped right before KP was born, and we hardly miss it. But then again, we’re admittedly really boring nerds. (Too bad beans & rice don’t come with internet alternatives.)
I say consider it a blessing. With so much on the internet on sites like Hulu, I really don’t think you’ll miss cable. And you’ll save money, which is always good.
Hulu is my friend but supposedly is going to a pay model as early as this coming January. I’m already in search of a hulu alternative. One I like that only links to videos (no hosting on their site) is SideReel.
We had a similar This Has Never Happened Before, Are You Kidding Me? issue with our power bill last month after I tried to set up online bill pay. Now we have to pay in cash because they won’t even take a check from us. Thanks a ton, friendly local power service.
On the bright side, I love beans and rice.
Haven’t had cable for 8 years. Only had cable before that because it was provided by the home owners association. Believe it or not, without it, you’ll DO more. Esp. during the summer! And who knows? Maybe you can fund your blogher fantasy this way??
[...] In this post, I talked about scaling back our cable options to save money. I talked to Bryan about it and he didn’t even need persuading (GULP), so I guess I had to make good on my bluff. So when I called to see the prices, I learned that our internet was costing us $65 a month. Basic (non digital) cable would bring that total to $75. So, an extra ten bucks for cable? Not worth cutting back. (Bryan agreed.) So I called in this week to schedule the downgrade in service, and they offered a new price for our package .. as-is .. at $80 a month. So we’re keeping digital cable and STILL saving $30 a month. Just by asking. Hm. Lesson learned. [...]