Saving Money Other Ways-part 2

Saving Money Other Ways...

     Would you ever give up cable?  NO!  Not us, never.  Because we are big fans of our TV time.  But circumstances this past two years led us to the conclusion that we could save a LOT of money by getting rid of our huge cable bill each month-our largest utitity bill.  So, we did the unthinkable (at least unthinkable to us) and cancelled the HD channels, the DVR player (I thought I might cry at this one), all the movie channels, Disney-Cartoon Network (Gasp is heard for miles from our kids), and yes ESPN (my sports fanatic hubby very nearly cried at this one).  We took it down to basic cable and by basic, I mean CBS, ABC, NBC, and the local govt channel and only because they (cable co) begged us to keep that at a much reduced rate for 12 months (insert smile here). 
     I thought it would be terrible, NO DVR??  My kids thought the world ended, no cartoon channels??  No ESPN??  But guess what?  We have all survived it, found new outlets to fuel our TV time, and even bonded more as a family! 
     Do go on-you say...I have found that almost all of my favorite shows can be viewed for free online, we already had an ipad (also free thanks to my hubby winning multiple sales contests at work) and on the ipad we downloaded the cartoon network app and it allows the kids to see cartoons that we don't already have on the tons of DVD's that they already have.  My husband has watched his beloved UK Cats on the internet via live streaming ESPN or whatever channel they are being shown on and we found netflixs!  Netflixs is cheap (9.00 a month for streaming internet movies via the wii and wi-fi) and mailed DVD's which come super fast.  So we cut our cable/internet bill from 200+ dollars a month down to less than $60 including the cost of internet/local channels/netflixs.  Thats a lot of moolah over the course of a year! 

     So, think outside the box...what can you change in your daily life that will make a big difference?  Brown bagging your lunch, limiting your eating out to once every few weeks (and only with coupons!), cutting a cable or telephone bill?  Every little change can really add up!