Are you looking for a few practical ways to save your family money? This series is all about providing tips and tricks to help you with your family budget. I am often asked for advice in this area and I want to share what little wisdom I am gaining when it comes to finances and budgeting.
The backstory: About two years ago, my husband and I started to take a serious look at our finances. We were expecting our first child and wanted to set up our future. Here is the truth- at one point we had racked up over 15k in debt and we were making over 150k a year combined. YIKES! We clearly had the income but we weren’t watching how we were spending. We did what most people do. We bought what we wanted to, ate out all the time, travelled, etc. We weren’t paying attention to how much money was going out each month on things we really didn’t need. And the truth is, this is how most of America lives. We thought because we have practically perfect credit scores, own our home, have two vehicles, travel, and can pay our bills that the “fine print” didn’t really matter so much. We were normal.
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My husband noticed how out of whack our spending habits were and he immediately took action. He started listening to Dave Ramsey and introduced me to his simple and practical philosophies into how to acquire wealth. While Dave’s tactics are common sense, they are also extremely difficult for most people to adopt. His motto is simple- you do not have debt. Period. You work, budget, and do whatever you have to in order to live a debt free lifestyle. This book and his principles completely transformed our way of thinking and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to set up their financial future.
Now that we have drank the Dave Ramsey kool aid, we live like weirdos and stick to a strict budget. In under two years of time, we paid off almost all of our debt with the exception of student loans and our home. This meant we didn’t travel as often as we would like, we don’t eat out nearly as much as we did, and we know where every single penny of our money is going each month. This means I have not purchased a new vehicle despite how badly I feel like I need a larger one with our growing family. This means we will live in our starter home for a bit longer than we initially planned. But guess what- that is okay!
Paying close attention to our budget is also the reason I am able to stay home with our children full-time while trying to build a new career in real estate so we are now trying to maintain this on half of the income we had before. I share the back story so you know why I am so passionate about this topic and so you know if you are in the same boat that you are not alone – and that like we did, you can take control of your finances too.
Back to the point of this post…..
Like most American households, we tossed away hundreds of dollars every month for as long as I can remember to the cable company. I know what you maybe thinking- “how will we survive without cable?” I thought the same way for a really long time. So I continued to pay the ridiculous amount of money each and every month to watch The Real Housewives.
The truth is, since dropping cable we have still been able to tune into whatever we want to watch and are paying over a $100 less on our technology bill each month. I no longer have to argue with incompetent AT&T employees (no offense if you work there) about why my bill continues to go up and why the promotion they “promised” has not been applied. Save yourself the headache and ditch your cable for the following reasons….
I would start off with a great deal when first signing up. This is how they trap you! Then after a year, the bill would nearly double and I would be back on the phone trying to get another deal. Which means another dreadful contract in most cases. We personally were just getting sick of the ridiculously high cost and the constant phone calls to try and get our bill to a range that made since. We were consistently paying over $230/month for internet and cable which is just way too experience in my opinion when you are watching your budget closely.
Ditching cable meant we were also able to free ourselves of the ugly cable boxes and wires. We now stream everything which means all we need is our internet modem. Which brings me to my next point….
Literally! You do not need to fear missing out on your favorite programming because everything you could want to watch, you can stream. There are countless streaming services you can subscribe to for a fraction of the cost of cable so you can watch all the live TV you want to 🙂 And no contracts!
This one is huge if you want to control how much TV your tiny humans are viewing. My son pretty much watches only Netflix programs that teach him something or one of his favorite movies on repeat (Trolls, Sing, and Moana are his go to’s). My husband and I also watch far less TV and fill that time with quality time with the family or streaming our favorite pastors.
Seriously- I promise you will not even notice it’s gone. Get yourself a few streaming subscriptions and you will have access to everything you want and nothing you don’t need. Your budget will thank you. We are now paying about $100/month for all of our television viewing and that is including our internet! We do have to have a higher speed internet plan because of how much we stream but it has been worth every penny.
There you have it. I really hope these points have convinced you to say goodbye to your high priced cable plan. Saying bye to cable is one of the many ways I help keep our family on budget each month. If you also have ditched your cable, share your feedback of the pro’s and con’s in the comments.
