Many people are still struggling to cope with their new economic reality after the most recent recession. One of the fastest and most effective ways to make a financial change is to lower your cable bill, or even eliminate it completely.

Here are several options that you have to lower your cable bill.

How to Cut Your Cable Bill

Get Rid of Unwanted Channels

Look at your bill and cut out all of the channels that you don’t need. It doesn’t make sense to pay for 800-1000 channels when you only watch about 6 or 7 regularly! Many times the company will try to force you to buy packages rather than individual channels; however, you may have some success with paying for only a few stations.

Take Advantage of a Bundle

Most service providers offer more than one related service. You may be able to combine your cable service, Internet connection, land-line phone, and maybe even your cell phone into one bundled service. Sometimes you can find significant savings by going this route (but not always), so make a quick phone call to your various service providers to see if any of them offer bundles.

Call and Ask for a Discount

Pretty much all cable companies offer various promotions and discounts. Usually these offers are extended to new customers, but not always. If you are a current customer, call up your cable company and ask them if they have any promotions available for existing subscribers. If not, ask to receive the promotion for new customers.

If they say that they can’t, then threaten to cancel your service – you will quickly be transferred to their “customer retention department”, who will try their best to get your to stay. Normally, the first thing that they offer is the discount that you were told that you couldn’t receive.

How to Eliminate Your Cable Bill

Cancel Your Service and Use Cable TV Alternatives

Were you expecting something a little more complex? This is by far the most effective way you eliminate your cable bill ;-)! However, this is usually the last choice for many facing serious financial trouble. Just cut your cable completely, and learn to find enjoyment out of other things in life.

Since I know that many of us can’t imagine life without television, I list a few alternatives below.

Netflix

Netflix is a service that allows you to rent DVDs through the mail for a monthly fee. The way it works is that they mail you the movies that you wish to see, and you are allowed to keep them as long as you want – with no late fees – and once you return them, they will send you the next movies. You can repeat this cycle for as many times as you are able within the month.

In addition to this unlimited DVD rental feature is the ability to watch movies either on your computer or on your TV (through the assistance of various devices and consoles). We pay about $10 per month and we are able to watch a huge selection of movies, documentaries, series, and TV shows on our television through our Wii. This is also possible using a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iPad, iPhone, and even various Blu-ray players.

Hulu Plus

If you like to follow television shows on a regular basis and don’t want to fall behind, Huluwill work for you better than Netflix. Hulu allows you to watch many of the currently running shows through your computer. Also, many of the same devices that can play Netflix offerings on your TV can handle Hulu as well. Hulu Plus costs $8 per month.

Other Services

Netflix and Hulu Plus are probably the two most known options. However, there are a number of other options for you to watch movies and television shows without subscribing to an expensive cable plan. I will just list them here, providing links to their websites:

*photo by Renjith Krishnan

Reader Questions

What have you done to cut or eliminate your cable bill? Do you have experience with any of these other options?

Google+ Comments