Cutting the cable Part 13

My cable bill is $250 so I am working at reducing it. Calling Time Warner is like shaking a magic 8 ball - you never know what you might get.

On April 15 I accepted a rate of $119.18. Since Time Warner bills one month on advance, that new price should appear on my next bill, right? Wrong. The bill arrived at $178!

I called and the first operator wasn't helpful.

So I called back to get someone else. This second fiddled with the bill and got it down to $142. But hay! What about my $119 price? Why is that not reflected on my "we bill one month in advance" bill? If I accepted $119 on April 15, then the time period of April 23 through May 22 should be $119.

It is almost as if Time Warner wants its customers to go to Dish. Is Time Warner trying to drive itself out of business? I am just one customer and look at the crazy things I have gone through to try to get a decent monthly rate! I think they hope that by making things this difficult, you will just give up and pay the high bill.

Lint for Lent Part 2

Lint for Lent is all about preventing a fire by cleaning dryer lint. I like to do this every year at lent (before Easter). However, Easter came early this year and I'm a little behind schedule.

In part one, I cleaned the dryer vent.

In part two, I unplugged my Whirlpool dryer, then I took the front cover off and vacuumed the inside.

I pulled the dryer out, vacuumed all around, and made sure the dryer vent was secured.

It only took 15 minutes and now I'm good for another year!

When was the last time you cleaned your dryer? You had better do it and avoid a fire!

Lint for Lent

Remember this simple rule to help avoid a house fire: lint for lent. It means: clean your dryer vent every year and lent (just before Easter). You can clean the dryer vent anytime, but this catchy phrase is a great reminder to get it done. Failure to clean the dryer vent can lead to inefficient cloths drying (taking longer) and could cause a fire that burns your house down.

I have a long 15+ foot solid dryer vent run.  Easter came early this year and I am a little late cleaning the vent, but, it still needs to get done! This is what I use, a lint eater:

It works like a dream.

A flexible plastic pipe connects to your drill and snakes a brush through the vent, cleaning it as it goes.

There is an attachment to connect a shop vac to the vent. This creates a vaccum inside the vent shaft and pulls all the loose lint to the shop vac as the brunch scrubs away.

I have a spot in the solid vent where I can access the vent for cleaning from indoors . I collected a lot of lint this year!

Cutting The Cable Part 12

My Time Warner Cable TV bill is $250. In this series, I am cutting my cable TV bill. So far? I am down to $127 plus I saved $35 on my cell phone bill during his adventure. And I have more to go!

My cable bill includes an $8 rental charge for the internet modem. My internet modem used to support two telephone lines, so, I could never replace it. But now that I have dropped my two telephone lines? Good bye rented internet modem!

I checked the Time Warner site for compatible cable modem models (make sure you get a modem that your cable company supports!) and then did some price checking. I wanted to get the most capable yet least expensive cable modem I could find. I found the Arris Surfboard SB6121 for $65 at Walmart.

Just a warning about selecting cable modems. You might be tempted to pay a little more for a better modem. Perhaps the next modem says it is faster or does more. Don't be fooled! Just because the cable modem says it can do 200 Mbps, it will only do whatever you are paying the cable company for. In my case, I'm paying for 15 Mbps internet. I could buy something that supports 700 Mbps, and I would still only get 15 Mbps.  Don't pay extra for something you don't need! And that goes for the support plans. If Walmart (or whomever you buy it from) offers you a support plan? Turn it down. Those things tend to be 12% of the original price, yearly re-occurring, and often have a 2-year buy-in that costs around 25% of the purchase price (robbing you of the Future Value (FV) of the money you are going to spend). Keep it simple: Buy the cheapest modem that your cable company supports, and will run your internet speed.

Before making any changes to your internet, you should bench mark your internet performance. Go to http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and run a couple of tests. Write down the results.

I unboxed the surfboard and plugged it in - pulling the cables out of the old modem and plugging them into the new one. The surfboard blinked and blinked and spent several minutes rebooting. Many devices need to download new versions of their software when they are first plugged in, so, that's fine.

When the cable box settled down, I called Time Warner to register the new cable modem. In some instances, you can go to a website to register your cable modem, but in my case, that option isn't available if your old cable modem use to support telephones.

The Time Warner operator needed my cable modem model number and the MAC address printed on the bottom of the cable modem. Ten minutes later? The cable modem was registered and I was surfing the internet again!

It was time to repeat the speed tests to make sure they were approximately the same as my benchmark. I did a speed test at http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and was satisfied with the results. When doing these speed tests, you rarely get the same result twice. You aren't checking to see if you get the exact same rate as the bench mark. You want to make sure you get something close to the bench mark - something in the neighborhood.

I'll return the old cable modem on Monday and get $8 per month off my bill. My break-even point for purchasing the cable modem is around 8 months, afterward, I start saving money (that is why you don't want an expensive cable modem because the break even point will be farther out).

My cable modem install was very easy and pain free. If you are still renting a cable modem from the cable company, you should consider replacing it.

Cutting Cable Part 11

My Time Warner Cable TV bill is $250. In this series, I am cutting my cable TV bill. So far? I am down to $127 plus I saved $35 on my cell phone bill during his adventure. And I have more to go!

Today, I arranged to have my Cable TV bill automatically billed to my credit card. I get 2% back on credit card purchases. That means I'll make $30 per year by making this change. I won't see this decrease on my cable bill, but I'll feel it in my wallet!

Cutting The Cable Part 10

My Time Warner Cable bill is $250, so, I am cutting the cable bill! If you have been reading my updates, you would know that I have already cut my bill significantly. Or... so I thought. I logged in to see what my next bill would look like and discovered my bill hadn't lowered as much as it should have.

My January bill was:
$78.47 - Starter and Standard TV and Sports and fee
$12.38 - Variety pass and The Guide
$50.87 - Standard Internet
$67.70 - Two phone lines
$21.96 - Equipment rentals
$17.63 - Taxes and fees
======
$249.01

I logged into Time Warner to see my bill and was shocked at how high it was:

$79.21 - Starter and Standard TV and Sports and Fees
$12.28 - Variety Pass and The Guide
$65.99 - Standard Internet
$21.96- Equipment rentals
$5.95 - Taxes and fees
======
$185.39

I returned the cable boxes. Why was my equipment rental still high?
Why wasn't the Guide nor the Variety Pass removed as the guy told me he would.
Why did my standard internet go up $15.12?
Where was my $89.99 for the Double Play Promotion? No one told me, but, when I returned the cable boxes I broke the Double Play Promotion. By saving a little on the cable box return, I ended up with a larger bill!

I spent half a day complaining to four different Time Warner operators and after the fourth agent, I got the following changes completed.

$79.53 - Starter and Standard TV and Sport and fee
$39.99 - Standard Internet
$8.00 - Equipment rentals
16.69 - Taxes and fees
=====
$144.21

I called back a fifth time to try to get the Double Play back. What I received was a rate of $127.82. This includes everything I have presently, plus a cable box and HBO.

I feel like calling Time Warner is like shaking a Magic 8 ball. You never know what you are going to get. At this stage in my cable cutting, I have dropped two phone lines and one cable box, saved $121 and am getting HBO. It doesn't make any sense to me, but, I need to let the dust settle a little big before I attack this bill some more. There is still work to be done though, so, tune back soon!

Cutting The Cable Part 9

My Time Warner cable bill is $250, so, I am cutting the cable bill! I have already cut the bill back and now I am going further.

For this latest chapter: I recently installed a second ooma and transferred the phone number to it. Today, I called Time Warner to verify that the approx $45 per month charge for telephone was off the bill.

I won't know for sure until the next bill comes, but, I estimate my cable bill should now be $105. If I am right, it means I have cut over $1700 per year off my cable bill in exchange for no service loss! And, incidentally, during the process I knocked $35 per month off my cell phone bill!

But wait... I am not done yet! Come back soon to see how I am going to get my cable bill even lower!

Cutting the cable Part 8

My Time Warner Cable bill is $250, so, I am taking action to cut my cable bill. Between Cable and Cell phone, I have cut $100 per month so far!

Last month I tried to return my cable boxes. The guy at the counter gave me a big discount in exchange for keeping them, so, I agreed. But when my bill came this month, I noticed my discount was not tied to my cable boxes in any way. 

Tonight, I returned my two boxes and saved $18 per month! In addition, Time Warner has several other charges, such as The Guide, that I was able to drop and save around $5 per month. That puts my total savings so far at around $125 per month! Imagine what I could do with that extra $1500 per year!

When I turned over the boxes, the guy warned me that within a year Time Warner was switching everything over to digital so I would need a cable box to watch TV.   What they are going to do is scramble the cable signal and require you to either buy or rent a cable box. I have heard the digital converter boxes will be free for the first year, and then $1.50 per month thereafter. I am not sure that is true, but I figure I will deal with it if and when it ever happens. By that time so might be converted to Dish and not care!

I'm not done cutting this cable bill. I have a lot more money to save! Tune back later to follow my crusade.