Monthly Bills

We don't have cable at all = save $160/month !!!
If we want to watch a movie - we rent from library for free, or you can get do the redbox/blockbuster rental boxes for $1/night, but with 3 kids we don't really have time to watch much TV anyways.

We pay

$10 p/m for Netflix

$6 p/m for Hulu+

$20 p/year for xBox live / $ 1.66 per month for xBox Live

$75 p/m for 3 iPhones with data plans (combined)

$25 for internet
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apx 125-30 per month for phones/ internet/ tv

I cut my cable down to the basic. 25 channels total which include ABC, NBC, etc. I have an HDTV and I pick up the network channels in HD and a few other channels, mainly local, in HD as well for no extra money. That just went up to $16 a month with Cox. I also have my internet through Cox. High speed (the middle high speed) for $48 a month. I don't have a landline. My cell phone is a basic phone, 450 anytime minutes, 5000 night and weekend, and 200 texts a month. With my company discount, I pay $39 a month for that. That's with AT&T. I watch most TV on Hulu for free. I've looked into Netflix, but have decided against it right now. So total for me is around $103 a month. If they keep raising the rate on the basic cable, I may end up dropping it also, since most of my TV watching is online.

We live in Illinois and we pay

23.00 for Comcast totally basic cable (It's only about 20 or so channels)

28.00 for ATT Internet (medium speed)

70.00 for ATT smartphone 450 minutes and unlimited data, no text (I use the textfree app for texting). Also you could use skype phone for making phonecalls using the data plan instead of the ATT minutes.

We got rid of our landline about 2 years ago and never regretted it. We use the cel phone or Skype for keeping in touch.

We just bought a Roku box, which allows you to watch many internet channels and shows from around the world on your tv and we'll probably get Hulu Plus, too. I believe it's about $10.00 or so and you can watch many of the popular tv shows.

We pay $226 for satelite, internet and two verizon cell phones with 300 minutes and 250 texts.

We use US Cellular for our cells. I have a touch screen android phone and he is getting a new one in a few months. We pay about $150 per month and have a LOT of internet (my husband is on nearly all day), 1200 or 1400 minutes, and text too not sure if it's unlimited for sure but I think it is.

We got rid of our land line a couple of years ago and find that we don't miss it at all. We have basic cable and only pay about $50 per month. I would say that your cable bill should be much less. You can watch TV on the internet now. I think that would be a major area that you can cut back.

that does seem like a lot. Our cable is with directv. We have the basic family package (just basic with kid chanels like disney, nick jr, plus hgtv, and some others I can't remember) and our cable bill is only $38 per month. We do not have a home phone line. We only use our cell phones and we have a family deal for that. I think our total cell bill is around $150 a month for unlimited minutes, texting and we both have 4G droids. Our internet is with cox and I think it's $35 a month.
I think you can totally save money by cutting your home phone line and maybe change your cable company. $160 just seems crazy for just basic cable. I have never heard of anyone paying that much for basic.

Girl!!

CALL COMCAST NOW!!!! I have two phone lines, internet and basic cable for $99 a month...

Check around for other cell phone plans - Verizon is the most expensive out there...the only reason we keep it is the majority of my family uses Verizon. You can also call Verizon and get a new plan and new phone(s)..we get new phones ever 18-20 months...at least I do..hubby could care less.

You are spending WWWWWWAAAAAAAYYYY too much!!!

We got rid of our land line years ago, and have never regretted it.We have Comcast cable and internet package that runs around $90 or so.(?)
I don't know what Data plans run, we don't have smart phones either, but if you were to upgrade to a smart phone get a data plan and lose the home internet and only have cable, you might be saving some. Then you wouldn't have internet on your home computer, you would just have it on your phone. That is actually what my Mom does.

If you can get At&t u-verse in your area- we just switched from Comcast and paying about $40 less a month and we have 3 DVR boxes with their U300 package that has Showtime and Encore, their Elite internet, and home phone. As far as cell phone my Mom and I are on family plan at T-Mobile and we pay $120 a month for unlimited talk and text (we would be paying $100 except she has a Blackberry that is 20 bucks a month) and my husband has the Muve Music phone that we paid $110 for the phone (normally over $200) and he pays $60 a month ($55 for the plan and $5 for insurance). The cool thing about Cricket is that there are no other charges such as tax- it's just a straight $60 a month. He loves his phone. Go online to the websites and look at their plans. A lot of cable and phone companies have web only deals that are good. Also if you call the companies that you have you can ask for their retention department and tell them because you are unsatsified with your plans and thinking of switching they will offer you deals to get you to stay.
Good luck! You can find way better deals then you have- just look around.

We pay $100 per month for Comcast bundle - phone, internet and cable (with DVR & free HBO channels). What we do is switch from Comcast to AT&T each year. They compete against each other so they are always willing to give you a great rate for a year to get you to switch. Once the year is over with Comcast we will call AT&T to see what they will offer. If Comcast does not beat their pricing we switch. AT&T has U-Verse in our area so it's all very similar.

Call AT&T to see what kind of offer they will give you to switch. Then call Comcast back and tell them you think you are paying too much and AT&T is offering $XXX per month. See if they will meet it and if not switch.

Drop cable and do netflix - get pay as your go phones if they are not a necessity.

Call your providers and tell them that you REFUSE to pay the prices of your current bills any longer and want something that is much better priced/economic or you will be contacting another company for their lower prices. I've done this several times and ALWAYS come out with little to no changes to my services and big changes to my bills.....Be nice but firm and express that you are a loyal customer and enjoy their services, but just cannot continue to pay the outrageous money they are charging.....You might be pleasantly surprised......

Cancel the home phone service of the comcast as it seem at 160 your no longer on the bundle discount, lower the connection speed of the internet people would be surprised the bundle internet is the expensive one, I lowered mine to an connection thats about 24 a month or less and for facebook and my web games its pretty fast still. If its just used for pleasure, lower it. Ask comcast for a promotional discount, alot of times they will give it to you just for calling, once they even called me to lower my bill. As for the cell phones, you can upgrade them for a less archaic one many times for free just by extending your contract another 2 yrs. I have us cell, I have had them for 14 yrs and I pay 24.99 a month. When I want a new phone I just renew the contract, not like I'm switching to another carrier anytime soon.

I can totally see where you are coming from - we have had to cut back a lot due to job loss and our daughter's health problems in the past few years - we got sick and tired of paying over $100.00 a month for our cell phones and worrying about contracts - so we switched over to the pay as you go - we were paying all that money and only using about 1/4 of our total minutes, so it was such a WASTE of money. You can check out Virgin Mobile, they have pretty good plans - we paid $25.00 a month for 300 minutes/unlimited data/text/msg. And you can buy different phones any time you want, rather than having to wait ... and renew contracts yet again. We went with the cheap phones first and they worked great - never had any problems. Just this past month we switched over to Net10 because they had a special deal on the slider phones we wanted and we paid $80.00 total and got 2 slider phones plus 750 minute card per phone for 1 month. And then they have a plan where it's just $25.00 a month for the 750 minutes (the text/msg/data just comes out of your minutes - so a minute on the web = 1 minute, etc.) But we are happy with it so far. And if for some reason we don't have the extra money we can just let the plan expire and then reactivate the phone when we can :) But what you are paying for the cable/internet/phone service doesn't seem bad - we pay almost that just for our DirecTV and then another $90.00 a month for internet/phone (but I work online, so I have to have the highest speed for my job). Good luck, and I have also heard that Netflix's streaming tv plans are great too, so that's always an option for you :)

Sorry, no real answers. But we spend about $160 on cable with Time Warner here in the Kanas City area which does include, High Definition, and digital channels including HBO. And we're trying to decrease that expense.
Cell phone, I'm not sure. I know. . . . But after 25 years of marriage my husband is finally paying all the bills. Which is a good thing. 1) he can see the amazingly expensive cable bill for all the things HE wants. But apparently 2) cell phones don't phase him. I don't know what we pay a month for cell, but I can tell you that we have 5 phones on the account, not just 2.

Before you get rid of the land line, you need to think about emergency situations. I have a very basic land line service for two reasons. First, my security company requires it, but more importantly, if you need help and dial 911, the land line send s an address instantly. The cell phone requires a bit more time to pinpoint an exact location. My kids have been instructed to call using the land line - if that need ever arises. Just something to keep in mind.

For our cell phones, we use one of T-Mobile's pre-paid plans. The one we chose was $100 for 1000 minutes. It works for us, because we don't use our cell phones a lot. It lasts us a whole year, and we still have unused minutes. T-Mobile will also roll over your unused minutes at the end of the year if you add more minutes for the cost of $10. So essentially now, we're paying $10 a year to use our cell phones! Pretty cool.

Me and my mom pay about 130/month for two cell phones that have unlimited texting and like 1500 minutes between the two to Verizon. However, I told her we should switch because we could go for a no contract boost mobile phone with unlimited minutes, text, and data, for 60 a month for each of us. We'd pay the same price with more perks at least.

We pay between 350 and 400 dollars per month for high speed internet, telephone, cable plus the upper channels but no movie channels, cell phones for 4 people with a combined 1400 minutes per month which includes adding the minutes we don't use to roll over. My daughter has internet plus texting and my husband has internet on his phone. We also have 3 DVR boxes in the house with our cable. It's a LOT to pay for all this communication. However, we are a family of 6 people. We have to have a land line for the daycare so we have the 911 address if we need it. We all use the DVR's to the max all the time. I do all my advertising and communicating with parents online. I wouldn't live without cell phones anymore either. In addition to these things we pay for Netflix and Hulu and I also pay for 2 different audio book clubs and e-music each month. Wheat can I say? We are a connected family! LOL.

We have time warner and ATT.

I would say get rid of the cell phones! If you must keep the cell phones then get rid of cable. Go with Netflix! You would have more choice of what to watch than with basic cable. Plus, if you have a home phone and cell phones get rid of one of them. No need for a home phone if you insist on having a cell phone.

Wow, our Comcast is about $160/mo as well, but we have the HD package, HBO, Encore, On Demand, and all the channels you are required to buy when you get an HD package. We also have their fastest internet and the digital voice. We think it is a TON of money to pay, but aren't ready to switch to AT&T..yet.

The Verizon package seems pretty insane too...I have VZW too and pay about $65, but I have unlimited data and texting on mine as well, and 400 min.

We live in the Boston Area and pay $250/month for Verizon services as follows: 4 cell phones with unlimited texting and 700 shared minutes (we all text mostly, only use about 150 minutes a month together), a landline, internet access at 15/5 speeds, FIOS tv for 2 tv's with 2 set top boxes (one with DVR). There are about $20 of discounts we get for another year for getting all 3 (tv, internet, phone) from Verizon. I usually call them about every 6 months to see what kind of discounts are available. Sometimes it is as stupid as adding a premium channell "for free" for 6 months to actually get a discount. You just have to mark you calender to actually cancel the premium channel later. I have also gone down to the basic cable for 3 months and used Netflix during a summer to get back to a starting point where we could get "upgrades" to get better packages. It pays to stay on top of what is out there and call every now and then to ask them to review your total account. Oh, I also get a discount from my employer, which someone asked recently - we checked both our employers and my husband's would have given us a 9% discount but mine gave us a 17% discount, so of course we used mine. All they needed was my work email, and I needed to respond to a message sent there to get the discount. Ask, ask, ask and perhaps you will get a better deal. If you do not like what a phone responder says, call back and get another one. Some of the folks answering the phone are knowledgeable, and others are obviously reading from a chart, and some can barely be understood, so just hang up and call back in. Good luck getting discounts.
PS: I think cost depends a lot of what part of the country you live in.

I have not had cable for 12 years! Not necessary anymore. Get an Apple TV or a Roku and there is plenty of programming available. Or read! The library is free! Also don't have a home line, however that alone will not save you much each month.

comcast internet = $42 mo incl taxes
vonage; unlimited calling = $36 mo incl taxes
us cellular; 2 lines, 1200 minutes, free incoming, free cell to cell (within us cellular), free nights & weekends 7pm to 7am, 250 text, no internet = $85 mo incl taxes....the 2 internet packages are $15 & $30 extra mo

cancelled cable in March, we never watch t.v. except for Fox News Channel so I got the podcast now.......we put up a HD antennae & get basic channels plus several satellite channels

good for you for looking at cutting expenses, luxuries really add up

We cancelled cable last summer and have never looked back. We the ONLY time I have missed it was once while watching Dancing with the Stars (I'm addicted) I missed something and couldn't rewind it. :( Other than that we have netflix with unlimited streaming (9.95 a month) and internet (50 a month)
My husband and I are both still on our parents cell phone plans (I don't know how, but I don't ask and neither does he) we just pay them for our portion of the family plans and for our data packages so about 50 a month. We were paying over $120 for cable alone and we never used our home phones. It was worth it to cancel all that.

We have wireless internet through verizon (separate from our cell phone plans) for only $30 / mo. We do not have cable, but we have a wide range of things to watch instantly on Netflix for less than $10 / mo. All in all, I think we're around $160 for phones, internet and netflix.

right now, the internet fee is killing us! We package the cable & internet together, but it's the internet that's the issue!

Here's our breakdown: $50/month for landline phone. A necessity with my daycare. I need call-waiting for my moms....once the daycare is shutdown, so will this phone line.

$125 for cable/internet. I have chosen to carry the upgraded digital services for my daycare. & honestly, I have checked & if I change my package, I'll still pay almost the same....but have 1/2 the channels!

$225/month for cell phones. BUT I am carrying 5!! phones for this price! I think that's a great deal. Oh, & one is a smart phone with a data plan.

I have checked/compared prices. I could save $40/month by making minimal changes. I could save a whole heck of a lot more if I dumped the cable....but we're addicted to it right now. As for my daycare, the kids watch one show/day.....honestly, do I really need it? I wish I could pay by the hour!

We also use Netflix.....love it! As soon as we replace our outdated living room tv.....I will be pursuing computer services for tv!

From what I've heard and found to be true if you "bundle" your services like cable, phone and internet you actually pay more than by doing them separate. And, while you may find a deal it may go up to a regular, higher price after a certain length of time so check that out as well.

Research the various cell phone carriers online, they go by zip code and what they offer in one area they might not in others. You may find "free phone" offers (but remember you will have to lock in to a contract for a couple of years.)

$160 for internet, cable and phone is not bad. We pay upwards of $190 for that service.

We all 3 have the latest IPHones and that runs about $400 a month combined.

If you don't "have" to have the smart phone, save your money and get the pay as you go or pre paid phone. Smart phones are fantastic but expensive.

Not sure what your local phone service (and long distance too?) and cable costs independently... but we have AT&T (which I hate, but we don't have a lot of choices since we are rural) and have lots of long distance minutes, high speed internet and local... for under $100/m. I think it runs about $87... including all of the taxes and surcharges. We don't have cable available, but have Direct TV and pay about $65/m for that. No premium channels, but not the basic package either.
We have Verizon with a family plan... with 2 lines, 700 prime time minutes, and 250 text mssgs EACH... and it costs about $85/m (including taxes, surcharges, 911, etc). Why are you paying so much for Verizon with no data package?
Depending on what you have available to you, AT&T usually offers some bundles services at a discounted rate. You should call around and price shop your cell phone plan.

I currently have 5 phones on one plan, 1400 minutes a month, no texting, 1 of them is a smart phone(adds 30.00) to my total bill for 119.00 so 149.00 but without smart FIVE phones only cost me a little more and I have alot of available minutes.
We don't have cable/dish but our internet and phone is 30.00 a month and they did say they would add TV for basic for 39.99 brining my total for all to 218.99. So at most that is what I'd pay and get more. Your current cell phones have to have a better package somewhere. The only thing would be is if your credit is in question and they won't give you deals based on that.

I'm thinking if I was in your shoes, I'd just get pre-paid cell phones. $160/mo for cable, internet and phone isn't THAT bad...

I just got my phone/internet bill lowered by calling my provider and asking what specials and promotions they have. I do this every few months. Currently, these are my bills:

Phone $45/ month, unlimited long distance - Qwest
Internet 7 mbps $15/ month for the next 12 months, bundled with my phone
Dish TV $46/month for dvr, local and cable channels
Cell phone $10 for this entire year with my prepaid plan, because I had so many rollover minutes from last year. TMobile

I check online regularly for promotions and specials, and call the loyalty departments of my providers, too. The last time I called dish, they didn't have any promotions but gave me $5 off per month for 6 months, just for the heck of it. Every bit helps.

I feel for you! I got so angry at all these extra bills, that I milled over how to
dwindle them down.....
I got rid of my land line, and got a magic jack phone that hooks to my
computer. It costs 25.00 and that's it for the year.
I got rid of koo koo cable and got rabbit ears and a box and have quite a few channels for NOTHING. Then i purchased netflix for 5.00 where i can get on demand movies and one movie rental at a time, tv shows, etc......
My cell phone ticks me off because it costs so dag-gone much, however I found out that Walmart has a new plan that is for 40.00 (EVERYTHING) and many cool phones to go along with it...OR you can look into cricket
flat fee..........My verizon expires in January, and then it is BYE B"YE!
There are so many of these crazy charges that add up...I am angry with it all too!! Good luck!!