Moving to a new city costs a lot of money! No doubt, you’ll want to save money every place you can until your expenses level out and your income comes in regularly. How can you save money on TV, internet, & phone services, while still staying in the 21st century? These five tips should help keep you entertained and connected while keeping more money in your wallet.
1. Find the Cheapest Services in Your New City
Check out which TV, Internet, and Phone services are available at your new address. You’ll most likely find better introductory deals than what you were paying previously.
Unfortunately, those cheap first-time deals sometimes come with term contracts, so make sure you figure out what the service will cost you after the deal runs out, then average the numbers out to see how much it would cost you over a two-year period. You can always come back to them, after your initial term runs out, and try to renegotiate, too!
2. Bundle Your Services Together With the Same Company
The days of getting Cable TV from one company and your High-Speed Internet with a different company, and your Home Phone services through a third company are over. Your TV service provider, whether it’s Cable TV, Satellite TV or TV from AT&T or Verizon FiOS, should have Internet service and possibly phone services available to you to sign up with. Heck, there are even some services that offer “Quad Play” deals, with either Mobile Phone service or Home Security.
Bundling two, three or four of these services together with the same provider means you’ll get discounts and several conveniences. You’ll only have to pay one bill, deal with one company’s customer service, and plan for the installation from just one technician.
3. Consider Cutting the Cord
With so many online streaming services and set-top boxes available, many people have chosen to give up their Cable TV service, and rely solely on watching TV shows and movies through the Internet.
Beware, however, that many channels still ask that you connect with a valid TV account. Most, though, are available for you to watch for free on your computer or mobile devices. You can even connect your computer to your TV, and watch many shows or movies like you’re used to. Make sure you understand the disadvantages, of course, like how you won’t get to watch most sporting events, or how channel surfing just doesn’t work the same.
4. Fight For Your Right For Low Prices!
If you are moving to an area that happens to have the same providers that you already use, then you might call them to just transfer your service. But don’t just transfer blindly without making your provider fight to keep you!
By looking up services available in your area, you’ll see what the other providers are offering, and you can use that as leverage to get a great deal with the company you’re already with.
Remember this: It costs a company more to get a new customer than it does to retain an old one.
5. Do a Digital Services Inventory
Sit down for an hour and look at the different channel plans offered by your new TV service provider. Do you absolutely need the most expensive, or the second-most expensive, channel plan? How often do you watch the channels in the upper tiers? Are they available to watch online? Maybe you can cut back which plan you order, and save money with a more basic TV service.
What exactly do you use your Internet for? Are you just emailing and using social networks? You might not need the super-fast speeds you’ve been paying for. Now, if you change your TV plan, and you still want to watch some of those channels online, then you’ll want to keep those fast Internet speeds, or else streaming those channels and shows will bog down and take forever.
Hopefully, you’ve learned a few new ways to save money on digital services when you move to a new city!
