Man spends $440 a month on cable package


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Life has been difficult for my family. With three children under the age of 3 and having recently separated from my wife, it has been important for me to find healthy ways of spending time with my kids and tools that will help them through this trying time. We have learned to make do -- and our cable package has helped tremendously. While too much TV may be frowned upon by some parents, it is something my family enjoys that we can consistently do together.

One of our favorite things to do is sit on the floor huddle together and watch TV. In fact, we enjoy it so much, we have actually incorporated it into our weekly pizza night. Every Thursday, we make homemade pizza and order a movie on demand. I generally try to make sure that we watch something both entertaining and educational. Sometimes, I even learn something myself.

My Xfinity bill from Comcast averages around $440. :| For my family, the price is well worth it. The package includes:

Cable television ($215 + approx. $50 in On Demand purchases) -- With more than 200 channels to choose from, including all of the premium channels like HBO and Showtime, we can always find something to watch. Add to that my sports package (a few extra bucks but well worth the price) and the dozens of movies we order on demand every month for the kids, we've got ourselves one powerful package.

Internet ($80 + about $25 in online On Demand buys) -- I couldn't live without the 100-megabits-per-second Internet. I spend at least 80 hours a week online. Nearly every piece of technology I own connects to the Internet in some way, either wirelessly or LAN. With the blazing-fast Internet, multiple devices can be running different things at the same time, with no lagging whatsoever! So my kids can be watching movies in the living room and family room while I'm working in the office and streaming my own favorite shows.

Home phone service ($35) -- The phone ranks last on the list because it's only used for personal calls. Since I despise long phone conversations I avoid personal calls as much as possible. And I use Google Voice for my business line. Note: I expect an increase with this proportion once my kids start wanting to talk on the telephone.

Equipment ($35) -- I lease cable and Internet equipment from Comcast, including a modem, router, DVR, and cable boxes.

I've been a Comcast customer since 2005, but I've only had an extreme cable package for about two years. When I first upgraded to my current package, I felt the financial impact and sacrifices had to be made. I started getting my hair cut every six weeks (instead of every three); I prepared and ate meals at home more often than eating out; and I switched to some generic rather than brand products. Since then, however, work has picked up and now that I use this technology on a daily basis to actually make money for my family because I work from home, it is easy to afford and justify within the budget. It's worth every penny to us.

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I currently have 50mbps Comcast + Basic cable and my monthly bill is $55 :|. The trick is always being in a "promotion" and never getting locked to a contract. My "promotion" ends in August and then my bill will go up to $85/mo I think. At that point I call them saying that is ridiculous and they either put me back on promotion or I just drop them and switch to 40mbps CenturyLink DSL for $30/mo for 6 months and then call them etc. etc. etc. I have to pay the occasional $30 "connection fee" when I switch, but I win in the end by juggling these guys around.

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how'd I know it was you when I read the title...

anyways our bill is $171 a month.... and that includes 3 boxes, the premier tier of cable service, phone service and 50Mbit internet.. I'm assuming you are on the HD Complete package? which is like $199 a month on a promo?... do you really need all those channels? even with my package I only ever watch about 20 channels out of the 200+ channels we get...

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We have Time Warner Cable + Road Runner here, and they just offer **** services for $$$. I just opted for the Road runner internet - the "promotion" (if you can even call it that) that I got when I moved in was 25 Mbps down/2 Mbps up for $39.99. The internet while it achieves those speeds is garbage - terrible latency/jitter, and if it storms, internet is probably out. I am better off sharing my 4G connection from my cell phone.

$440/month...why? At one point, we had the full on cable package (I think just HBO/Showtime for premium channels) + internet for $99 with taxes and such. But cable was terrible - no one watched anything, so ditched it.

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Lucky you, and crazy him! I spend $70 a month for my $50/8 plan and I have ZERO other options. AT&T U-Verse is the only other option but they don't have a VRAD box near here so can't service my house. Yeah... talk about getting raped with no lube and they wont budge and give me any promo (other than spending more that is). :no:

Got me by the gonads I tell ya, GONADS! :p

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$200 and some per month for mine. But I have 3 HD DVR boxes, and every movie channel and HD channel Time Warner offers, along with fastest internet they offer.

Seriously can't wait for Google to come to Austin so these prices go down.

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i'm happy with my verizon bill of $156 a month which includes phone , tv & internet 75mb/35mb

i never order from demand waste of money

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I disconnected from the cable company a few ago, just because I never watch TV anymore. I was thinking about installing a few dishes on the roof for some tv that you paid once and forget about it, but didn't really see the point after thinking about it.

Get all the **** I need using the 100mbit unlimited connection, which I pay about 40 bucks a month.

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I was thinking about installing a few dishes on the roof for some tv that you paid once and forget about it, but didn't really see the point after thinking about it.

Does that still work?

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my cable bill with hd box rentals is $160,and I usually pay around $30/month for NHL center ice($50 for this whole season), and my internet bill is $225,and our phone bills are another $400. Also sub to Netflix,and buy almost every UFC and WWE PPV($60 a pop).

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Why so much spent On Demand? I guess he's never heard of Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Maybe his wife left him because he is horrible with money. :rofl:

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What? Satellite television?

Got bigger selection of channels than on any cable package, with 3D and even a few UHD channels.

I mean like free/no subscription satellite TV, not DirecTV or Dish network. I know it was popular back in the 80s but I thought everything was digital and required subscriptions now.

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Most months our bill from Bell Canada comes to about $300-350 depending on how much we use our phones and internet.

Gets us satellite TV with about 20 channels that are worth a damn

3mbit/s mobile internet (no fixed line access where I live) with 3GB usage included. Usually top out about 10GB/month for $70. Over 10GB and it becomes $90

2 cell phones with a few hundred minutes, texts and 6GB data.

Get you with all the gimpy charges like "long distance" to a city that is less than an hour away or for things like voicemail/caller id (another $7 please). Then they lump the 13% tax on for the government.

All in all, a great Canadian rip off!

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I mean like free/no subscription satellite TV, not DirecTV or Dish network. I know it was popular back in the 80s but I thought everything was digital and required subscriptions now.

By "pay once and forget about it" I was referring to buying a receiver with card sharing option.

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I thought my bill was expensive, $117/month for 20mb/s and HD TV package from Comcast. I can't wait to just cancel the TV, I did before and was just paying $40 for internet from TimeWarner.

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how'd I know it was you when I read the title...

anyways our bill is $171 a month.... and that includes 3 boxes, the premier tier of cable service, phone service and 50Mbit internet.. I'm assuming you are on the HD Complete package? which is like $199 a month on a promo?... do you really need all those channels? even with my package I only ever watch about 20 channels out of the 200+ channels we get...

I have the full Sky TV package in HD

40Mb Internet

Telephone calles with local and national calls free at any time

and mine is ?55 a month

Should be closer to ?110 but i like bargaining with them lol

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He sure has a lot of money to waste.

$440 -- That would be just the Rent money, for a lot of people around here.

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I have Freeview & Freesat, so my only charge for TV is the licence fee.

I do pay around ?40 per month (virgin media) for internet and phone, although that will reduce soon as I am getting rid of the anytime calls part.

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Full comcast cable TV is 215 bucks a month? Christ in a handbasket that makes a full Sky TV (UK) subscription look cheap :/

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