Unbundling To Save Money

I believe with most of what you said and did...... Except not having an emergency in the last four years.......... Emergencies aren't normally planned.

You just have to plan better!

Your right,...... Lets see,......... I have an 2:15 pm opening next Tuesday. ;)

No need to go OT.

Yeah, somehow we made it without even an answering machine.

When I became a superintendent back in the mid 80s, the company gave me a pager. Man I hated those things.

If the main office, which was in another town, wanted to talk to me, I had to stop what I was doing and go find a pay phone...which usually also involved getting change on the way.

I use a pay-as-you-go cellphone service, so can avoid using it most of the time without suffering fixed price contracts. For most phone calls from home, I use Skype via the internet - can phone anywhere in the world for low prices. If the recipient uses Skype also - it's free. Cut out cable TV years ago. Use Netflix plus buy the unobtainable in the USA DVD's on Amazon US or UK, then sell them later on Amazon or eBay and typically get back around 70% of the purchase price.

We dropped our land line for Skype.

Now Skype is going to start charging for 911 service. Greed has reared its ugly head.

Sorry, We have Majic Jack, not Skype.

Maybe that's next.

Was it Microsoft or Google that took over Skype? It's been crap ever since. I used to use it but given up.

What cell service do you use?

We had Virgin mobile, which was $7 per phone, per month. We almost never used them, but the price wasn't bad. Now they changed and they want more and more money just to have the phone...so I dumped them.

I'd like to have something that only costs when I use it.

2 questions! What would I do without my I phone? What would I do with all the money? I love the idea and local ant. And Netflix I do now. Wife still makes me pay satellite for her animal planet and discovery channels. We live on the edge of the wilderness on 50 acres I told her spend some time outside, between 5 geese, 6 ducks, 22 chickens and a Border Collie and whatever wild animals come to visit we have those channels outside. I have to say phoenix991 has a great point in that just because you have not had an emergency in 4 years does not mean it won't happen. Great post and let us know how it goes, good luck.

That's another question I have...

We like Cooking channel, Discovery, Animal Planet, History, etc., and most of those channels stream episodes to the internet.

Why can't I use my media streamer thingy to run those to the TV?

Is there a way to configure them, or am I stuck with Netflix, Hulu, Pandora and the rest?

It doesn't make sense to me that it can't be done easily.

Just connect a video cable and an audio cable 'twixt computer and TV. Hey, Presto.

I just found something better.

First I found this:

http://askbobrankin.com/connect_your_pc_to_a_tv_wirelessly.html

But even better yet, all of the channels that I'm missing, stream through Youtube, which is included in my system!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/historychannel

http://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoveryNetworks

The wife is going to be very happy...we missed Sharkweek this year, on Discovery; now we can watch it.

Watching TV is bad for your health..........

Little over a year ago I bought a 53" Samsung, smart TV get's the internet..... lots of good stuff on you tube. Documentaries and science stuff.

All summer, I was feeling rundown, headaches, joints stiff, over weight, lots of sleeping and about a half dozen other things.

Thought I was spending too much time watching TV and not enough exercising, which was true so I tried going to the gym to break the habit. damn near needed a walker when I was through. Went to the doctor, turned out I had Lymes disease. But that's not the point......

They did a full blood panel on me and my glucose was high........ I looked it up and one reason for that is....................lack of exercise.

Treatment for Lymes is almost over, I feel great....... still watching too much TV, but I'm exercising 3 times a week now, and each time I go my routine is burning more calories.....

Oh and by the way, lymes is becoming as common as the common cold. And treating it is becoming routine.

This has been a public service announcement!

I still don't watch much TV. Catch the local news in the morning, and maybe an hour before going to sleep...which is why I saw no point in paying for any of the subscription TV services.

Now that I know I can catch History, Animal Planet, Discovery, etc., on Youtube, I'm good to go.

"A better solution than connecting a computer to your TV is to use one of the following methods for accessing a plethora of video streaming content--some free and some requiring rental, purchase, or subscription.

- A set-top box that hooks into your broadband Internet connection, receives streaming video from sites compatible with the device (and sometimes files saved on networked computers), and translates the video into a format that can be viewed on your HDTV.
- An Internet-ready game console, which acts like a set-top box but adds gaming and multimedia functionality.
- An Internet-ready TV, which cuts out the middle set-top box and connects directly to your broadband Internet."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000578641

I bought 2 of these.

http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solutions/entertain/media-players/dsm-310-movienite

I still have big, heavy analog TVs though. The picture seems fine. Anything in hi-def on a flat screen that involves humans, makes me ill. I don't care how pretty they are, I don't want to see them in that much detail.

I'm also a tightwad minimalist...not really.

I consider it a fun challenge, to enjoy life to the fullest, while consuming as little as possible. The greenies would love me, if not for the fact that I'm a raging constitutional conservative.

The windows are open today, and I'm just a few weeks away from $40 a month electricity bills.

I really like going to the lake...

I tow a 1973 bass boat behind a 1986 pickup truck, and explain to my daughter that the only difference between us and the other people, is about $60K of debt.

you can download XBMC

A lot of the price is runaway and uncontrolled/supervised taxes. One such tax is now commonly known is to pay for the obamaphone. And more such coming.

In the USA I use Net10. There is no contract, but you have to buy $30 worth of time (300 mins) every 60 days to keep the number. Unused time does carry over. Cost per minute is 10c. The phones cost $30+tax and that includes a starter of 300 mins. - so effectively the phone is free. I used it quite heavily 1-2 years ago and have built up enough "time credit" such that I am not forced into the buying more time until July 2014.

In Ireland, where I am now, I use Vodafone, which apparently used to be very good (so I'm told), but know is far too expensive. It's a true pay as you go, but at 0.25 Euros (about 33 cents US) per minute, I only use it occasionally. Except, to other Vodafone users (my wife for instance) which is free. They have all the usual dodges of giving you your messages very slowly to use up your time.

So now it's Skype as much as possible. I can even phone my USA Net10 phone from Ireland using Skype to retrieve messages left on it, even though there is no Net10 service here.

I have found the 8 some odd movie channels to be just plain bad. They offer old movies that were second or third rate and play them over and over. I got the movie channels just to watch Dexter and have lost interest in the series. The WI FI box is on a monthly rental and i just wasted money. The service is poor and any complaints about the cable service you have to be there when the tech shows up.

If the service is not worth the money then an alternate system should be used.

It is a sad comment on the service providers when they expect payment on bad service.

My wife works for the local phone company so I get most of what you mention for free now.

Not a big fan of cell phones either but I have gotten most everyone who knows I have one trained to the fact I don't carry it and I have it for my convenience only.

As far as TV entertainment we use the over the air systems as well which is now up to around 10 channels. Once the new fiber optic system is in we my wife will be getting the top end package for everything for the same proce our old land line cost per month.

Granted I watch maybe an hour or two of TV a week on purpose during the summer but still it will keep the wife happy and off my butt.

What seems to upset some people is that I'll treat my cell phone like I treat when i had my land line.... I rarely dropped what i was doing to answer. And answered it when I was ready..... Actually have the ringer on silent

Same here. Drives my wife nuts though. To her a ringing phone is like a crying baby and need to be taken care of immediately.

Her big thing is "What if it's an emergency?" Well I am not the 911 dispatcher so calling me in an emergency is pretty pointless.

interesting thread, what got me thinking the most was your expectation of being "burned" by a well known major company, that in itself is a sad indictment of what's gone wrong with American business for too many years, you now expect to get jacked!

It's true. I expect to get jacked every day, and I'm hardly ever wrong.

Honesty,ethics and fair play are no longer alive in business, politics or much else.

I knew I was doing something right, when ATT actually got upset that I wasn't buying one of their bundles.

That's what I did last time; it was about $60 for internet and phone. They jack it up in tiny increments so you won't notice....next thing I know, the bill is running about $120 a month; and that was for 3 Meg internet.

These days, it seems like the shareholders come first, with the paying customers coming in dead last.

If I could find a cellphone company that charged me nothing to keep an open account, even if they charged me $1 a minute for calls, it would be worth it. I hate those damned things, but I would like to have one for emergencies.

The thing that burns me is that the vast majority of cellular infrastructure has been paid for for some time now, and the companies are just reaping obscene profits from people like me, whose wife insists that she (she needs one) I and the 14 year old all have smart phones.

Most any cell with a charge will dial 911...they'll work for real emergency even though there's no service contract, they'll link to the nearest tower.

I've never had a 911 emergency. I'm talking more like car breakdowns, kid sick at school, etc.

This is the cheapest I've found.

http://www.puretalkusa.com/family-cell-phone-plan.php

Gotta agree with ya. Watch out for those AT&T bundles! They can be scams.

We used to have cheap landline service via AT&T until AT&T finally tricked my wife into converting to one of their bundles. Promised to save money... well, when the bill arrived it was for almost double what we had been paying! AT&T told us that we couldn't go back to our old service agreement. So I picked apart their bundle and cancelled services that we didn't need - got the bill down to about the same as before. But I had to re-do all of that again for four months in a row before they allowed the changes to "stick". And each call to Customer Service included long hold times and rerouting to different representatives. I had to threaten to cancel altogether before they relented and adjusted my bill to what I wanted.

Also kind-of funny: at the end of each session they tried to sell me one of their cell phone plans. I asked them what made them think I would want to pay for more services after spending all of this time with them cutting my services? Plus how could I trust them to handle a cell phone contract after all of the problems I'd had with a simple landline account? But I realize they were just reading scripts that they were required to read.

Final funny: after each session they sent me an e-mail for me to evaluate their customer service. I don't suppose they got the reviews that they hoped for.

When I switched my land line to StraightTalk, the, (ATT), sales rep told me that I should have called them first, and that they could negotiate a good price for me.

Same deal...I asked him why he thought I would want to negotiate with the same company that's been ripping me off.

Unfortunately, my options for decent internet, are the phone company or the cable company. Bait and switch used to be frowned upon; now it's common business practice.

I'm seriously considering dumping the cable TV for a converter box but I'm a little worried about reception out here in the boonies. I get a lot of my entertainment from the library and local book sales (remember books?!) and being outside is always better than watching the tube!

No kidding.

On my last visit home to see the wife,kids and grankids i noticed i was reading a book and everone else was working a laptop or a tablet. I held up my book and stated "remember these?".

I went to a little gathering last night, that involved drinking.

A couple was actually bragging about how they refinanced their car and got $1000 cash back; they also bragged about how they were able to get a cellphone for their 9 year old daughter, for 99 cents.

Needless to say, the moment I started to tell them how damned stupid they are...my wife gave me "the look".

I canned my thoughts and poured myself another cheap whiskey drink.

I actually love idiots like those; I buy their stuff on craigslist for pennies on the dollar.

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You, went to a gathering that involved drinking?

And managed to keep your mouth shut?

Wanna buy a really nice paint ball gun?

Of course I didn't keep my mouth shut...I just didn't talk about how damned stupid everyone is.

Last thing I remember, I was commenting on how the moonlight accentuated the breasts of one of my wife's, brother's, neighbors.

...she curled into the fetal position and shot me with pepper spray.

I'm suing her for age discrimination.

That was a joke...but I could see something like that happening.

Let's just hope, "the breasts of one of [your] wife's, brother's, neighbors" are over 18 years of age..

I made myself a promise not to mess with any chicks that are younger than my oldest daughter...she's 32.

My days of flirting are coming to an end; old ladies just aren't that attractive...plus, they think they know everything.

At 66, I don't even try.

BS.

You've got the mind of a 17 year old.

You're just an old dude that really likes the frozen food section at the grocery store; right?

and especially likes going to the grocery stores on a Tuesday......... they have free samples on Tuesday.

Yeah. I'm one of those too.

I'll hit Sam's Club around lunchtime, and feed off the samples.

This thread has morphed from unbundling to visually undressing.

Is that off topic ?

Who cares, it was fun reading.

Yeah, but what happened to Hannah Montana?

Her little act was the strangest thing I've ever seen, and I have to tell my daughter no mas.

Hannah's a ho.

Boy does Lyn have an opinion I agree with Duke

Yeah, but what happened to Hannah Montana?

Why, do you have a few dollar bills to burn?