One thing about retirement. You have a lot more time. When I was working I just paid my bills and assumed I couldn’t do much about them. But once I stopped working I started going over everything very carefully and set out to reduce as many as bills as possible. The one bill that stood out was cable. It was by far my biggest expense. So I called the cable company 3 different times and could not get them to reduce my rate. So I reduced them.
Lots of my younger friends and colleagues didn’t even have cable. They talked about using TV streaming services but my “boomer” brain had a hard time wrapping my head around that. But not having an income is a big motivator so I decided I was going to cut the cable cord too.
Which service to choose?
The first thing to decide is which service to go with. I ended up making a list of all the shows I watch and what channels they are on. Then I went online and looked at the different services and which channels they provide. YouTube TV had the best match and that’s what I went with. I had a small problem setting it up – my TV was on the old side and didn’t have the YouTube TV app. After a quick search I found I could solve that problem by getting a Roku device to hook up to my TV and then I could download YouTube TV and any other App I use and watch through Roku. I was a little skeptical it would all work but it did and in the end I was able to watch TV for less than half of what I paid for cable.
I really liked YouTube TV. Of course a month after I signed up they raised their rate by $10 a month. I decided to let that go, I was still saving money. But when they increased the rate again in 2023 I switched to Hulu Live. While the monthly rate is highly it was less expensive for me since it included Hulu, Disney and ESPN which I was already paying for. It was ok but I liked YouTube TV better. The way you can set up your channel menu is much better on YouTube TV. After a few months I decided to drop that too. Now I’m experimenting with just using my streaming apps (and I have many of them). We’ll see how this goes but so far I don’t feel like I’m missing much.
If you want to stop paying for cable there are lots of options. You can find many articles that list their top 10 services—here’s one from PCMag. You can find a thorough description of many of the available options in this Consumer Reports article, Guide to Streaming Video Services. Each service has their own selection of channels and if you watch a lot of sports some may be better for you than others. Here’s a quick summary of the current costs (as of May 2024) of a few of the top ones – many also have introductory prices
| Service | Cost per month (as of May 2024) |
| Hulu Live (includes Hulu, Disney and ESPN) | $76.99 |
| YouTube TV | $72.99 |
| Fubo | $74.99 |
| Philo | $25.00 |
| Sling | $60 (top plan) |
| Direct TVStream | $80 |
Other strategies to reduce bills
In terms of other bills there are a few strategies I’ve used:
- Call and ask for a reduction
- If that’s not successful, cancel
- Pay by the year not the month if there’s an annual rate (it’s often a lower per month cost)
I reduced my cell phone bill with one phone call. I called, explained that I was retired and asked if they had a lower rate. The call lasted almost 1 ½ hours but in the end I received a substantial monthly savings. (By the way, I scrapped my landline when I cancelled my cable. They were from the same company. The only people calling me on my landline were scammers and my mother, and my mother just switched to my cell. Scammers probably did too but I don’t answer).
Another tactic is to cancel a service. I did this with my newspaper (yes I still get my local paper, I love sitting with a cup of coffee and the paper first thing in the morning). My rate was really high. And then I found out my neighbor was paying a lot less than me. When I asked to pay the same rate as my neighbor I was told they wouldn’t do it, so I cancelled the paper. A week later someone called and asked if I wanted the paper again for a rate much lower than what I asked for. So I signed up.
Paying an annual rate doesn’t always work to reduce your bills but I realized lately that some of the streaming services are offering this and it does come to less money. However, if there are only a few shows you want to watch on a particular service, it would be more cost-saving to watch your shows and then cancel the service until you want to pick it up again. With most streaming services, cancelling and renewing is easy.
What strategies have you used to reduce your bills?
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