6 Money Saving Strategies: Cable TV

While saving money is the goal of any apartment tenant, you need at least some entertainment. Having cable TV for an apartment is one way you can entertain yourself on the cheap–but it still adds up. However, you can cut back on your cable bill (or eliminate the cable bill entirely) by following some of these tips:

1. Lock In Limited Time Deals

Call your cable company and ask if they have limited time specials to offer you, so you can start saving money. If you’re not saving money with your current cable company, switch over to a rival (including satellite) and lock in those 6 month to 1 year low rates! Sometimes even just telling your current cable company that you’re considering switching to a rival is enough to make them offer you a limited time deal.

2. Get a Bundle Deal

If you get any three of a number of services–including high speed Internet, digital phone, cellular phones and cable TV–from the same company, you can usually save as much as a couple hundred dollars over what you would have paid for a cable bill, an Internet bill, and phone bills separately.

3. Stick with Basic Cable

Basic cable typically includes around 50 channels, which, if you think about it, should offer you plenty of entertainment choices. (Just ask your grandparents how they dealt with only a handful of TV channels!) Cut out the movie channels, the TiVo, and all the bells and whistles.

4. Rent Movies and TV Shows

If you miss the movie channels after cutting back to basic cable, consider signing up for a flat rate online DVD rental service instead. For as little as $9 to $18 a month, you can be sent unlimited movies and TV show box sets through the mail, or even watch them streamed live online. You’ll cut out the suspense of waiting for your favorite shows’ next episodes when you can watch them all at once in a box set!

5. Watch TV Shows Online

There are a number of cable programs and channels that legally stream episodes of their shows online at no additional cost to you. If you’re already paying for high speed Internet, you can cut out having cable TV for your apartment entirely if you just rent movies and watch cable shows online!

6. Watch Internet Entertainment

You’d be surprised how many creative, funny, and dramatic shows there are out there–exclusively online. If you cut back on or cut out your cable bill, you’ll be saving money and freeing up time to explore the best of what the Internet has to offer. Internet shows, both amateur and professional, have become online sensations. If you don’t know of any, you’re missing out!

Saving money by cutting back on or cutting out your cable bill can save you as much as a few hundred dollars each month. Explore your cable TV for apartment options, and use the money you’ll save for rent payments, savings and other entertainment.