Tips like these helped us pay off $127K in debt. You can read our story in  Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After.

Welcome to 31 Debt Free Missions! A new feature this year on Queen of Free, during each day in January, I will provide 31 concrete missions or challenges for you to take on to #SlayDebt and take charge of your finances this year. Each mission will take you less than an hour (some will only require 15 minutes). Whereas, 31 Days to Kick Debt in the Teeth (which I’m reworking this year and reposting in January, too) focused on some of the philosophical changes you need to make in order to be successful with money, 31 Debt Free Missions are action steps to put into place after you have your thinking straight. Even better, during the month of January, I’m revisiting each of these challenges in order to sharpen my money saving and debt slaying skills.

Are you ready? Your mission is as follows:

Day 5: Cut the Cord

I’m guessing that you might not be shocked with today’s mission. Any money saving news segment I’ve ever watched first suggests cutting cable to save. You know you should, but it’s still difficult to pull the plug. You love your favorite shows. You want to see the big game. And the kids?! The kids will implode if there’s no Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. All the same, let me lay out the argument for the numerous reasons why you should ditch cable.

Energy Savings

I recently watched a report that claimed your DVR/Cable box eats $8 of energy per month even when you’re not watching it. That bad boy is an energy drain and costing you $96 per year even when it’s not on!!! What the what? Who wants an extra $96 in their pocket? This girl. So if you’re going to keep it, a word to the wise. Turn that sucker off when you’re not binge watching an HGTV marathon, mmmkay?

Combatting Consumerism

Bless it, every time the Princess Youngest comes home from visiting someone who does have cable, she can repeat every. single. informercial. Here’s what I know about us all. If we don’t see it, we can’t want it. Not having cable or TV with commercials hits this temptation right where it hurts. Whether it’s that adorable pair of shoes your favorite character wears on that guilty pleasure show or the soap commercial that comes on right after it with a New! and Improved! cleaning product, I can promise that watching cable will create some desires that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Something Better

While you’re paying off debt, you MUST spend time with the people who count. Those who love you most need your eyeballs staring at them and not the TV. We had no TV for two years. We had a DVD player and then eventually we had Netflix (more on that later). Long story short, when the signal converted to digital, we didn’t have a tuner and didn’t get one on the cheap. We just decided to eliminate TV. This meant we played a lot of Phase 10 and we spent a lot of time reading. I love a good epic series (Um, totally a Downton girl and love me some Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.); however, TV is not the only thing in the world and it’s not the best thing in the world. You might find that you like some things even better if you cut the cord.

Online Viewing

So when we began our debt slaying journey, the internets had very little to offer in the online streaming world. Things began to pick up a couple years in though and so we subscribed to Netflix and remain thankful customers. I can handle $7.99 a month for TV but that’s about it, friends. You can use the network websites, stream via Amazon’s Instant Video if you’re a prime customer (at least you get music and 2 day delivery out of that, too), or use Hulu. My guess is in a couple of years, there will be even more options. But online viewing can allow you to watch almost anything you could on cable (but perhaps a season or a day later).

Listen, I don’t expect you to be a complete hermit. It’s not that big of a deal to own a TV and maybe even have some sort of basic cable or streaming. So what CAN you do to save money? I’m so glad you asked!

Build an Antennae

The pride and joy of the King of Free is his $3.49 digital TV antennae that he built from wire coat hangers (free from the dry cleaners), washers, an old 2×4, and a coax splitter. I can’t explain it completely, but he used a YouTube video and advice from a friend on Facebook to put it together. It took an hour and we now pull in more local channels than you can imagine. Yay for being able to watch the NFL again and a few other on air favs. This video might help you make your own. By the way, we bought a couple of digital ones from the store that barely pulled in any channels and returned them because they didn’t work as well as we had hoped. We had a *bit* of a negotiation process that meant the antenna is now outside instead of in the living room. Ahem, authentic marriage people, the struggle is real.

Renegotiate 

TONIGHT, call you cable company and renegotiate your bill. One of the things we did early on in our journey was to ask for the Poverty or Poor Man’s package. This gave us local channels to the tune of about $12. Over time, that bill crept to $19 and so we cut it all together. Your magic words are “Retention” or “Loyalty” department, friends. This is who you need to talk to and be very clear that you can walk away if you need to when it comes to cable. Last year, the King of Free did just that and we save $20/month for 6 months on our cable internet. It wasn’t a long-term solution but I like $120 in my pocket, Lords and Ladies. I like it a lot more than giving it to the cable company. One last note, many cable companies offer an internet package for $10 per month to families whose children receive free and reduced lunch. You might want to check that out if you qualify. Lastly, avoid the bundle packages like the plague. They make so much sense. It’s *only* $7 more per month. You need every penny you’ve got. That’s not savings, it’s payings. Don’t convince yourself it’s a deal when it’s not.

Go Fiber

While I haven’t done it myself, I know a lot of experts are suggesting going fiber instead of using cable internet. Again, I can’t speak to it personally but it would be a good question to ask your personal social media networks to see what others are using and if you can save.

I promise I am not a killjoy but I am living proof that you can live without cable for a very long time and still be a very happy person. And just because you kill cable right now, it doesn’t mean you can’t come back to it after a couple of years of paying off debt. A temporary sacrifice pays dividends for years and years to come.

What do you do to save on TV, cable, or internet? I’d love some of your suggestions in the comments.

My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out Inspiration to Pay Off Debt: 30 Days of Encouragement from the Queen of Free on Kindle.  

This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal or maybe even something for free, you also help our family pay off our mortgage early. And for that, we royally thank you!

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