25 years ago I had one communications bill, a land line which cost about 30 bucks per month. That was it. I didn't need cable because the networks were better. But even cable was only 30 - 40 bucks and when it started out it was commercial free.
Fast forward to today.
$420/mo for communications!
Have salaries keep pace with technology? What are we doing here?
2 flip phones x $20/mo = $40
Hi-speed cable modem = $50
Add in taxes & whatnot = $100/mo
No TV (tired of the jangly trash).
And I’ve re-discovered books.
What the hell are you doing paying for TV? So you can feed the Hollywood lie machine, rot your brain and waste money? And if you have the whole family on a cell phone plan, why do you need a land line? Just for the DSL?
You’ve forgotten one very important point: everything you’ve listed is a choice. You could save $420/month by forgoing those luxuries.
I have the land line and the cable for my computer. No cell phone. No TV- none at all. It would be easy to piggyback on the surrounding wifi sources but I am leery of the security considerations.My son who works on computers in the army keeps telling me I don’t need the land line or the cable and can get all of it for free where I live. I’ll keep the land line even if he convinces me to do the wifi hitchhiking thing for the computer. My phone tends to stay live through hurricanes when cell towers go down and the cable is knocked out.
No Cable or satellite TV, either.
Cell phone with unlimited talk, text, and data: $30
DSL high speed internet: $27
Land line (needed for DSL): $35
No cable or satellite. Regular TV with additional neat channels such as Me-TV, Decades, Antenna-TV, and four PBS stations: Zero dollars
Total: $92/month