Cable Package Woes!

Okay, maybe YOU know it's not a valid threat to cancel your service, but your provider doesn't know that. Tell them you will have to cancel your service, that it doesn't make sense that all of a sudden they'll be charging you more for the same exact services. Tell them you'll just use your cell phone and wireless card for your computer - they don't know you won't do it. If that doesn't do the trick, politely ask for a supervisor and tell them that you'll be cancelling and why. More often than not, they do have wiggle room on pricing and the threat of canceling service is enough to get your price lowered. Another thing you can do is to see if there are any new packages for phone and internet that may lower your price. Good luck!

Your post is the reason we don't do cable. Hulu and Netflix is going to be enough for us. We pay for phone/internet only and yes - we do feel nickled and dimed even with these too.

It's a game. My husband gets after all of our service providers periodically. He just tells them 'thank you but no; you can cancel my service now.' Once they start spluttering, he tells them what price he wants to pay and magic things happen. Our phone and internet is less than $50 all in each month. Don't put up with it. They are liars but they probably won't want to lose your business so play hardball. As my husband says they aren't the only game in town and don't let them forget it.

Complain..but be polite. Call and tell them that you need to cancel. When they ask why tell them its a luxury you cant afford anymore, they will try to keep you as a customer and offer you a deal. Just remember to be nice, if you get nasty at all they wont help you at all. Good luck

Here is what we did...
We had a digital antenna installed on our roof. This way we are able to get all of the basic channels on all of the TVs in our home.

If we want to watch any 'cable' shows... they are available on Hulu online.

We also have Tivo Service. Using this we can stream shows from Netflix and Hulu through our TV. We LOVE it and our Comcast bill went from $192 a month to $90!

Okay, so here is what my husband and I did when we moved. We got out of our Comcast contract because they don't service the new neighborhood we live in (although they did try to charge the cancellation fee, but I talked to a manager and he waived it). We bought (and don't laugh) digital antennas for the TV. You get all of the local network stations in your area (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox), as well as, PBS and some other stations, depending on where you live. The good ones cost around $40, but they work pretty well and once you buy the antenna, it's FREE!

We also had to have internet, so we got DSL, which was the only option here and it is around $50 per month. As for the phone, we got Ooma, which is an internet phone system. We have a local (to our area) phone number that we got to choose from the numbers available. It is unlimited long distance, caller ID, etc. (and, frankly, some other cool features, like I will get an email with an audio file when I get a voicemail so I can listen to it on my computer or smartphone when I'm not home) for $10 per month. They have a cheaper plan for $4 per month (which I think is just the federal taxes that you can't get around). You just have the buy the equipment up front. Lots of people I know have Magic Jack, which works kind of the same way and is pretty cheap too. So, now we are paying around $60 per month instead of $150 and we never really watched the cable channels much anyway. The only thing we might miss this Fall is ESPN for football, but a lot of the games can be watched on the internet, so we have cables to plug our computers into the TV to watch on the bigger screens. It can be done less expensively if you go to the trouble of getting it set up. So far, so good for us and I'm happy we aren't a slave to the cable company anymore! Good luck!

I should add that we also have Netflix through our Wii (although we cancelled the DVD portion of that service when they raised their prices, just out of principle) and as JessinTexas pointed out, you can find a lot on Hulu as well. Hope this helps!

Well, it certainly doesn't make sense, but it's a no-brainer: keep the cable (cheaper package) and limit the tv yourselves! That's why they offer the "bundle" & at a better value.