The New Home Contract Checkup

Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!

We are now officially homeowners! I’ve been working with the former owner to review and, in some cases, transfer over service contracts and accounts associated with the house, including utilities, home warranties, security systems, and cable/internet.

One of the most expensive accounts was the prior owners’ cable/internet package. This was a great opportunity to deploy the subject of my very first post—Cut Your Cable Bill.

When I took a look at the prior owner’s cable package, I gasped. The prior owner had a fancy cable package, including a landline, four set-top boxes, pay TV, and a high-speed internet package, with a total cost of $275/month including taxes and fees. I’ve pasted a copy of the estimated bill at the end of this email.

Even worse, they were still on a two-year contract and unwilling to terminate it, so we were stuck assuming it (rather than cancelling it and starting a new, much slimmer account). What are we going to do?

• First, we’re going to terminate the contract ourselves, which will allow us to remove unnecessary services. Although the rep initially stated that the early termination fee was $350, after some questioning they conceded that the fee would be pro-rated for how long the two-year contract had already been in effect, bringing the fee down to less than $40.

• Second, we are going to drop landline service. We haven’t used a landline in years, but if we needed one we would go with a low-cost service like Ooma (connects to your home internet, very low monthly fee), which we’ve used with success in the past.

• Third, we are going to drop pay TV service. Although we’ll have TVs, well over $120 of this monthly bill comes from pay TV services (the broadcast fee, the sports network fee, the set-top box rentals, and a portion of the $164.99 monthly fee). Instead, we’ll use a Roku box or a smart TV to access streaming services. If we need live TV, we’ll use an “over the top” (OTT) service like YouTube TV ($65/month), though we don’t need it right now.[1]

• Fourth, we’re going to investigate purchasing our own Internet router so that we need not rent one for $12/month + tax (the model mentioned here usually sells for about $200 on eBay, so it pays for itself in a bit over a year). Notably, internet service providers are no longer permitted to charge monthly rental fees for equipment if you purchase your own and return theirs.

• Finally, we plan to use the strategies in this post to make sure we are receiving the best possible promotional deal on our internet service, setting an annual reminder to check in with customer service. On average, readers have saved $456/year using these methods.

And now…Andrew’s pick of the week:

The Durrells In Corfu

Life can be pretty stressful these days. That’s why my wife and I really enjoy watching pleasant comedies, preferably set in beautiful locations. I highly recommend The Durrells In Corfu, which checks both of these boxes. It’s a fun little British comedy, but with a bit of a sharper edge than you might expect, kind of like a softer Arrested Development set on a Greek island in the mid-1930’s.

I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.

The Verizon Bill

[1] What is normally missing from these OTT packages are the regional sports networks. Fortunately, neither of us are big sports fans.