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Going without internet would not be frugal for me. How would I shop? How would I deposit checks? How would I do research? All of these would be less frugal without the internet.
Some neighbors don't mind if you bum internet off of them, and some coffee shops offer free wifi, but then you'd have to factor in cost of going to the coffee shop (gas, time, coffee, etc.), best to just have it available whenever.
Some neighbors don't mind if you bum internet off of them, and some coffee shops offer free wifi, but then you'd have to factor in cost of going to the coffee shop (gas, time, coffee, etc.), best to just have it available whenever.
Around here, we only have Comcast and Verizon FIOS as internet options. Both of them have terms of services that don't allow you to share the internet outside of your household.
With the expense of going to a coffee shop, it's more frugal to have internet at home.
Never had cable. We can get a few channels on our TV over the air.
We have internet. It is 3mbps DSL, slow but sufficient for us. We can stream video ok with it. I can always negotiate the price down on it as it is the fastest I can get for now. I pay $20-25/mo for it.
No landline phone. We use Google Voice with Obi100 for free VOIP calling from home. This has worked well for us for 2 years now.
We have Tracfone cell phones. They cost <$100/yr each for our use.
I could never give up internet at home. I depend upon it for recipes, looking up office phone numbers, researching, selling on ebay, banking, etc. Our library is only open four days a week and even on the days it's open, it closes early. I would have nowhere to go at night to access internet either.
There is only one provider in town so if I dump cable, I lose internet too. Otherwise I would dump cable, I rarely watch tv because so much has become blood and guts, murder, violence. Not interested.
We don't have smart phones, just old dumb phones and we buy minutes--probably $100/year each. We do have a landline but we use an access number before we make a call and so our phone bill is really low.
The big waste of money is having only one cable/internet provider to go to. We can't bargain because there's no one else to go to.
A reliable basic home internet connection saves you money. Online shopping will always save at least the cost of sales tax. That alone would pay for the connection. Internet also gives you the option of making VOIP or video calls, negating the need for a landline or the expensive cell phone plans. Then there is all the free (legal and not) video and audio entertainment and education material to be had. Who the heck has time for cable TV with all that out there? At $15-$30 for a basic internet connection, it's a must-have, IMO.
We've never cared about cable, so it's an easy expense to shave. Any TV watching we do, which is probably more minimal than most, gets done online. Due to work and school needs, we'd be unlikely to go without internet.
Although the cable and internet provider are one and the same, and they really don't like it when you get internet only. We were subject to so much (failed) strong-arming when we dropped the cable part of the package entirely. They really don't wanna deal with people who don't get cable packages.
Interesting, I have never heard of those phones before. We only have celll phones, no home phone. Paying $103 monthly with att for both phones unlimited talk & text. It comes with a small amount of data but we blocked data on phones so we know bill wouldnt change. Soon we plan to switch to straight talk and will be $70 a month for talk and text 2 phones. Our att contract is up soon. Just concerned how good they will be, not use to anything but att and verizon.
That is pretty low for most households today ($103/month for cell phones, no land line, no cable tv, no internet) and you are thinking of dropping to $70.
Still, if you keep buying 30 day passes for scratch wireless Photon Q 4G LTE that would cost you 2*$15=$30 for every 30 days (plus the initial outlay of $200 to buy the phones). Then you could spend $40/month for hopefully at least 10 Mpbs internet plus a router for your homes. The phones can double as Android tablets so you could watch TV on Hulu and check the news, weather, and sports or research things for work. If you don't have a TV you can watch on the phones. It's not fancy video, but at least you can play music and see some shows once in a while.
Even if money is so tight that you can't afford the $15 /month unlimited talk on the (Sprint) cell network, the phones are still useful for talking on wifi, and you always have the option of texting over cellular.
A reliable basic home internet connection saves you money. Online shopping will always save at least the cost of sales tax. That alone would pay for the connection. Internet also gives you the option of making VOIP or video calls, negating the need for a landline or the expensive cell phone plans. Then there is all the free (legal and not) video and audio entertainment and education material to be had. Who the heck has time for cable TV with all that out there? At $15-$30 for a basic internet connection, it's a must-have, IMO.
Online shopping will only save you sales tax if you live in Oregon or Delaware. Since you live in CA, and I live in NJ, it doesn't save us anything in terms of sales tax.
My husband and I gave up cable over a year ago and never regretted it, though we thought we would be bored. We felt the money we saved each month could go to buying movies/seasons instead(we dont buy that often or spend all we save from not having cable) it also got us to find other things to do instead of watching tv. We will put in a movie or season at night. We rent movies from the library free also and use redbox at times. We were spending close to $100 just for cable. We do not have netflix either.
We have never had internet, not at home or on phones. We will use wifi at mcdonalds or library and sometimes at my parents if needed.
Just wondered if anyone else goes without either or both. If not, do you consider not having them or would it not be possible?
I haven't had cable in decades. I always thought it was a ripoff. I also rent movies from the library. My computer is hooked up to my big screen TV and I find a lot of things to watch on YouTube as well. I also use RedBox but seldom.
I do have internet, though.
I especially like the part I bolded. Most of us watch too much TV anyway.
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