stub
HomeMoneyThe best way to save over $200 a year!

The best way to save over $200 a year!


I think for the first time in my life I was convinced by a door to door sales person to purchase their product. What were they selling? Cable…as in tv and internet. A man working for AT&T knocked on my door one afternoon and began his sales pitch. I was tempted to interrupt him and tell him I was not interested (as I do with most other salesmen).

He handed me a pamphlet of information that included all the different package options and pricing AT&T was offering. I saw their basic cable and internet package was $89 per month. I was paying $91 for my COX cable package. I told the man I wasn’t interested in making the switch because I wouldn’t be saving any money. He asked me about my current COX package (internet speed, how many channels I get, etc.). With COX I was only getting basic cable (channels 2 through 60) and medium internet speed. With AT&T’s basic package I would get over 200 channels and slightly faster internet. It sounded too good to be true so I asked the man how much the instillation fee was. Turns out, there is no instillation fee and we also get a cable box that can record four shows at one time and a high power wireless modem and router. With COX we don’t get a cable box and they charge a rental fee for the modem. The man said these aren’t promotional rates that are going to go up in one month. He explained AT&T is just trying to be competitive against the San Diego Mega-Cable companies like Cox and Time Warner.

Convinced that AT&T would be more bang for my buck I asked the guy for his card and told him I would give him a call later. I went back to my computer did a little more research and was sold that AT&T was a great value. I scheduled my appointment. The cable folks came out last weekend and installed our new cable and let me tell you…IT IS WONDERFUL! The cable box is amazing. I don’t need to record four shows at once, but its still a neat feature. The internet is WAAAAY faster than our old internet. Paranoid that there was going to be hidden fees or an upgrade that I wasn’t aware of I called AT&T and asked what my bill would be at the end of the month ….$99 the lady told me, but since we had cable and internet we got a $10 discount to bring out total bill to $89…just what the salesman quoted me. This is when things got really good. I asked the lady if she knew of any other deals that would be worth my while. This is when she told me that for $40 extra a month we could upgrade our cable to get a total of 400 channels. I politely declined. Then she said… “Oh wait I can get you the 400 channels and a $40 discount for 6 months making your bill total $89 a month.” I don’t need 400 channels, but if they’re free I’ll take them. I wrote myself a note to cancel the extra package in Dec. so I don’t get stuck with a higher bill. Oh yeah, and did I mention we get our fist month of service at no charge and a $100 check for signing up. All-in-all I will end up saving about $250 this year and will have a way better cable package.

My advice to you…. Check with other cable companies and see if you can get them to beat your current cable costs. They will almost always try and work a deal out because they want your business. If there are no competitors or you don’t want to go through the hassle of changing your cable company, at least call your current cable company and tell them you are going to cancel your service because you want to take your business elsewhere. They will offer you some type of benefit, maybe a cheaper bill or maybe just more channels and faster internet for no cost. Try it out. See if you can make your dollar work harder for you!

Take care,

Previous article
Next article
RELATED ARTICLES

1 COMMENT

  1. I live in san diego as well and go through time warner. I've got about the same deal…but i'm surprised to learn at&t provides cable…i thought they were just a phone co. Anyway, i remember when i moved in i thought that i could only get service through time warner because they had the lines, but maybe att could give me a deal. i'll look into it, thanks for the post.

Comments are closed.

Related Content

Most Popular