Saving Money During Economic Hardships

We live in economically depressing times, the phrase job layoffs has become a regular sight, along with fewer job openings. In these trying times, it would be prudent to cut back on some expenses or switch to much more economically cheaper utilities. Now, I am not going to tell you of a way to miraculously make your car loan or your mortgage disappear, but I will point out a few things, very small things that might seem insignificant but can leave your walled a little bit more happy.

Some of the regular expenses that we have are our phone bills. I know many people who have completely given up on their land lines and switched over to cell phones. But there are still some hold out - people who still have AT&T landlines. Those who did switch over, many have saved money by moving to Vonage, and some thought that they have saved money by switching to Comcast Digital Voice or Comcast's Triple Play Service.

For those of you who need a Land Line, and have already experience with Vonage, an alternative would be Magic Jack. Vonage costs you about $30 a month, but with Magic Jack, you pay about $40 for the device plus $20 per year for service, this saves you about $300 a year. Now this is a good deal, but as with any good deal you also have to be aware of buyer beware. When it comes to MagicJack there are big buyer beware signs (hence one of the reasons for the low cost). For starters, if you have to make a phone call, you need Internet plus, your computer needs to be ON. The same applies if you have to receive a phone call. Further, there is no 911 service available, so you have to have an additional cell phone at home if you have to make that emergency call. Barring these advantages, Magic Jack would be useful for those who need a land line just for the sake of having a landline, and already have a cell phone handy.

Another way you can cut down cost is by completely dropping your cable tv and internet. Ever since I heard of Hulu, I got hooked on it and never looked back; in fact I don't think I have seen TV for 2 months. I usually watch shows like Chuck, 24, The Office, and Heroes regularly on TV, but ever since Hulu came on, and was streaming all my television shows the next day they aired, I stopped watching TV altogether. I now watch all my favorite TV shows the next day on hulu on my time and convenience - isn't that a great thing? In addition to that, I also came to know of an online service called Live Station. Live Station is basically an online version of you cable company. It is a desktop software that lets you watch TV channels on your computers. You have CNN, BBC World News, MTV, and many different TV Channels from around the world. All though there aren't that many TV stations as you would like, there are enough to satisfy my Cable News requirements, and most of all - its' FREE.

Hence, I have been pondering on whether I even need my cable tv. I have Comcast Digital Cable, and the only reason I have Comcast is because I need Internet, and I don't even watch TV anymore. If I were to drop comcast, I would save about $80 a month or $960 a month, but would have no internet. There are other alternates to my high-speed internet, but they are not as fast as comcast. There is DSL which is inexpensive but nowhere near as fast as Comcast. AT&T offers a basic DSL for $20, which adds up to large savings over time. One of the reasons AT&T is attractive is I am not doing much online besides reading news and mail. With those activities, I don't need an extremely fast internet, just good enough so that I don't have to wait for pages to load. Along with that, I am certainly not an online game player, and hence I do not require heavy bandwidth. As such, for those of you who are in a similar position dropping Comcast all together might be a good idea as well.
Have any other money saving tips? Please let me know!