As Timothy’s arrival date approaches, we’ve finally started to look with a discerning eye at our budget. We decided long ago, that we both prefer for Liz to stay home with the baby. That means our income is being cut dramatically. I earn enough at my day job for this whole thing to work but not much more than that.
We’ve changed our car insurance and our trash service to save some money. Those were easy decisions. We don’t really see the changes there. Our coverage is the same, the cost is lower. The trash gets picked up on Wednesday instead of Thursday. I can deal with those.
The decision that has been the most difficult is about cable TV. We both enjoy having it. We’d really like to keep it. But it is a lot of money going out the door every month. We don’t have HD service and we don’t subscribe to any premium channels. We do, however, watch shows on the networks we get beyond basic cable. The 3 I watch the most would disappear with a downgrade. That hurts.
I keep asking myself which is better — Having access to those channels or having some more budgetary freedom. My brain knows an answer and my heart knows an answer and they don’t agree.
We knew we would sacrifice money for time with the boy. Sacrifice was just a concept out in the future sometime. Well, that time is here.
Here are the options we are looking at:
- Drop cable TV completely and only keep high speed internet. This would save about $120 per month.
- Drop to a more basic cable TV package that includes high speed internet. This would about $100 per month.
- Stay where we are and squeak by with very little wiggle room.
What would you do? Can you think of any other options?