So, we didn’t get rid of our TV for the monetary savings, but since we have no TV, it seems kind of silly to pay for cable :-).

I called Time Warner yesterday, and it took awhile, but we were finally able to get things going. When I called initially, I told them that I wanted to cancel both my cable and my Roadrunner (high speed Internet). My thinking was that I would let them “convince” me to keep the RoadRunner at a discounted price. Luckily, they didn’t realize what a sad, sad bluff my cancelling the RoadRunner was. I had looked at Zoomtown a bit, but eventually decided I wanted to stay with RoadRunner.

Anyways, the guy cancelled the cable, and he offered $29.95 for 6 months for RoadRunner (regular price is $44.95). I asked if he would do 12 months at the lower price, since that’s the offer that Zoomtown has. He said he couldn’t do that, but maybe Customer Service could. He transferred me there, and after forever on hold, I got them. They said they couldn’t do that but Sales should be able to. They transferred me there, but then the call dropped. So I called back, and Sales couldn’t do it, but they transferred me to someone that they “knew could do that”. That ended up being the Retention department. The lady I spoke to there said that they could only do 6 months, but that after the promotional time was up, I should just call back and they’d be more than happy to give whatever promotional price they had then, or extend this current deal if that was the one that they had then. She said they do that all the time. I guess they’re the nice guys of the bland corporate giant of Time Warner. I had actually read about doing this to lower cable prices before on the various deal-saving message boards I frequent, but had never gotten around to doing it. It was actually very easy – I highly recommend it. Just call and say you’re going to cancel and then ask to speak to the Retention department. Our bill went for $95.17 to $29.99 + tax, a savings of about $60 a month.

In other money news, I was in a team meeting at work yesterday. We have a new high end brand of sunglass store coming out, and my boss mentioned that in that store there would be a $10,000 pair of sunglasses. Which is just insane. So I got to thinking, and if you take my net paychecks, which is what I bring home after taxes, insurance, savings, etc. and take out 10% tithing and our monthly mortgage payment, our family of 6 LIVES on about $10,000 for AN ENTIRE YEAR! Madness. Obviously some major expenses are not included in that 10K, but it does include clothes, food, all utility bills, entertainment, property taxes, house and car insurance, as well as other incidentals. And I don’t even really feel like we live spartan or without fun things. We have (some) nice things, we live in a nice area, we save, and we even go out to eat occasionally. But we just are smart about it. Any dollar spent on something is a dollar that can’t be spent somewhere else. We went out on Monday night to El Picante for a “No TV party”. I printed out a Buy 1 Dinner get 1 free coupon, and the total for our family of 6 was $9.56! I added a $5 tip since the bill was so low, the service was decent and the food was great. I browsed a book last time I was at Barnes and Noble called Half Price Living – it was just chapters on how to save 50% in every facet of your life. I didn’t get a chance to read it too much, but it looked interesting. And I certainly couldn’t pay full price for a book like that! 🙂

In other non-related news, the woman who was stalking me either has given up or is much more stealthy.