Posts Tagged money

The Rands family budget is seriously stretched these days. On top of all the usual household bills, we’re having to replace Paula’s trusty Toyota Yaris with a new car, and we’re also looking to get Evie into a nursery for a couple of days per week. We don’t have an extravagant lifestyle by any means, which means we’re having to economise in other areas.

First to be trimmed was the Sky subscription. We’ve gone from having the full package (basically all the channels plus movies and sports) to just the Variety and Kids packs. This means we still get the free-to-air channels plus stuff like Sky 1 (important for Lost, BSG, etc) and all of the kiddie channels that Evie watches. We’re still paying for HD, so the subscription is now £27.50 per month as opposed to £57, but it’s a reasonable saving. The only thing I’m really gonna miss is the occasional Liverpool match on Sky Sports (crappy timing given the trip to United this weekend, but there you go).

Next on the list was our broadband service. We’ve been with Zen Internet since we moved here in 2004, and although I’ve been totally satisfied with their service it’s well known that Zen are one of the more expensive ISPs. Then again, you get what you pay for, and I didn’t fancy the idea of switching providers to save a few quid only to lose our rock-solid connection. So I decided to stay with Zen, but switch from our current unlimited product to one of their capped services. At home we mainly use the internet for email and web browsing, so the capping isn’t going to affect us much, if at all. Added to that, the capped service is not only cheaper but also faster: we’ve gone from paying around £24 per month for a half-meg service, to paying just over £17 for a 3½ Mbps service. No complaints so far: the regrade went without a hitch, and our connection seems as reliable as ever. Kudos to Zen! No surprise they’ve won the PC Pro Best ISP Award for the past five years in a row.

Reducing the amount of money we spend on TV and broadband is a start, but we’re still looking to make savings elsewhere. Even then, Paula’s still going to have to go back to work part-time so that we can afford to place Evie in a nursery. When did life get so damn expensive?