How do you justify your bills?

Everyone has to pay for basic utilities. There's no escaping water, electricity, and for many, gas. But have any of you stopped to figure the cost of your other bills?

Let me give you a breakdown of mine. I'm looking at what I pay now in terms of monthly and yearly costs. It's when you see what things add up to per year that things really come into focus. I'll also explore and discuss some of my alternatives. I can tell you, however, that it's amazing what we are collectively (as a society) willing to pay for non-essentials.

Keep in mind that I'm still a full-time student and only working part-time, so with 1.5 incomes for 2 people in this household, my valuations may be different from yours.

We have a standard land-line phone package. We also have DSL internet through the phone company. We do not have any TV service save what comes in via rabbit ears. We do pay for Netflix and eMusic. Cell phone service is through a family plan with family. All values are approximate and may or may not include taxes. If the month and year totals don't add up, it's probably because I calculated the year with some cents tacked on and truncated them when reporting the monthly.

Phone service - We made it a point to have land-line phone service. Why? It's much more reliable than cell service and there are more options (even if some of them cost extra) to control who can call you and how. Many people have, or plan to, replace their land-line service with cell only. I think this is a bad idea. You can lose your cell phone and most are quite expensive. Then there's the whole dealing with batteries, charging, and reception. Cell phones are complicated. They're a great means of communication, but when there's a storm and the power is out and you discover your battery is low, there's nothing like picking up a good old corded phone and remembering why you keep the service. A land-line with an answering machine also gives you a number you can hand out and answer at your convenience, without having to distribute your cell number and end up being on-call to everyone you'd done business with recently.

Month $37
Year $444

$444 is a lot of money, if you think about it. We don't make that many local calls and when we call long distance we use affordable calling cards or our cell phones. However reliable land-line phone service is, seeing this number caused me to pause a moment and wonder if there isn't a cheaper way to do this or some way to simply go without. "Go cell only!" some of you will say. Well, I've given some reasons above, but when I explore cell service below you'll see why that's not necessarily a better option.

DSL Internet - Internet access is technically optional, but given that I'm a student and my wife and I have both built our lives around having it available, it's just not practical to go without some reliable access. A modern computer is certainly rendered somewhat less useful without it, that's for sure. I use email, chat, and other electronic means for communication as often, if not more often, than the phone, especially as most communication is not truly urgent.

Month $33
Year $396

Yet another frightening yearly total. This I find to be more worthwhile than phone service, however, and less cause for dismay. Just think of how many times you've gone on-line to get information on prescription drugs, to do price comparison, get product information, or simply shop, or to get driving directions to an out-of-town destination. Overall internet access probably pays for itself.

Netflix - We don't use Netflix quite as heavily as some, since sitting down to watch a movie or series requires dedicated attention. Still, we do get some value out of it and it helps deal with the pain of not having very reliable TV service.

Month $18
Year $220

Without Netflix we would likely rent far fewer DVDs, but if we did run out to Blockbuster (what few remain in the area) to rent, in order to spend this much money we'd have to rent between 50 and 75 DVDs a year, not including the driving to the store and the DVDs returned unwatched. That means there's definitely a premium for convenience. But when I'm tearing through a TV series on a break from classes it's priceless.

eMusic - I gifted 3 months of this to the wife this spring and she is hooked. Sure, many major label musician and albums have very poor representation, but there's a lot of great stuff just outside the mainstream on indie labels and such. eMusic is also great for jazz and classical.

Month $12
Year $144

We have the $12 a month plan, which allows 30 downloads per month, though like many cell minutes they expire at the end of the month if you haven't downloaded up to your limit. We've lost a few songs that way. Still, this is a great value. My beloved gets to explore different music at a very low per-track cost. Also, the songs are unprotected, high-bitrate MP3 files, meaning they import into iTunes and play on her aging iPod (and mine) just fine. This yearly expense does not cause pain, that's for sure. It really isn't that bad.

Cable TV options - This is where it starts to get hairy. Our antenna reception is acceptable but not great, and the move to digital in February is likely to knock off a couple stations we can only get via analog signals. That means if we want to watch TV at all we probably need to consider some other options shy of rudely demanding our landlord put up an outside antenna.

Basic (2-23) - Local broadcast, religious, and shopping stations and local access.

Month $8
Year $96

Honestly, this doesn't look so bad. Less than $100 a year (not counting the $35 install fee *ouch!*) to get clear reception on all the local stations.

Expanded (24-77) - Some other channels. Some are compelling (Discovery, Sci Fi, History) and many not very (Jewelry TV, BET, MTV, C-Span)

Month $59
Year $708

No, there are no typoes there. Expanded analog cable service (requires no additional hardware rentals) comes to $708 a year. Some people are paying as much as $100 a month for their digital cable TV. That's $1200 a year. Yeah, there's no way $708 a year to watch TV makes sense for us, no way at all. Think of all the books you could buy that way. Heck, with $708 you could buy more TV series on DVD than you could probably watch in a year.

Satellite TV - Satellite TV is almost an attractive option. Almost. With DirectTV they're starting to use the cell phone model where you have to sign up for 2 years. Further, with DirectTV you lease the equipment, not own. That's why you have to pay $59 up front for the receiver and an additional $5 a month. And if you cancel your service early you have to pay them early lease termination fees in addition to early service termination fees AND send back the equipment or get charged a 3rd fee (they only care about receivers, not the dishes). DiSH Networks doesn't require a 2 year commitment and offers incentives for committing to a 2 year plan (drop the $99 setup fee and offer free equipment protection, otherwise an additional, optional $6 a month). For this reason I'm going to price using DiSH. I can't see why I would chose DirectTV in light of this.

Month $37 (for America's Choice 100 w/ local stations added)
Year $444

Other than the $99 setup fee, this isn't that bad. It's comparable to phone service. It's definitely something to think about. Hrm.... *thinks carefully* DiSH also has prepaid plans, though you have to buy your equipment first to use them. That's just crazy. I didn't want to do the legwork to figure DirectTV, but their offerings would have been $5 - $10 more per month with more drawbacks.

Cell phone service - Oh boy... This is the messiest yet. There are two of us in this household, meaning we'd need either a family plan or 2 individual plans. The problem is that the minimum family plan is almost twice as expensive as the minimum individual plan, so with the exception of taxes and fees there's little incentive to go with a family plan unless there are at least 3 of you needing phones or someone else is paying the bulk of the tab. I'll use Verizon to price since I'm already on with them and they tend to have the best call and network quality. The drawbacks? 1 or 2 year commitments. Long time ago you only had a 1 year, but now the standard seems to be 2 years. There are ways around this, but I'll discuss that last.

Basic (minimum) Individual plan, 2 year commitment, "free" phone
Month $40
Year $480

So a basic, individual plan is $480 a year, or $960 over 2 years (the life of the commitment) per person. That's quite a bit if you don't use the phone much. Add on to that $.20 text messages which you cannot prevent receiving and the cell company has a racket going on. And I forgot the $35 one-time fee to start service, which is $70 for two people. Still, a single individual plan isn't too much worse than a land-line, but the lack of control and multitude of fees, some of which may be beyond your ability to prevent, can stick on one's craw.

Basic (minimum) Family plan w/ 2 lines, 2 year commitment, 2 "free" phones
Month $70
Year $840

Total activation fees are $60 and the yearly total is smaller than 2 separate individual plans (by $120 a year). Still expensive, but more reasonable than the plan immediately above. If your primary mode of communication is a land line or you just don't talk a lot, this is quite an expense.

Pre-Paid cell service - For a couple years this is how I did my cell calling, through Virgin Mobile pre-paid. For people who mostly want emergency options or simply don't use the phone for much except making brief contact on the go this is a great option. It's a little more expensive now than it used to be, but not by much. And where before there were a couple affordable plans and a couple awful plans, now most plans are pretty reasonable. I'll let Consumer Reports supply a monthly estimate since I don't want to do the research right now. According to them, someone who uses a cell only 100 minutes a month is going to have a low bill. I'm doing to add in a little to pad my estimate, however, just in case.

Monthly $20
Yearly $240

For my on-the-go needs, this would make perfect sense when combined with a land line. This would not be suitable as a land-line replacement, even for light talkers, simply because there are times you need to get something done over the phone and you're going to end up stuck on hold for an hour.

Conclusion -

So here's how everything stacks up. Right now, for communications and entertainment, I'm on the hook for $1204 a year. If I add basic cable that's $1300 a year for internet, phone, movies, music, and TV. Some people are paying a lot more. I suppose if you buy a $1200 TV what's $1200 a year to use it to watch every TV station under the sun in HD. But for the rest of us the value is a little lacking. I suppose it's also relative.

Do you feel like you are getting your value out of your monthly and yearly communication and entertainment costs? What are some ways you've considered cutting back?

In with the old, in with the new

I've decided to make this blog a more acceptable outlet for my worldly gripes and concerns. The idea is to not post anything here I wouldn't want a random stranger to read about me. So that's what I'm going to do. It's a journal, only public. I guess that makes it a blog. Seems like a more professional environment in which to do it than, say, LiveJournal, which is a bit more personal, yet oddly lacking in granularity with privacy controls.

Anyway, it's time to make a fresh start here. I'm not changing or removing my first post (put up for a school assignment) and I'm not changing the byline. There will be lots of flotsam here, but I will attempt to expound on ideas that might be professionally relevant to me as well.

As with any glimpse into my thoughts, be wary and forewarned.