I actually spend more on cable than on gas.

[MindPilot]

Yeah, I know, who gives a flying rat's ass?

I was playing around with my Quicken reports and that particular factoid kind of surprised me especially since there is about 30 miles of freeway between me and work.

Gasoline gets 1.2% of my monthly expenditures while cable (TV & Internet) is 1.8%. Of course the biggie is the mortgage which sucks up a whopping 58%. I expected gas to be a lot higher.

[Captain Angry]

1. Cable is a fixed cost. Gasoline use can be reduced.

You can't exactly car pool your internet. You can't ask for a slower connection at a lower price in most places.

Not that shocking really.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Actually it is pretty much the other way around.

Cable is a discretionary expense: you can just not use it. Gas and oil are neccessities for most of us, and while we can make some adjustments, most of us are pretty much stuck with our transportation and heat costs.

[Captain Angry]

9. It's the opposite, when it's a choice, you're right.

But once the choice to make the payment has been made, functions work out differently.

Cable = ($0.00, X) only two choices.
Gasoline = ($0.00 - X) any number of possibilities.

[Benhurst]

15. Yeah, but can cut back on the crap cable brings into your house.

I'm still stuck with a broadband bill, but I'm back on rabbit ears and still get more television than I care to watch.

I'm looking forward to the big changeover to HDTV next year. One old set gets put on the curb, the other will be kept for the occasional VHS or CD movie.

[Captain Angry]

16. Hopefully by "on the curb" you mean recycled. :-)

What sucks about cable billing is that if you don't have cable TV, you get charged extra for cable internet.

[Benhurst]

19. LOL!

Our town recycles TVs, computers, etc.

I get mine from the telephone company; but it's a ripoff, too.

Our cable company doesn't even offer broadband without regular cable service. The corporations rule.

[Captain Angry]

24. My town is a little different.

If you take a TV to be recycled, they dip it in a vat of ground up baby seals, set it on fire, and pipe the smoke into a maternity ward.

[leeroysphitz]

29. The only way to make a profit with a system like that is: VOLUME. n/t

[Warpy]

2. I have a cheap satellite package through my phone company

but I still pay more for it than I spend on gas. I have a 4 cylinder econobox that gets over 40 on the highway and my second car is an electric moped.

I got used to being a cheapskate when I was living on $800/month, the first $560 of which went for the mortgage.

I feel your pain.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. That is because we reached Peak Cable about two years ago.

It is going to be a nightmare.

[MindPilot]

6. LOL!!

Nice.

[Subdivisions]

7. Doh! I can't believe you went there! Peak Cable is a myth!

Nice little dig at the PO crowd there, Warren Stupidity

[uppityperson]

4. How's your grocery budge doing? It's not just personal driving, but food costs too.

Good to not have to drive much, but food costs will continue to go up due to gas costs.

[MindPilot]

11. That one is a little tough to ferret out.

I haven't been real good about separating food out from other categories. A Costco trip for staples may also include clothes, office supplies, and a set of 40,000 drill-bits, but it all goes in under groceries.

[uppityperson]

14. I've noticed huge jump in food costs. Even at Costco

I didn't buy stuff last trip because it seemed too much, then went to local store an am appalled. Back to Costco. Yeah, those 40,000 drill bits will come in handy someday. MrUP just bought a pack of them for us too. Looking at eggs in the store makes me realize I need to get more chickens this spring. For the first time I think I'll get some meat birds as well as egg layers. Back to the basics.

[EFerrari]

17. Do you know if you can slaughter them?

My mom and I got some and later found out, there was no way we could do that. We ended up with pets and too many eggs. lol

[uppityperson]

20. I have and can. That has been the stopping point so far.

Yrs back I decided I had to butcher chickens or I could never buy store meant again. It took a while but I did it. Now I could since I've euthanized (killed) some sick birds that were suffering. So far MrUP and Jr have been adamant that I not do this, but time is coming close. I have a source of local beef, would like to find someone with a pig too since I'd rather not kill a pig. Chickens, especially those weird meat ones, no problem. As far as plucking them, I usually remove the skin before I cook them anyways, so am planning on not plucking.

Funny how I sit here with a cat on the dresser, dog outside the door, gerbils scurrying in a cage next to me, a 10 yr old named chicken ruling the roost, and still can kill meat birds. The trick for me is not naming them, and making sure I intellectualize and emotionally keep them in the "food" category.

[EFerrari]

23. The best I was ever able to do was put some fighting cocks out

of their misery when one of my tenants had a fight and just left the losers bleeding to death. And that was really hard. I don't think I could do it again. Same thing happened when I took my son fishing during a spasm of guilt over being a single mom. It was a disaster. He kept catching fish and I kept getting more and more freaked out.

It's a good thing I'm mostly veggie now.

[Metta]

8. Cable is a rip off. Moreso since they're masquerading as supporting free speech.

no text.

[davidinalameda]

10. basic cable is included in my rent

no idea what's going to happen when they switch to digital

[high density]

13. That doesn't affect cable

It changes over the air broadcasts. Cable companies may eventually phase out analog service but it's probably not going to happen in 2009.

[dysfunctional press]

27. when i was a landlord, i included directv w/ ALL the premium channels in the rent...

it only cost me $5/month for the extra box, and i got to deduct half my monthly satellite bill on my taxes as an expense.

[EFerrari]

12. I do, too and I keep trying to figure out if I can just kill my Sat

account because most of the programs I watch are streamed and because I could get a much less expensive movie rental deal, like Netflix or something.

But video on the small screen really annoys me so I've been putting it off.

[uppityperson]

18. I have DirecTV and pay $6/month.

I don't have any package but "local channels" which is usually offered as an add-on, but we got as the whole thing. We get poor overtheair reception, so have local ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, couple smaller channels, 2 PBS (1 local 1 ntl), and a couple other stations. They don't tell you about this, but it is worth checking into since most of the rest is just blah blah blah. I wish they'd offer a "pick and chose" thing, like AnimalChannel and SciFi for another couple dollars a month.

[EFerrari]

21. Did you mean 6 or 60 because I have the same service and pay $60.

I'm paying $60 to watch Amy, BookTv and CSPAN and some local channels. It just seems like so much to me but, I always thought cable and sattelite service was expensive for the amount that I use or don't use it.

[CRF450]

25. If your paying $60/month for satallite, you prolly have over 200 channels

Thats why it costs that much. Cable tv here is a huge rippoff because for 50 bucks, you only get close to 70 channels. I dont like cable tv, but I do like the internet service, faster and more responsive than anything else, but I have high speed DSL cause a cable line doesn't run to my house.

[EFerrari]

26. The funny thing is, I don't watch 200 channels.

I watch CSPAN, Link, and my local channels for news. That's really about it unless the PBS station puts on a good program -- and, I could watch that locally, too.

Those other 192 channels don't have anything I really need. They're mostly cr@p, infomercials, or sports that I don't care about until baseball season. It's just silly in a way.

[CRF450]

30. I have the 150ch plan, plus a few channels that I added.

OLN, G4, and HBO (gotta have HBO!)

[dysfunctional press]

32. dsl in general is better than cable for internet access...

especially at night, when lots of people are signed on, and the speeds drop considerably.

[Warren Stupidity]

33. I threw dsl out of my house 'cause it was horrible.

If it was up it had decent rates, not as fast as cable, but it was rarely up for more than a few minutes at a time. I have had outages with cable, but they are very rare. I've never had a peak usage rate drop, although certainly if you live in a dense urban area you might have that problem. Out in the burbs and exurbs, there is plenty of bandwidth to spare.

When I have a choice of fibre connect to my home I'll consider throwing the overpriced cable out, not until then.

[dysfunctional press]

37. my experience has been quite the opposite...

in the past 3 years, i've only experienced two outages- and they were very brief- 15-20 minutes, maybe. when i had cable, outages were routine, and speeds dropped like a rock at night.

[dysfunctional press]

28. they said that they ONLY get the local channels, and pay $6/month.

i have directv, with all the premium channels, and an hd-dvr, and pay $120/month.

[EFerrari]

31. Oh, I goofed. I only have basic chs and local but I do have hd-dvr.

Maybe THAT is why I won't give it up. I'm addicted to pausing stuff and recording what I want to keep.

[dysfunctional press]

38. the dvr is truly an evil and addictive device...

i tried cable tv for a short while- but the comcast dvr would only buffer 15 minutes of viewing, as compared to directv's 90 minute buffer, and that just wouldn't do, so right back to directv.
i get frustrated going to movies now, because i can't back it up if i didn't understand what someone on he screen said, and i can't pause it to go to the bathroom.

[uppityperson]

36. $6, six. It isn't offered except as an add on, but I was told to ask and they gave it to me

Now with Qwest bundling phone and directv I get $5 off a month so it costs me $1.00.

[mdmc]

22. so does every nyc resident that has cable

I dont have cable

[ThomWV]

34. 1.2% of your montly expenditures is next to nothing

That's $12 per thousand dollars of income. Between my wife and I we spend $200 a month for gas, at your rate of expenditure that would have us with roughly a $16,600 per month income. We aren't doing that well.

[Mike03]

35. Me too. My HSI costs almost $50 a month.

But my situation is unusual; I live in a small town and drive comparatively little compared to most people. I fill up my car about once a month, and that's usually when it reaches a half tank.

[Wcross]

39. I would be "concerned" with that mortgage. That's double the recommended maximum.

Used to be that a mortgage was not written if the total debt load was 36% of your gross pay per month.