Most Worthless Monthly Bills

[Spiffster]

We scrutinize every monthly bill in an effort to cut out any fat we see in services we feel we can go without. I think we have things running pretty lean as far as monthly bills go. That said, I was wondering what monthly bills people here think are the most useless?

Im gonna throw my vote in for "professionally" monitored security systems. After about a year we gave ADT the finger and havent missed them one bit. Considering the alternative technologies available today there is no reason why you should pay $50+ / month for this service when you can have a superior security system installed and monitor it yourself. We had accidentally set of our ADT system a few times and its almost comical how easily they can be delayed before they will call the police... which, for the monthly fee, is all they really do anyway. I can do that myself, and much faster, for free. Even if we are not at home I can setup my security system to notify me instantly when any sensors are triggered, then I can decide right away whether or not the police need to take a look.

Having a dog is a pretty good alarm system too. I know he will wake us up if someone tries to enter our house since we dont always arm our system before going to bed.

Then there is cable TV... With OTA HD broadcasts, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, cable or satellite TV are completely useless. We cut the cable years ago, and dont miss that either.

[MonkeyMama]

Yup, I would agree that those bills seem pretty worthless. My dad is a handy/techy type and so growing up we never paid for any alarm monitoring. My only personal experience is dealing with alarm company with my office. All I can say is, "UGH!" My impression is that it is a fairly useless service.

We try to run a tight ship and not throw money down the drain. So I don't think I have anything to add.

[MonkeyMama]

Pest service?

We have hired a pest service at times. Particularly buying in a new home development. But, I think overall, pest service is something people sometimes pay blindly for eternity whether they need it or not.

Gym membership too. Very useful if you use it. But most people don't use it and just keep paying the bill. (I HATE January/February at my gym. It gets SO CROWDED and then most those people never come back again).

[Spiffster]

Pest service?

We have hired a pest service at times. Particularly buying in a new home development. But, I think overall, pest service is something people sometimes pay blindly for eternity whether they need it or not.

Thats another one for sure! We had signed up for pest control a few years back and unfortunately we didnt read the contract that we had signed... heck I didnt even know it was a contract... Apparently we had voluntarily locked ourselves into an 18 month contract, complete BS. We never had a problem with pests really, this was just preventative. Anyway, it was just a bad financial move. Live and learn.

Now I just do my own pest control with superior products, no less.

I just needed these two products.

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B002YNSAGM/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACMKV8/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Which cost about as much as ONE month of pest control service.

[ua_guy]

When I thought hard about our frivolous bills, I didn't come up with much. Discretionary bills, sure, but worthless- no.

Security monitoring
Satellite TV
Satellite Radio/XM
Internet

We own our security equipment but pay a local outfit to do the monitoring, and they are very good and their prices are very reasonable. The one time they sent out the police, it was fast, and it was worth it.

Satellite is the only TV service we can get. No antenna reception, and the internet isn't fast enough to stream. Everything has to be downloaded in advance.

Phone/internet come bundled together. Internet is $20 of the monthly bill. We have landline service because it's required as part of having DSL, AND, cellular service isn't reliable (no signal) in our neck of the woods.

XM radio is worth it, considering we do almost 2,000 miles/month in a car.

[JoeP]

IMHO, there are only 2 possible reasons I see for having cable/satellite. The first is if you are out of range of OTA transmissions and want local or free programming. The second is if you desire sports packages. Like others here, we use an antenna supplemented with Netflix.

[Gailete]

Sometimes it isn't even the bill itself but all those tack on charges that you can't do anything about, such as on your phone bill, you get a charge for 911, On our land line bill alone, besides taxes, we have over $12 in fees we are charged each month that of course you can't get out of paying. Then there is the trash companies fee for sending you a bill that was $4 before I canceled the service (with just two of us, we burn our trash (we live in the country) and a local guy collects the metal to recycle. I about dropped my teeth when I saw the charge to send us a bill. There was no way to pay on line and the only alternative was to sign up for them to take the maony directly out of our account every quarter with no warning and no knowledge ahead of time as to how much they would grab as the bill seemed to increase monthly. And it goes on. Utiltiy bills used to be easy to read and made sense. Now you always get dinged for things that you have no idea what they are for and don't seem to have benefitted us at all.

After having several people mentioning for us to call the Lion's club for help with my husband and his eye problem, my hubby finally did and they had someone drive him to near Pittsburgh (a large round trip) only to be told by the driver on the way home that they charge for the service! Up to that point NO ONE had mentioned a peep about costs, we had assumed that it was free since the Lion's club was a charity. Nope got a bill in the mail yesterday. We had never signed a contract, never were told what the fees would be, nothing. It isn't even so much that they wanted to charge us, it was that they weren't up front about it so that we could determine if we could even afford this 'favor'. While not a monthly bill, it is just more of the stuff that keeps landing on my desk lately. Makes me want to rip out my hair as we are very cash poor lately and every single bill we keep getting out of the blue seems to be the immediate payment requested type. ARRGH!

[MakeAStash]

Cell phones. A couple decades ago basically no one had a cell phone and somehow we all survived.

[dawnwes]

Did you try to google translate something here?

Well I would insist you to cut excess cost & whereby you should make every effort to divert your income into saving.

[hamchan]

Cell phones. A couple decades ago basically no one had a cell phone and somehow we all survived.

Actually I came very close to freezing to death in high school before most people had cell phones when me and a friend got stranded on an infrequently used road in the middle of winter. We only survived because we made the decision to leave the car and walk the four miles back to my house. I'm sure cell phones have saved plenty of lives. As the current parent of a teen, I'd much rather she have a cell.

[dawnwes]

But you know what? Home phones and long distance calling cost much more back then.

Now you can get unlimited calling on home phones for dirt cheap and international calling for .03 per min. or so.to many countries.

I am very tankful for cell phones and our bill isn't too outrageous, under $100 for 4 phones with Dh's subsidy.

Cell phones. A couple decades ago basically no one had a cell phone and somehow we all survived.

[dawnwes]

I am feeling more and more that eating out is a waste of money. Most of the time I don't think the food is all that good and it cost SO MUCH.

Last night my husband and I went out with just one child. The other two were out with their friends. We had 3 meals in a full sit down restaurant with no appetizer or dessert and only water and it was still $40. AND none of us thought it was all that great.

We still eat out some, but I prefer to eat at home for the most part.

[Gailete]

Did you try to google translate something here?



Quote:


Originally Posted by Faaastcash View Post

Well I would insist you to cut excess cost & whereby you should make every effort to divert your income into saving.

Off topic, I know, but I got a spam email this morning that gave me a giggle that I think was supposed to be a blurb about getting money, but this is one of the lines in it:

I sense as a teenage girl on a date with Justin-Bieber.

Obviously google or something translated.

One thing to spare worthless monthly bills is to never ever answer a spam email or send money to people that call you and say you have won a prize and you need to send them money, etc. People lose thousnads of dollars on these scams and apparently once you send them cash the first time, they bug you monthly if not weekly for more. If something sounds to good to be true, it probably is, and it isn't just little old ladies that get sucked in. One of the TV network reporter shows like 48 Hours showed that for one scam the ones most taken in are Doctors!