Today, I Halved My Sky Bill!

Yes, that's right, today I halved my Sky bill. Ok so I took part of it off last week, but I knocked it off just the same.

As part of my personal spring financial detox, I have been looking to see how I can reduce outgoings. Looking at my Sky package, I realised that I was paying around £55-57 per month, for the Sky+ HD package with basic channels and movie channels, my line rental, free evening and weekend calls, and unlimited broadband. 

Sky Movies add-on costs my about £16 a month, so I made enquiries about an alternative. My fiance recommended LoveFilm, because you can get DVDs, or you can stream from the website. He pays £15 a month and when he moves in we will share the DVD list and until he does live with me, I can use his account to stream. I also looked into Netflix. They offer a 30 day free trial and are only £6 a month thereafter, so around a month ago I decided to have a go. They have a lot of TV series, and quite a library of movies too, and since I have 9 weeks between leaving work and Bump making an appearance, I judged that there will be enough there to satisfy me and I signed up.

My first call to Sky took off my £16, so after taking out Netflix I would be saving £10 a month, with my Sky package costing me £39.50 per month. I wasn't entirely satisfied though. With the basic Sky package, I don't really have much more than FreeSat, and so after doing a bit of research, I found I can get a FreeSat box for £32, OR enable my Sky box to be FreeSat instead, for free, and I can keep the recording function for £10 (undercutting a FreeSat box by £22). I'd make my money back on that in no time at all!

So I called Sky back, and asked to go through to the 'thinking of leaving' helpdesk. As you may know, when you try and leave something like this, they always come back with a better offer. If I abandoned the TV package, the line rental/broadband would cost £22.25 a month....or I can have my existing package deal for only £24.50 for 9 months!

So now I will be paying just £24.50 for exactly the same as I was to be paying £39.50 for! And I'm not tied into any contract, so I can cancel at any time. Add on my £6 Netflix fee and its still almost half what I was paying 

I'll just get my FreeSat box when the special offer runs out in Feb.... :)