Monday, November 21, 2005

How to Tame an Inflated Entertainment Budget



The NY Times has a interesting article by Damon Darlin: How to Tame an Inflated Entertainment Budget

You probably spend more on entertainment than you do on groceries, clothing or gasoline.

If you don't believe it, take a few minutes to total your monthly costs, starting with the services that have you locked in: basic cable television, and any premium channels, like HBO or Showtime; Netflix to rent videos; TiVo for digital recording; your high-speed Internet connection; and perhaps, satellite radio and streaming music like Yahoo Music. You are already up to about $200 a month, or $2,400 a year.

Don't forget your iTunes music and video downloads, plus magazines, movie rentals, movie tickets, live shows and sporting events.

Add in your cellphone and any of its video, data and premium content.

The average American spends more on entertainment than on gasoline, household furnishings and clothing and nearly the same amount as spent on dining out, according to the Bureau of LaborStatistics.



With Cingular, Comcast, DirectTV, TIVO, Napster I'm already at $220.00 (and I've already dropped Napster at $17.99). It is true that for every penny uptick in gasoline, it comes out of the entertainment budget. And if one makes $6 to $10 an hour thats 36 to 22 hours just to satisfy an entertainment budget. I can't fathom ever paying .99 cents for a ringtone or $2.49 for a downloaded song on my phone. Predators hockey and Titans football would be hard to squeeze in the ole entertainment budget!

Read more: here

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