Need to bring Sky bill down!

Abbafan1972

Hi, I'm sure there have been umpteen threads about this, but our last Sky bill for the month was £110. Whilst I'm happy to keep Sky, I want to get the bill down.

We have 2 Sky HD boxes. Hubby wants to keep the 2nd box and TV, because the kids watch their programmes or play on the Wii etc and hubby can still watch his programmes.

We have the sports and movies. Hubby said we can cancel the sports when the football season finishes (when is that?). When I first mentioned it to him about getting the price down, the only solution he came up with was "cancel the broadband".

Here is a screenshot of my bill. I can't phone Sky myself as the account is in his name (otherwise I would).

ladyinneed

hi,

I have been through a similar thing myself not so long ago and it is hard to get used to but the first thing I would do is get rid of ESPN, £9 a month for just a couple of hours of viewing amonth!

I would try and pursuade the OH to get rid of the other box...that's £20 a month, if you have the +option on the box your keeping they are going to have to learn to take turns. Not meaning to sound rude but OH is watching something the kids are going to have to learn to wait.

Do you need to keep the phone for any of the other offers? it looks like you paid £7.50 line rental to make two calls otherwise. (I'm not sure if you need to keep it though for the other stuff).

I don't think getting rid of the sky sports will help much as that will only save you £2 a month if you're going to keep the movies so I'd be inclined to let him keep that.

Hope this helps, Are you tied in to a min term contract? I know virgin doesn't seem so good when you're used to sky but if you want to keep the extras it might be worth a quite comparison.

Good luck x

BRSurvivor

Are you watching HD channels on both TVs? I'd cancel the HD sub for the kids TV - you don't need to have HD just because you have a HD box. Save £10.25.

Cancelling sports will save you £11.50 and cancelling ESPN will save you £9 a month.

You could cancel the multiroom subscription and just let the kids operate the second box as a Freesat type box, this would give them access to CBBC, CBeebies, probably CITV, but not Nickleodeon or Disney etc. Save £10.25.

You could also reduce the broadband to the lite level, but I think I read Sky are starting to charge if you go over the monthly limit. Potential saving of £7.50.

You could also cancel HD on the main box, if you don't really watch the HD channels. Nearly all the HD channels just simulcast the standard channels so you won't miss out on programmes. Saving £10.25

Do all those, and I make it £58.75 saving.

The football season finishes June, but starts again in August - presumably, hubby would want sports back then...

BTW, you don't need Sky so the kids can play Wii on another TV - or do you mean Hubby watches the second box?

sezzlebum

I'm trying to do the same at the moment, our bills were averaging 120-135 per month

OH wouldnt let me cancel sky sports but i put my foot down now, i cancelled:
movies (we never watched them)
sky sports package (he only watched wwe !!!!!!)

i am trying to cancel the knowledge pack but when OH called yesterday and asked to cancel movies and knowledge she said it was done (he tried being sneaky about sports lol) however i rang back later and cancelled sports but they said knowledge wasnt cancelled and they couldnt cancel it until next month, then started banging on about it being just a pound a month, i told them considering we didnt know we had it until i came accross the ace of cakes last week then i can live without it and the pound is better off in my pocket, so i have to ring next month to cancel that.

I also want to cancel HD, i cant tell the difference tbh and i never use the channels, OH does occasionally so i wanted it removing but they said no as we had 5 months left on the contract for that anyone know anyway to get rid of it?

We have the full broadband but OH plays his xbox live a lot so it has saved us money as when we only had the £5 package he was always going over and we were getting mass charges for it.

I think in your case i would drop the extra HD subscription, kids dont notice the difference anyway lol, as others said get rid of espn too
Ask your OH to set a password on the account, that way you can phone and just give the password then you can deal with the account yourself,

If you want to drop the HD, when you tell them you want to cancel it for whatever reason, they may offer you a deal on it, i rang 10 mins ago and they asked if i wanted it half price... i said no i just wanted to leave, if i had of known we had another 5 months left i would have said yes lol, i shall ring later and speak to someone else (evil chuckle) but if your still under contract this could be an option to get it a little bit cheaper

mackemdave

Ring them up and tell then youve been hit hard by the recession and you are looking at ways to cut your bill......They will sort something out for you....Ive never paid full wack now for about 18mths

HappyMJ

Do you watch many movies? I find watching them on normal channels or on the internet is enough. If I want to watch a current movie I'll rent it or go to the cinema.

Abbafan1972

Hi all. Just thought I would post back and update you.

DH rang Sky this morning and it's a good job the call is free, as he was on there for about half an hour!

We have cancelled the HD on the second box and also got rid of ESPN. I think we've got a discount on the rest of the bill too.

As you have to give 30 days notice to delete things :eek: (we didn't know this) and as we pay in advance, there will be a credit on our account, so our bill which goes out on 5th May will be about £90 and then from June's bill it will be about £70, so that is a lot better.

There isn't any point in us getting rid of the sky talk, as we would still have to pay the line rental to BT and then our Sky broadband would go up to full price of £12.50 instead of the £7.50 we are paying now.

I wouldn't want to downgrade the broadband as our main sky box has that Sky anytime+ and we do download stuff to watch, which would mean we'd probably go over our limit and incur charges.