£60 a month on tv, phone and Internet

[zookeeper]

It seems a lot to me. I've just phoned virgin media to see if it can be reduced but the lowest I was offered was49.74 a month for six months going up to 54.74 a month therafter.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't use my landline that much or watch that much tv for that matter!

Do you need pay tv? A phone/broadband only package is much cheaper and much more competition.

I think you can get broadband only packages - be aware that if you lose the landline, many people won't be able to afford to phone you as not everyone has limitless mobile minutes (of course this may be good news for you!)

if you want to watch any live TV on any device, you need to pay £12 a month for the licence. Pay £100 for a recorder box and that solves the 'all the good stuff on at 9pm' problem.

that should cut the bill.

Are you getting value for money by watching the channels you have, such as sports, movies. If you only watch channels which you can get via freeview, then cancelling virgin may be something to consider.

Look into what other providers provide in your area, such as FTTC Broadband (fibre), as with Virgin you get very fast broadband via their cable network, so to get something similar you will need fibre from openreach to be in your area.

You need a BT landline for many broadband services, but you can pay for that via your broadband provider by local unbundling of services. So one company like plusnet could supply broadband and phone using your current BT line and you could pay line rental yearly to save a bit of money.

Problem though is that you may not have a BT line, as virgin may have provided the phone line - so you need to figure out what you have.

Thank you everyone; plenty to think about..

I think I'mbeing a bit thick; if I cancel virgin media tv does freeview just appear automatically? I could easily live with free view and then try to gt some landline/ broadband package? Does that sound right?

Freesat or freeview and plus net - definitely the cheapest option.

We don't miss sky at all.

Do you have a satellite dish/decent ariel OP. If so then all you need is a dirt cheap digibox (30 quid) or 150 quid worth of PVR if you want it to record as well.

Well I get all 3 (Broadband, TV, and phoneline with inclusive calls) from Virgin Media and pay around £36 - £37 a month including all calls. Have you got a particularly fancy TV package or something ?

freeview is what we used to call 'telly'. All you need is an aerial and a digital TV, because the analogue signal is switched off now.

Our Virgin TV, BB & phone was a similar price to Zookeepers. We Phoned Virgin to see how we could reduce our bill but wasn't happy with their offer so put them on notice to cancel. Waited a few days & Virgin called back to ask why we were cancelling. Cut a long story short, we managed to negotiate BB & free w/end calls, £128 up front & £2.50 per month for 12 months. We've have a digital aerial so happy to watch Freeview & have bought a Freeview plus box so we can pause, rewind & record live TV.

PS - before we cancelled we looked at lots of other phone & BB deals on line & we were prepared to leave Virgin!

Good luck.

To be honest I think this is probably a fair price. I was looking into this (Virgin Media customer) and didn't get very far with haggling. I was really cross as I received a mail shot at home 'Dear householder' which was a similar package to the one we have and the same cost as BackforGood for new customers at 36/37 per month for the first 6 months. I presented this information to Virgin and they offered me 10% off as a loyalty discount for 6 months. I am a bit nervous about threatening to leave as we only have a Virgin line into the house (but they won't know this) so can't take advantage of any BT supported services. Also we like our channels (only the 'M') one (not Skysports), want a terrestrial line (have elderly relatives) and mobile phones have rubbish reception in the house. A phone engineer who came to our house recently suggested that we go into a Virgin shop and see what they can offer.

Have you spoke to anyone in retentions at VM? They have targets to meet so keep pushing them for further discounts

I would snap someone's hand off for a bill like that from Sky...£95 a month for us!! Sky HD box in living room, box in play room as multi room, phone line rental, call package (£5 a month which seems like a drip compared to the other £90), broadband, Tv package including Sky sports.
Believe me, it's been a source of 'many' a aggrevated conversation in our house..i'd have a freeview box & that's it

From memory i think the TV package is £65..makes my eye's melt when i see it!!

We had the same with virgin - we spoke to them and have had our tv reduced to the minimum (though we were only on the next one up anyway) and it has brought our bill down to £29 (though our calls are only free weekends)

Talk Talk - 28.50/month. Includes unlimited broadband, anytime calls and Youview box (got mine for free) where you have basic f/v channels, 7 day catch up and all the players (bbc i player etc)

Very happy :-)