Like Carrie‘s partner Lloyd, my boyfriend has a love affair with shiny, expensive flat screen TVs. I’m of the opinion that as long as it picks up more than two channels and doesn’t crackle excessively, I’ll have it! Luckily, we do have a flatscreen (keeps him happy) and we got it for free (keeps me happy). 
How, you might ask? Comes with having a handyman around – and a sneaky one, at that. Someone he knew had the TV sitting around, with the display not working. He had a quick look, determined that a fuse (?) was to blame, and offered to take it off their hands for $15. Which they never ended up asking for.
A bit underhanded? I don’t think so. If it had been a friend, yes, but this wasn’t a friend by any means. I’d chalk it down to business, pure and simple.
Of course, that’s never the end of it. I refused to get pay TV at the old place. One, because it’s a waste of money IMO. I would have been paying for him to have it, essentially, and I wouldn’t have got any benefit from it. And two, I wasn’t going to be signing up for a 12 month contract! (Incidentally, the heinous flatmate eventually got Sky in his room, and they all congregated in there every Sunday to watch wrestling, and on the odd Monday for pay-per-views.)
Now we have cable at our new place and I never watch it). Now that he has a job T pays his share out of his own money, but now they want to get MySky (a little bit like Tivo I think). I’m like, seriously? What a friggin waste of money! It’s installation PLUS a monthly fee, and for what? Recording two thinigs at once? Pausing programmes?
Honestly, I’m the only one in the house who has a fulltime schedule; everyone else spends most of the week sitting at home on their asses. And they all like the same things, so tend to watch the same shows – ones about cars, cops, and wrestling. They have no need for something like MySky. But they’re all super keen to fritter away their cash on crap like that just because there’s a “discounted” installation, or because T’s sister (a stay at home mum) gushes on about how much they use MySky now and how great it is. Yet she was perfectly happy before MySky came along. It’s one of those things companies convince you that you need and rip you off for. – things you “never knew you needed”.
I guess if they do end up getting MySky, and it’s only a few extra dollars a week/month, I’ll bite my tongue. But I’ll still resent it…
Ooooo you should speak up and not have to pay! I once had an (assigned by my internship) roommate that siad something like “I don’t want cable or internet at home, I just use it at the library.” I ended up getting internet and paying it by myself. And said that she could use it, if she wanted.
I don’t think she did.
(But on the other hand, we weren’t good roommies — i mean, she owned a sword and was part of a medieval group that did some sort of role playing with it — and we don’t keep in touch. So maybe my advice is not good.)
I don’t pay for TV, but BF does. Which is okay… to a certain extent! He makes barely anything from his PT job which he just started. Of course he’s entitled to spend a little on things he wants (like Sky TV) but seeing as I’m mainly supporting us, I think the majority of his $ should go towards contributing to food/bills and reducing his debt. Ya know? For instance, they’re booking a pay-per-view tomorrow, so his share is going to be like $30 this month (including our one-off installation fee).
It’s hard to divide bills fairly when people don’t use things equally. I never use the landline, but need to have it to get internet. One of the flatmates doesn’t use either. Two of them SOMETIMES use the internet, so I’m thinking they can pay half of what their equal share should be, or something along those lines.
Haha, I’ve heard of a few people who do medieval role-play – always sounded so odd to me! But to each their own.
Ah, roommate wars. I’m of the mind that I’ll help pay my equal share for everything, even if I don’t use it–there’s stuff that I want that they don’t use, too, so it kinda works out.
As an aside, I had a DVR in the States and I LOVED IT. It actually kept me from watching a lot of mindless crappy TV; instead I only watched shows that I was actually interested in. It was worth every single penny to me (then again, my cable + internet bill was only ~$62 total, and I shared it with 2 roommates, making it ~$21/mo. NO bandwidth cap in the US, either!!
You’ve pretty much combined finances with the BF, so it’s good that you’re getting exposed to his wants/needs early on! I’ve always been too afraid to 100% combine $$ with BF’s–in the past we always split everything equally. I remember you saying that he supported you for a while back in the day–did you want a service (internet?) that he didn’t want, but he paid for? Hopefully it breaks even. 🙂
@ Sense haha, true, yes! I do need the internet, where it’s more of a bonus for him. He does use it now for class work, but apart from that, it’s mainly just watching crap on YouTube. I have to say I really don’t like how internet/Sky lock you into a contract though!
Being able to only watch shows i WANT to watch sounds great, actually. Although shows like Mad Men aren’t currently on here, so I have to try and watch them online. Which reminds me, I have two weeks worth of Outrageous Fortune to catch up on…
Imagine no bandwidth cap – bliss!