09.23.26 How To Shop Home Internet / College Savings Strategies

The Clark Howard Podcast

Clark Howard discusses strategies to avoid the 'inertia tax' when shopping for home internet and managing rising college costs. He highlight

Key takeaways

• Cable providers often implement significant price hikes once introductory periods for home internet expire.
• Wireless home internet from providers like T-Mobile or Mint Mobile can potentially reduce monthly bills by 50% or more.

Main topics

• Home Internet Shopping
• Credit Card Industry Mergers

Notable quotes

Are you still paying the 'inertia tax' on your and home internet?

Conclusion

The episode serves as a guide for proactive consumers to combat rising

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show, where our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. And today, something I haven't addressed in a long, long time. How do you shop for your home internet? Also, there's a way to save basically 25 % of the cost of college. And it's not a trick, but it's a treat for your wallet. I want to talk about that. I also want to talk about what's going on with student loans right now. Short story, you don't want to use them. Speaker 2 (0:49) I want to talk about home internet. Okay, history is repeating itself. And it's crazy. Creatures of habit are getting crushed right now. What do I mean by that? All right, let's go in the way back machine to the 1990s and the first years of the 2000s. Speaker 2 (1:19) People still had home phones, but year by year, more and more people were saying, you know what, I actually never use that thing, I just use the cell phone. And so gradually, steadily, the number of people using a home phone line kept shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. So what happened was the companies providing home phone service were gouging. the remaining customers. The people that were creatures of habit were being hit with higher and higher and higher and higher bills. And it was a stunner because people who didn't shop around for home phone service were paying outrageous prices by about 2010 forward. Well, now in a more compressed timeline, that's happening with home internet. And particularly with people who get Internet from the cable monster or their monopoly local phone company. So what they're doing is they'll lure you in with something like an introductory deal. It's good for six months, maybe even a year for your home Internet. And then when the six months or year is up, they raise the rates a lot and then they keep raising them. Could be even twice a year they push the rate up higher and higher and higher and higher because they know that now there's more competition for home internet. There is a segment of the market that lets inertia rule. And if you are that person, if I'm speaking to you right now, where you're just letting Comcast or Charter. or AT &T or Verizon or whoever it is that you have fiber from or you have high-speed internet from a monopoly cable company, whatever it is, the cable monster, know that the game they're playing is steadily pushing you to higher and higher and higher and higher price points. With the irony being at the same time, there's more and more choice. for home internet. There are what are called overwires. That's an inside baseball industry term where independents are coming in and wiring up neighborhoods with fiber to compete against the cable monster and the monopoly local phone company. And they come in with internet that is significantly cheaper than what you're paying to one of the two traditional monopolists. In addition, we've got more and more wireless Internet. Verizon that I just talked about a second ago with their fiber in areas they don't have fiber. They're offering wireless Internet, especially for Verizon subscribers. It's cheaper than what you're paying whoever you're getting it from now. And unless you're doing gaming, you should be fine with the speeds you get. with the wireless version of internet from them, T-Mobile, or discounters that are now offering wireless home internet. So what's the price differences we're talking about? Usually cutting your bill by half or more. For people who just want a good deal on internet and you don't need blazing fast speed because you're playing whatever the hottest game is. One of the people you should look at is Mint Mobile, M-I-N-T Mobile. It's fully owned by T-Mobile. A guy named Ryan Reynolds is one of the people who started it. He's an actor or singer. Actor. Actor. Anyway, see how clueless I am about who's who. Anyway, he's been pitching ads recently for various price points for wireless home internet. Now, you tried wireless home internet. years ago and it wasn't ready for prime time. It Speaker 1 (5:37) wasn't. And finally, you know, I'm moving and I'm looking at setting up my internet and right now I have fiber and that's not available at my new address. So I am looking at using one of these and it's going to cost me, it looks like around $50 a month. That Speaker 2 (5:54) much? You think that's too much? I don't know. I think you should. I'm going to shop around for 30, 35, 40, 45. I mean, there's no gaming going Speaker 1 (6:02) on, but I do stream. television like i stream streaming is fine streaming you'll Speaker 2 (6:07) be fine with the wireless version all right Speaker 1 (6:10) well i'm gonna be the guinea pig on this then and you know what we'll do after we're done with this you and i will look and you tell me which one i have to go with and i'll try it out seriously wait no no yeah and i'll try it i'm willing to try free Speaker 2 (6:25) labor out of me right now Speaker 1 (6:27) you love that you love making me save money You were just sending me furniture links from the wholesale clubs when I was looking for it. Yeah. Okay. You don't have to. That's fine. I just thought maybe I'd, you know, usually I'd take your advice and then I'd do what I want to do, but I'm willing to take your advice and just do it and try it. That's all I'm saying. Speaker 2 (6:47) Okay. All right. We'll see. But the thing is, a lot of us are getting billed for home internet, automatic bill. We're not getting a paper bill. They're automatically debiting it, usually from a checking account. When's the last time you looked to see what they're billing you now per month? You might really be motivated to shop based on looking at what you're actually paying per month now. Enough said. Speaker 1 (7:14) You ready for some questions? Ready. Okay. Luke in Virginia sent this one in. I recently took the step to cancel my T-Mobile plan, cell phone and home internet. And after the last price hike, I discovered Visible from quark.com and then went to them for my phone, which is $29 a month. And I found another option for home internet, together lowering my bill by $30 from T-Mobile. When I called T-Mobile to cancel and find out how to return my home internet router, I was told I would still have to pay the remainder of my bill for the month, even though I won't be using their service. I asked to speak to a supervisor and she wouldn't budge. So is this just another example of customer no service? Is there any option to not have to pay for the service that I won't be using? Thank you and keep up the great informative podcasts. All Speaker 2 (8:01) right. So thank you for that. And here's the thing. It's going to sound so cynical, but