09.23.26 How To Shop Home Internet / College Savings Strategies

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.

[electronic whirring] 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, uh, that's a 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 monopolies.

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, that'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.