Many Ways to Plug In to Tech Savings

It’s a new year, all right, but economically, it still feels a lot like the old one. Seems that everywhere you look, things are being downsized: companies, paychecks, parties, trade shows and on and on. People aren’t just tightening their belts; they’re punching new holes in them.

Writing about tech at times like these is, therefore, sort of a strange job. It entails reviewing products that are often expensive and definitely elective. At first glance, it would seem that spending on electronics would be one easy place to cut back.

But technology giveth, and technology taketh away. You might think of high-tech gadgetry as something that drains your bank account — but it can save you money, too. A lot of it.

Herewith: a few suggestions for using tech to save money. These aren’t new ideas; the press has covered all of these technologies before. But when every $100 counts, it’s worth dusting them off for another look. (The savings estimates below are typical, but of course your mileage may vary; it all depends on what services you’re paying for now.)

CUT THE TV CORD, PART 1 Plenty of 20-somethings and college-somethings are doing this already: they’re canceling their cable or satellite TV service. (You can always have service reinstated once your finances recover.) Instead, they watch TV over the Internet.

At CBS.com, ABC.com, NBC.com and the various cable networks’ Web sites, you can watch regular, up-to-date TV shows, on demand, completely free, with excellent video quality and only a couple of 15-second ads an episode.

For example, the major networks offer the four most recent episodes of 20 or 40 popular shows: “Lost,” “The Office,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Heroes,” “30 Rock,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “CSI: Wherever,” “Survivor,” “The Bachelor,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Ugly Betty” and on and on.

Or visit Hulu.com, where thousands more episodes are gathered into a simple, easy-to-use virtual TV, including episodes from series of years gone by.

The sacrifice: You have to watch TV on your computer screen (unless you hook up your PC to your TV, which is not simple). Some shows still aren’t available except from illegal downloads. And, of course, you need high-speed Internet (a running theme in this column). The savings: $500 to $1,200 a year.

CANCEL YOUR MOVIE CHANNELS Can’t bear to cut all your cable service? An HBO/Showtime package is probably adding about $20 a month to your cable bill. If you’re in it for the dramatic series and boxing matches or whatever, great. But if you’re in it for the movies, you can do much better.

Consider Netflix’s irresistible deal: for $9 a month, you can watch unlimited, on-demand movies, brought to you by the Internet, from an ever-growing library that already has 12,000 films.

You can watch on your Mac or PC, of course. But the Netflix on-demand movie software now comes built right into equipment that’s already connected to your TV: TiVo, Xbox 360, the $100 Roku Netflix box and certain Blu-ray disc players from LG or Samsung. More are coming.

You’ve probably never before experienced unlimited, on-demand movies; it’s a heady treat. (That same $9 a month also lets you check out one Netflix DVD at a time, by mail. That’s good, because the on-demand movies aren’t very recent.)

The sacrifice: You’re also losing the nonmovie stuff on HBO, the dramatic series and so on; then again, why not get those on Netflix DVDs? The savings: $132 a year.

CUT THE TV CORD, PART 2 TV over the Internet generally looks great, but isn’t in high definition. So why not get yourself a hi-def antenna for your roof or even your bookshelf — and enjoy free over-the-air hi-def TV forever?

The sacrifice: Some technical setup. Fewer channels. The savings: $500 to $1,200 a year.

CONTINUED : What your phone(s) cost

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