Cost of living crisis

[dasnutnock3]

I’m also considering binning off broadband altogether when 5G mobile reaches my postcode. Seems little point in paying more for a physical line than a mobile one that offers similar performance.

[-DL-]

I pay £33 a month (through gritted teeth) for 200mb fibre broadband, and about £3 a month or so for NordVPN. There’s absolutely no TV, sports, movies or whatever that I can’t have with just those two things and a decent browser. Plus a TV license of course (and I’m giving some thought to binning it).

Yes, it’s less convenient perhaps and requires a crumb of tech savvy but paying £900 a year for telly? Not for me, Clive.

Is it really 900 sovs for telly though? For my 85 quid, I get all the sports and movies I want, (or rather, I get the sports, Mrs and child get the movies), Netflix is also included, a set-top box both upstairs and downstairs, 1gbps internet, one unlimited SIM for my boy who gets the hand-me-down handsets, plus me and the Mrs save a fiver a month on our mobiles each because the package includes 'volt' from Virgin Media/o2 and we have separate contracts for those. Not totally related, but we also get Disney+ free for a year with my phone contract too.

Ok, I don't need the 1gbps internet, but when the boy downloads a game on xBox or I upload 100s of images for a client, it has its benefits.

Perversely, if I was to downgrade my package, which is what I intended to do, it would be more expensive, for less stuff.

The one and only thing I really don't like about it, is having to have a landline.

I think with us, we'd need two of those stick thingys if we were to do what we do and me watch stuff upstairs, whilst the Doris watches downstairs?

[delbert]

Is streaming more 'cost effective' than Bit T these days?

Bit T with a large hard drive linked to the TV complements streaming in our gaff, it means you've got your favourite films to hand.......

[dasnutnock3]

Sure, I get that. And I’d love 1g internet but nobody offers it here. Given that you get other stuff bundled in too, doesn’t sound so bad. My wife and kid’s SIMs cost me something like £16 a month combined, which takes me to £52 a month on top of fibre & VPN, so I guess I’m not being quite as smart as I think I am. Might be time to review my family’s SIM plans now you mention it

As for multiple fire sticks, sure, you can do that. They’re dead cheap anyway and you’ll get the 4k one for £25 or so when Amazon run one of their periodic deals - 4k, Dolby Vision & Atmos support etc. I have a 2015 4k TV that runs android and it’s basically unusable without a firestick because the UI is so slow and clunky. But there’s no reason why you can’t use several at once in your home.

All this stuff appeals to my nature as a tinkerer and a tightwad, I’m always looking for ways to save a few bucks here and there because I like to. There’s something to be said for stretching every quid as far as it’ll go - I don’t mean necessarily going without, more about ticking all the important boxes without paying for extras you don’t want or need.

[dasnutnock3]

Is streaming more 'cost effective' than Bit T these days?

Ah sorry, thought you’d mistyped BT rather than referencing torrents. Not sure what you mean about cost effectiveness - not like you pay for streams or torrents

Torrents are still best if you’re interested in quality. Streams are always heavily compressed and won’t include HDR or multichannel audio.

I use a combination of both - for a high tech blockbuster I’ll look for the best torrents. For everything else, streams are fine.

[jastons]

Ah sorry, thought you’d mistyped BT rather than referencing torrents. Not sure what you mean about cost effectiveness - not like you pay for streams or torrents

No worries. I mentioned cost effective to try and keep on topic. I was all over torrents and piracy when I was a teenager but have drifted away from that. I don't even on a PC. Might be time to invest.

The only benefit I can see with Netflix and Disney + is that it just works. The wife and kids can use it with no issues whatsoever. One daughter lives away and she has access to our accounts. We do the same with my in laws Sky and BT Sport . I think Amazon Prime pays for itself (probably the streaming service we use least tbf) because of the 'free' delivery. Spotify is irreplaceable imo. 6 users for £16.99. Cheaper if you are a student. Student discount available for prime to.

[dasnutnock3]

No worries. I mentioned cost effective to try and keep on topic. I was all over torrents and piracy when I was a teenager but have drifted away from that. I don't even on a PC. Might be time to invest.

The only benefit I can see with Netflix and Disney + is that it just works. The wife and kids can use it with no issues whatsoever. One daughter lives away and she has access to our accounts. We do the same with my in laws Sky and BT Sport . I think Amazon Prime pays for itself (probably the streaming service we use least tbf) because of the 'free' delivery. Spotify is irreplaceable imo. 6 users for £16.99. Cheaper if you are a student. Student discount available for prime to.

Yeah, there's no substitute for paid-for services, at least in terms of quality & convenience, as well as usability. Fortunately, I've trained my family to use Kodi, which installs natively on my TVs and firesticks etc. so they're comfortable streaming movies off my video share. Internet & computer technology/security/privacy is my line of work, though, so I can understand it may not be for everyone.

Amazon Prime - I wouldn't pay for the TV service if it wasn't bundled with the free delivery package, and like most of us (I'd guess) I rarely bother with any of their content.

PC's are dead handy as media downloader/streamers, though. Don't need anything too powerful either - any old laptop from the past 10 years (with 8GB RAM at least) should be fine running win10, and then you've got the lot - browsers, torrent clients, file sharing. Even more handy if they've got HDMI out, so you can plug them into a TV and use them with a wireless keyboard & mouse. I have several hidden away round our home for various purposes, and the ones I don't need to physically access, I just connect to via a remote desktop tool such as TeamViewer or Terminal Services, depending on what I'm doing. Handy for being able to access them away from home, even using a client on your phone can be useful if you need to access something in an emergency.

They're also brilliant for old skool video gaming, with plenty of perfectly usable tools like RetroArch for playing old arcade games & console games up to the 32-bit era. Emulation's a bit of an interest of mine, and they've come a LONG way in the last 25 years or so.

[jastons]

Have you ever played around with the Yuzu switch emulator? A guy at work was singing its praises.

[wolf359]

Plex server (though I wish they’d stop adding unnecessary stuff to it) running on a second gen intel (2500k) with 4Gb of RAM (Linux -Ubuntu) . Will output to my Tv the latest and greatest 4K HDR with Dolby Atoms (just don’t ask it to do 4K transcoded subtitles - easily ripped out and then use .set service in the Plex tv client. )

Only real cost is for me the 8TB (2*4) raid 1 arrays

[mumbles87]

No worries. I mentioned cost effective to try and keep on topic. I was all over torrents and piracy when I was a teenager but have drifted away from that. I don't even on a PC. Might be time to invest.

The only benefit I can see with Netflix and Disney + is that it just works. The wife and kids can use it with no issues whatsoever. One daughter lives away and she has access to our accounts. We do the same with my in laws Sky and BT Sport . I think Amazon Prime pays for itself (probably the streaming service we use least tbf) because of the 'free' delivery. Spotify is irreplaceable imo. 6 users for £16.99. Cheaper if you are a student. Student discount available for prime to.

My wife always asks what I want for my bday, I always come up with something rubbish that I don't need or would buy anyways

Year Disney launched I said get me that lol she has ever since

Happy days .. sorts the kids out if it buys me 5 mins peace a day it's worth a million pounds.

[dasnutnock3]

Plex server (though I wish they’d stop adding unnecessary stuff to it) running on a second gen intel (2500k) with 4Gb of RAM (Linux -Ubuntu) . Will output to my Tv the latest and greatest 4K HDR with Dolby Atoms (just don’t ask it to do 4K transcoded subtitles - easily ripped out and then use .set service in the Plex tv client. )

Only real cost is for me the 8TB (2*4) raid 1 arrays

I never quite got on with Plex, for some reason, dunno why. Kodi seemed like the more comprehensive app, with more room to adjust & configure (at least, when I started taking an interest years ago). And yes, Linux is a great alternative to Windows, but if you're not tech savvy, Win10 is probably the most user-friendly OS available to run on older hardware. I "liberated" a 10TB USB HDD from work a while back, and have it plugged into my main general-purpose workstation I use for downloading & streaming.

[dasnutnock3]

Have you ever played around with the Yuzu switch emulator? A guy at work was singing its praises.

I haven't but will give it a try. I've got my kid's old Nintendo 2DS XL cracked with custom firmware, running downloaded games, that's great fun. Only problem with Switch EMUs is not having any controllers - don't they have accelerometers built into them?

[jastons]

I don't know if something like this would work with a PC?

Switch Pro Controller for Switch/Switch Lite, Wireless Motion Remote Pro Controller Gamepad Joystick with Dual Shock and Gyro Axis (Black) https://amzn.eu/d/9CaffoD

[wolf359]

I never quite got on with Plex, for some reason, dunno why. Kodi seemed like the more comprehensive app, with more room to adjust & configure (at least, when I started taking an interest years ago). And yes, Linux is a great alternative to Windows, but if you're not tech savvy,

Used Plex for years (when it was just a local media streaming platform, it is annoyingly trying to be more than that now) . I used windows on it for years, but as the times passed 4Gb on a 2500K became impossible so moved on to Ubuntu Server (CLI only) which has no issues at all on a 10+ year old machine. But as you say it is not for everyone (though it can be the guilds are out there.) . I need to look at replacing my HDDs they are 5 years old (4 WD 4TB Reds and at least one them is starting to makes the 'clicks of death')

To be honest on 500MB Virgin the time taken to require content if lost to a drive failure is so small (and half the things I keep I don't need to) that I might just ditch the RAID1

[dasnutnock3]

I don't know if something like this would work with a PC?

Switch Pro Controller for Switch/Switch Lite, Wireless Motion Remote Pro Controller Gamepad Joystick with Dual Shock and Gyro Axis (Black) https://amzn.eu/d/9CaffoD

Interesting - will do a bit of research on that

[EvilC]

I am looking on my screen at what I believe to be the interest curve for 5 years that I think is what the banks use to borrow against for five year mortgages (so they need to add a margin on top of this). On the 1st of Jan this was approximately 1.1%. At the end of August, it was 3.4%. It is now 4.1%.

So if your fixed rate is about to finish, then I suggest assuming the position, as you are likely to be about to feel a moment's discomfort.

[chelmsfordhammer91]

I wouldn't be surprised to see 5%+ next year. However, sticking my neck out here, I reckon 4% ish will be in place but for longer.

I got on a 10 year fix back in July, but looking today the same 'offers' are about 1.5% higher already.

In real terms, that's about £100+ a month on an average sized mortgage.

[EvilC]

I paid thousands to exit my fixed rate earlier in the summer to take advantage of a five year fix at 1.79%. I wasn't entirely sure it was the right decision at the time. Now I am pretty sure it is.

[sendô]

Yeah I signed up to a 5 year fixed at I think that same rate under 2 years ago and it's the best thing I did. Absolute no brainer, the 2 year fix at the time was barely any cheaper.

[dasnutnock3]

Santander traditionally allowed you to agree a new fix 6 months before your existing one ended. When rates were going down. F***ers made me wait until I was 4 months away from my fix ending this time, which meant rates went up another .5% or so before I could get a new fix (3.14% for 7 years). C***s.