Michael Kelly does without . . . Sky Sports
A big part of downsizing, to cope with reduced earnings, is to look at your outgoings and root out unnecessary spending. I've often wondered about the wisdom of spending €55 a month on my TV subscription when I have such a lousy relationship with TV in general.
At Lent I gave up telly for 12 weeks - and was the happier for it. But since then I have lapsed back into my old ways. Sitting there watching Friends reruns, cursing the fact that there's nothing on and wondering why I bother.
I was giving out a while ago about the cost of Sky - €660 a year - and my mother, who lives down the road, was telling me she gets her TV feed from a local who charges €90 a year. For that she gets the Irish channels and most of the UK ones. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Mrs Kelly and I kept an eye on our viewing habits for the next few months and came to a shocking realisation: we spend 90 per cent of our time watching the same three or four channels, even though we have access to hundreds. And the three or four we watch are mostly the ones my mother gets for a pittance. Hardly seems like good value.
The reason my TV bill is relatively high is that I have Sky Sports. And, to be honest, I don't watch all that much of it. My limited interest in the Premiership died a few years ago, so the only thing I really watch now is golf.
Sky's golf coverage is impressive; pretty much every weekend it covers the European and US tours. And I feel somewhat loyal, given that I shook hands with Ewen Murray, one of its commentators, at the Ryder Cup. But the number of ad breaks kills me. Late on a Sunday, watching the closing holes in some US event, you might have three breaks while the final pairing head down the 18th.
Fortuitously, on Monday morning I got a flyer from Sky - its database must see me as two people, a customer and a target customer - and I suddenly realised I could have nearly all the channels I currently watch for €21.50 a month.
A quick call to customer services and, a few moments later, I was up €34 a month. I've had the odd pang of regret since - when Padraig Harrington won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, for example, and I learned about it on the news - but nothing too severe. Now when I turn over to Sky Sports I am greeted by a message on a blue screen: "To upgrade to Sky Sports call . . ." Sorry, Ewen.