Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Here is the updated info about SKY ESSENTIALS and NOW TV:
I was able to switch to the ESSENTIALS non-Sky channels service for 10 pounds a month instead of 15 pounds a month and agreed to that starting today and thus losing all Sky recordings on the Sky+ HD Planner set-top box. The ESSENTIALS contract is set for 24-months unless upgrading and returning to Sky.
***
This 5 pounds a month discount is set for the first 12 months as confirmed by email. I can apply again in February 2026 to get that discount continued from that time on.
***Even so, I’m not paying 40 pounds a month for those 24 months and that’s a so-called saving of over 700 pounds from today.
If I try the NOW TV service for Sky Entertainment, then I get something that way, even if paying about 12 pounds a month. With discount deals the NOW TV service accounts that I have may reduce the costs even more. So even if 10 pounds a month on average I still get to save about 450 pounds to 500 pounds instead of 720 pounds.
***
The current NOW TV offer is for 6 months at 5.99 pounds a month then it ends and continues at 9.99 pounds a month unless cancelled so that offers us a 24 pounds saving straight away. Even so, other offers may apply if we sign in and check for these before getting that 6 months deal using any registered account we’ve set up already.
***
By the way, there is a font called Hello Sky that I downloaded and installed and it looks a bit like it could be useful as a dyslexic style font for those with reading difficulties.
If pensioners and disabled people live alone they must pay utility bills and their standing charges and 5% VAT as well. The updated news of the April 2025 Price Cap increase of 6% to 7% meant that the cheaper tariff deals got withdrawn and replaced with more expensive tariffs.
Virgin Media may charge for Broadband alone or include the phone line rental. Some will get huge discounts and some won’t.
Even if we save with other companies and their discounts, we should still be prepared to switch and save from bank to bank or pay services to reduced services just to save money. We can check different services to act as alternative ways to save. So Google search will lead to news and reviews and ways to save.
SKY FEB/MARCH/APRIL 2025 UPDATES
Upon receiving an increase charge on my Sky services, I lost the £9 discount for HD quality service and the bill increased to almost £40 this month. So I phoned Sky about getting an updated deal if possible. The Free 0800 151 2747 number worked OK.
03442 414 141
0800 151 2747I wasn’t impressed to learn that from April 2025 the basic Sky service will increase by £4 a month. I got very little extra discount offered and that gets wiped out when the April increase starts. The other discounts I get will soon go as well.
I was able to switch to the ESSENTIALS non-Sky channels service for £10 a month instead of £15 a month and agreed to that starting today and thus losing all Sky recordings on the Sky+ HD Planner set-top box. The ESSENTIALS contract was for 24-months. Even so, I’m not paying £40 a month for those 24 months and that’s a so-called saving of over £700 from today.
If I try the NOW TV service for Sky Entertainment, then I get something that way, even if paying about £12 a month. With discount deals the NOW TV service accounts that I have may reduce the costs even more. So even if £10 a month on average I still get to save about £450 to £500 instead of £720.
Sky ESSENTIALS lets me record the free-to-air TV channels to my Sky+ HD set-top box. If I were to put that box into another room upstairs or downstairs then any non-Sky recordings would still work. I couldn’t transfer the Sky card to a different set-top box and still keep the other box’s recordings intact, as far as I know. So I’d move the Sky+ HD box to make sure of keeping what I’d recorded safe.
http://www.sky.com
http://www.nowtv.comThe present setup means that I will still see my account details on my Sky+ box as well as on the Sky website. I tested Sky’s website on different web browsers and found I could get better access on the Supermium web browser I installed recently. That’s how I could sign in and see the products and their current prices and discounts.
The thing is, some customers live alone and could be paying the discount prices until these get changed in April. An increase from £36 to £40 for the basic Sky channels and timeshift and downloads and HD as well is a lot of money and may not be wise to continue if inflation gets added and Sky require over 10% more from April 2025.
As for Sky’s August Cyber Sale offers, I’m regarded as a non-Sky customer and may qualify for whatever deal helps in the future. I would then be switched and the non-Sky TV channels would either remain intact or get wiped off the Sky+ HD set-top box as a new Sky contract starts. If not saving a really significant way then then Sky deals at that time wouldn’t make sense. Especially after that £4 a month increase from April 2025.
If not wanting the Sky ESSENTIALS deal I’d be using various Freeview set-top boxes such as the Netgem Netbox 4K version easily bought from eBay sellers which offers over 100 EXTRA TV channels which we can’t record to the inserted 32GB USB drives inserted into this set-top box… It’s an alternative when we consider these drives sell for about £4 each and can record about 20 hours of Freeview channels on the 28GB storage of these 32GB drives. Some 4K TVs may work with external USB hard drives if the specifications info states that…
My Sky+ HD has a 2TB storage for hundreds of hours of storage and these boxes are sold on eBay, too. Plus the extra feature of having a SCART output as well as the HDMI viewing cable for the 4K TVs. Even without Sky ESSENTIALS I would still be able to use a DVD Recorder to record the LIVE TV films and TV shows. So there are several options nowadays.
http://www.youtube.com for ways to switch off pay services eg CUT THE CORD is the search phrase for Sky or other streaming services and live recordings or Sky downloads.
http://www.justwatch.com is a way to find out various services to watch certain films or TV shows and the various apps that offer some of these free. All these will bring into question the BBC and its TV Licence requirements for watching LIVE TV films or TV shows and especially for the BBC TV channels and the BBC iPlayer content.
February 2025 VPN services
https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-vpn-for-firestick
This article reviews the ways that VPN services are serving the customers for the Amazon Firesticks and their various models and their Android operating system or the new versions.
The Consumer Electronics section has been updating us with the on-going Amazon updates whether restrictive or not. Many of the Internet gurus and reviews include VPN discount deals which may still be active. The thing is, there are basic free VPN services and there are comprehensive versions that cost money. The gurus get their commissions but which VPN is right for us or just for others and not us?
Each VPN is assessed and a top VPN is recommended but we still gain useful info for the rest.
If accessing American content from reliable free or pay websites then we may appreciate paying for a VPN service. However, some websites will later spread the content to the UK later.
Google results sometimes reveal that VPNs can’t protect us against all problems so who knows what to do for the best on our computers whether Windows 7 or Windows 11 or 32-bit or 64-bit systems.
Some web browsers include a free VPN so they are worth checking, too.
Save time and money using different web browsers?
Some websites will show an image as part of a selection of results. We may click the image to get a zoom-in view. At times, the click action or double-click action may not zoom-in but got to the next html web page and its image. So this is a different slideshow option to test as it speeds up the displays for us.
Some Android web browser apps such as Google Chrome let us click and hold on an image to see the menu that includes save image. This action may lead to an automatic save and speeds things up that way just as long as the screen message confirms image SAVED or image COMPLETED.
With some web browsers, the Android options may help us redirect saved files to the external sdcard or sda1 USB drive, other the files get saved on the set-top boxes internal drive until we move these to external devices.
When we search for specific phrases the search engines such as Google have a top right-hand side TOOLS link option to search all or to switch the option to VERBATIM. If we use that option we get different results that could provide better ways to search from then on so keep VERBATIM in mind as a double-check for results as well as images and videos and shopping results, too.
http://www.google.com
http://www.google.co.uk
http://www.search-here.netPensioners and disabled people are getting so-called increases in April 2025 but when we consider the utility bills getting increased by about 6% to 7% the sums just keep up with these bills alone and the Government is still charging 5% VAT and not allowing some claimants the Winter Fuel Allowance at all. So it’s no wonder that we face the Winter of discontent, so to speak.
I hardly use any gas cooking or heating at all yet I’m still being compelled to pay for the daily standing charge which is about £9 a month. Maybe standing charges will be abolished in the rest of this decade, maybe not.
On another topic, the reports tell us about the mould-infested homes here in the UK. My Amcor heater/dehumidifier helps to reduce this problem which gets worse in January and February when the freezing temperatures increase water condensation on the windows and walls.
Many people are thankful they can save on some household bills yet won’t spend about £150 to £250 for dehumidifiers. So it helps to adjust our thinking to the prevention of diseases for the young and the old each Winter.
When we get discount deals, these are useless if we don’t get extended warranty coverage, too. So check these as they may appear as extra orders when we reach the checkout stages.
A lot of eBay buyers don’t really appreciate that some sellers take about 30 minutes to create a thoroughly protected parcel for fragile items. Add on the packaging as well and the delivery to a Post Office and maybe the costs increase even more than that £5 delivery charge. So take these factors into consideration even when haggling for a make an offer purchase…
When the minimum wage increases and we apply that to packing and packaging costs we may still get some eBay sellers offering us a reduced price for combined orders or no postage cost as a separate cost.
Discounts apply for these no postage costs items which include the discount for the postage if included in the price itself…
While it’s the Winter season and we’re considering tariffs before the prices increase yet again, some tariffs have been withdrawn and replaced with increased prices so we can’t expect many blessings that way.
How much do solar panels cost?
Solar panels for the average three-bedroom house will cost £7,026, but this will vary depending on the system you need and how many panels you want.
home, but what are the factors to consider when choosing which to install?How much do double-glazed windows cost?
Double-glazing costs upwards of £10,000-£15,000 for the average home, but are the savings worth it?
Over 20 years ago, the house got double glazing throughout and it cost a total of £6,500. So while other prices have gone up more than double over the 20 years the cost of double glazing doesn’t seem that bad at all. Nowadays, we’re living with Monopoly money prices for some of our purchases. But the real dangers are when we can’t avoid taking out expensive loans for such home improvements. Especially when the minimum wage gets increased and adds to inflation and then gets passed on to customers.
Another discount for 25% off so an order over £40 got reduced by £10 and with free delivery, too.
This time there was a Flash Sale on many items so there was quite a selection in various colours and sizes.
There are filters we can use to reduce the numbers of suitable items and then we can save time and money that way. We can then compare the prices for single items or full length sets such as tracksuits and so on.
This time the access used the create a new password routine and the discount code was automatically added and the savings clearly seen in the temporary checkouts until the final one and the address and payment details were added.
Reminders:
The eBay website has image options from 64 pixels to 1600 pixels. It uses s-l64.jpg or we manually edit the URL to got to s-l64.png or s-l64.webp. NB that’s letter s – letter l and then switch to s-l1600.jpg or png or webp if these help to study images before we buy the items.
Other websites may have image.jpg?w=640&h=480 and sometimes we can edit these to increase their display size and file size options. The image may state w or width or h or height and images can be called small or thumb or medium or large or original so we may test what these changed values will display, too.
Some web browser extensions or add-ons can help load and save a whole web page set of images but these may be just the thumbnails, but we can edit these URLs later.
When we use the Search for image using Google, we can get exact matches for the images and then see the dimensions listed for the website links. If we visit some of these websites they may include size options that are well over the 1920×1080 PC screen size so if these very large images are superior and worth downloading we may get extra options to crop some of these to smaller sizes and reduce the file sizes that way. Or we may use image converters to compress jpg and png images to the webp format and get even smaller images which will load better if these are uploaded to our websites or hosted for us elsewhere.
Some AI websites may help with the editing as well.
I’ve ordered a CD-ROM drive 7-in-1 item to view or burn data and it also connects to an external 2TB hard drive I’ve got so I can transfer PC data and get more storage space that way.The USB cable is the standard size yet with a second cable for the smaller USB connector used for laptops. It has the SD card and the large adapter connections for the micro card inputs, too. This plug-n-play model type has a large light bar on the top and costs about £18.
It was a fast delivery so that helped as well.
http://www.groceries.morrisons.com
I got a £15 off code for an order of £70. Above this was an extra £49 based on reduced prices and I saved over £60 this week.
Some were because I registered for the MORE CARD and got a digital web page for that card number and saved it as a png image for reference.
The MORE link was there when I signed in but the MORE registration had to include a special character such as the at sign @ so I got back to the Morrisons website and changed that password to make sure it worked for the MORE card as well.
More Card prices are identified for each item but most of my order was for prices that were already reduced. Things such as 10 for £4 or 2 for £2.50 and so on.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/
Energy up by 6%? Check the latest tips for February 2025 to see your options.
Same again for some companies that increase prices such as April 2025. Consider Sky and extra discount deals offered if thinking of Sky Broadband, too.
Bank options or bribe incentives still possible…
Energy suppliers may reduce charges if vulnerable and facing financial difficulties.
Haggle with some companies now and then as discounts change during each quarter of the year.
EBAY charging an extra fee in February?
St Valentines Day deals will end soon. Then Spring and Easter Sales to follow.
Reminder about getting energy-saving full spectrum daylight bulbs of various WATT power eg 10 watt for small rooms such as bathroom and toilet and utility rooms. Test the remote control colour-changing bulbs such as the 10 W to the 15 W bulbs and check the model type such as bayonet light fitting or the screwtype versions. Discounts if buying 4 or more eg Amazon/eBay etc.
Reminder about Hisense 4K TV demo on QVC shown recently for about £500.
