"I live on $710.00 a month, what exactly am I supposed to cut?"

[mwooldri]

210. Depends totally on service provider availability and pricing.

Also depends on desired speed of connection. Time Warner's standard charge for 15Mbit down. 1Mbit up is about $45/mo. They do have an offering of 1Mbit down and 368k up for $19.99/mo but for streaming video it's no good. If there's a phone company offering DSL at a competitive rate, it's OK to play one against the other to cut that cost down... AT&T do a 6mbit down, 768k up for $19.99 as a 12 month intro in my area. Always worth that call to see if that cost can be reduced a bit.

Phone service can be modified too. Regular landline phone can be converted to a "lifeline" service. If ok with it and the internet speed isn't degraded so, there's plenty of internet phone offerings, yep Magicjack is an option.

Edit to add: It is something I do to help control those costs. I bounce one off against the other. IMO Internet and phone access are essential. It *is* worthwhile shopping around, because that can be $40/mo or more in ones pocket rather than that of the telco or cableco.