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It's hard to believe that just over 20 years ago, the majority of Americans were getting by with watching 5-6 over-the-air television channels. Now we're paying as high as $100 a month for a virtually limitless selection of entertainment possibilities only as far away as our remote control(s). With cable bills now representing a detectable portion of our monthly budget, finding ways to save on it is becoming more important.

The best time to maximize your savings is before you even get it installed. Considering you most likely have several choices of providers, this is the time when you have all the power and when the deepest discounts can be attained.

First, recognize exactly what your needs will be. Granted, having several hundred channels available to you may be appealing, but if you only regularly watch five or six of them, the price you would have to pay for selection may be money wasted.

For example, many cable companies offer premium sports packages for an additional monthly fee. Consider how many extra games you would watch over the course of a year and see if the cost per game would be worth it. Yes, it would be nice to have ten cooking channels available to you so that you can learn how to cook pheasant under glass, but if you wind up paying an extra $100 over the course of a year for the option to see those channels, it might be a better use of your money to go out to a fancy restaurant once a year.

Second, there is nothing saying that the advertised price is set-in-stone. The cable companies are aware that their margins once they have you as a subscriber are considerable and would be willing to haggle with you to get you in their doors. It helps if you pepper the names of other providers into your conversation once in a while. Check if their competitors have promotional deals going on or something comparable to what you want from your provider for a lower price. Chances are that they will at least match if not try to beat it.

You can also save money on the installation if you know a little about how cable is routed within your house. Some cable companies will charge a fee to "activate" each outlet in your house. This is bogus. Most likely all the cable outlets in your house are already connected together using a series of splitters in the walls. If you do not need a converter box for certain TV sets in your house, you can forgo "activating" the outlet for that set. I had seven outlets in my house and the cable company was going to charge me $14.95 for

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