I'm sure some of you here have gone through this dilemma. Look at your cell, cable/satellite, landline, and Internet bills. A lot of us spend a ton of money on these things, and now I'm starting to ask myself whether or not it's worth it. I think my New Year's Resolution will be to optimize my spending in these areas, even though the conversion process might be painful.

Between Sprint PCS, cable, cable modem, and basic dial-tone service at home, I pay about $250/month. $120 for wireless, $90 for cable/Internet, and $40 for home phone.

I actually think my wireless bill is close to optimized: that $120 is for 3 lines with near-unlimited minutes under a very old grandfathered plan from back when I worked for Sprint PCS when they launched. We use the phones a lot and enjoy the fact that minutes-of-use is never a concern for us.

The $90 cable bill always feels to me like a giant sucking sound. My needs are simple: some sort of decent Internet connection and basic TV. ESPN, ESPN2, Food Network, Discovery, History, and a few others. No movies or anything on-demand or high definition. We are close enough to a central office to consider DSL, but not if it means letting Ma Bell into my house. I know they own the local loop, but I don't actually want to deal with them because I know they do not have my interests in mind.

For local phone, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go VoIP but I know this is the most painful cutover process because the incumbent provider may attempt to sabotage the portability process (or simply delay it as long as legally possible). We've already had the "Do we even need a home phone" discussion and yes, we need some sort of cheap home phone.

So what do you suggest? Is there any money to be saved with Dish or DirectTV? Is there a broadband reseller I should consider? I think VoIP is a "go" but what are the common pitfalls? Does VoIP work better with cable or DSL or does it matter? With a good enough VoIP service that includes LD, I might be willing to consider a cheaper wireless plan as long as the "minute management" I'd have to do wasn't too painful.

If I could just get the $250 down to $200 I'd be happy. Six hundred bucks a year...seems like a reachable (and meaningful) goal, right?