If you have digital cable, check the free offerings for movies and programs before you rent a movie. Periodically check. Though you might be like me and delete the email detailing the new movies offered on cable. If you check the on demand programming you might be pleasantly surprised and find some older films that you are interested in watching in the comfort of your own home, some less than 2 years old. It may not seem that great, but for free that’s a better deal than the library – you don’t have to leave your house or worry about returning the DVD on time.

Quietly, my cable service added more interesting features for free as part of their video on demand service. I can see more than just television shows, but also movies for free. Since I haven’t paid anything for the movie watching something that I am interested in at home is easier than going to the library or even to Redbox.

The best deal, for newer features is using Redbox. Even though the cable company claims that they have movies available on the same day that they are released. Redbox allows you to rent a movie for $1 plus tax while the cable company charges $5 plus tax. Of course there are pros and cons to Redbox, your movie might not be available, but you can go online to reserve it and you can return it to any Redbox. If you live near one, this is definitely a bonus.

Borrowing movies from the library is sometimes a difficult proposition. Horror fans may be out of luck because according to CPS librarians horror titles are often the stolen. Also some popular releases are difficult to obtain.

I haven’t tried Redbox yet, though several friends have said that it is very addicting and easy to use. The closest Redbox is over a mile away from my house which requires a special trip to get there even though factoring in the cost of gas, the movie rental would be less than the $5 charged by the cable company.

Online bill pay doesn’t always work. Last week, I made an attempt to pay for the rental of my cable box online. I had paid online previously and thought that this would be something easy to do. Unfortunately, the cable company would not accept the payment from my account. It wasn’t my account, because other bills that I paid from the same account for larger amounts, the same day were accepted. I tried another time and my attempted payment was rejected as well.

The lesson that I learned from this is even when making payments online attempt to make them early enough so that even if you need to mail in a check or try another day, you still have time and won’t incur late charges. Since I had to send a check, I sent enough to cover several months payments, to make it worth the cost of a stamp. To pay by credit card via telephone I would have to pay a “convenience charge” which was about half the amount of the monthly rental fee.

Online payments are supposed to make your life easier but when making payments for small amounts (under $10) online payments are not always the easiest to make.