Last week, Andy and a couple of his friends had a conversation about how ridiculous it is that we spend so much money on cable TV and how it is just rotting our kids’ brains. I personally couldn’t have cared less if we have cable or not – that is, until I looked at our bank statement and saw how much we pay for it.
$140 a month. For cable. That does not include phone or internet.
Are you freaking kidding me?
So now I’m totally on the “It’s rotting their brains!!!” bandwagon because, come on, that is a lot of freaking money. I don’t know how much I thought it cost, but I sure didn’t think it was that much!
So now I’m trying to figure out alternatives – we already have a Roku, Netflix and Amazon Prime, but what else do we need? Hulu+? Apple TV? Is there such a thing as an antenna for local channels any more?
Have you ditched cable and lived to tell about it? I want to hear your success stories – and what you did with all the money you saved!
P.S. This just goes to show that everything you need to know you can learn from John Prine.
I know ditching cable is cool and all but I have no plans to drop it. I need my sports channels! And disney jr is necessary for my sanity.
we “gave up on cable” a long time ago. although, not fully…but only because of stupid bundle packages. we get our internet through our cable provider (apparently our area doesn’t offer an alternative), so our bill went something like this: $150/month for cable/internet, $80/month just internet, $50/month for LIMITED cable/internet. We have just a handful of stations simply because the bundles were cheaper. We also have Netflix and Hulu…and Amazon Prime (although I never use it because I don’t seem to like anything they offer).
The only reason anyone misses cable is during basketball season. My husband is a huge BB fan, and missing his beloved Lakers makes him die a little bit inside. But I don’t care. I can’t stomach paying that much for something intangible like that.
We ditched cable 10 months ago. I’m probably the one who misses it most but even I stopped complaining once we got Amazon Prime (I missed my cooking competition shows and House Hunters – Amazon has those). We have Netflix streaming, Hulu+, and Amazon Prime for a total of less than $30 a month. The kids miss Disney and complain about that once in awhile but they can always find something to watch. The only thing I miss is the mindless flipping through on a Sunday afternoon and finding a good movie you haven’t seen in ages (that happened twice a year?) and the sitting down for 20 minutes while I ate lunch and just flipping on HGTV or a morning talk show. It isn’t that simple – I have to be more mindful of what I watch now. That isn’t a bad thing. I would say we watch a little less TV now and it has made us more deliberate with our choices. The only downside is a couple of shows we love (Burn Notice comes to mind) won’t let you watch online unless you sign in with you cable provider info…so we have to wait for a few things.
Oh Football season is coming…and that is an issue. We unfortunately live a long way from our favorite team so subscribing to basic cable for 4 months will only get us a couple of games. We do miss our Football Sunday Ticket.
We have the lowest amount of channels (8) in order to have our internet. We use Hulu (not Hulu+), Netflix streaming, Project Free TV, and HBOGo (using my in-laws’ login, because they pay a lot for cable but don’t use the mobile stuff).
I too miss the surfing channels (we run our tv through our computer, which makes flipping through 8 channels kind of hard). But there are a lot of Disney Jr. shows on Netflix now.
We got rid of cable tv about a year ago. I bought an antenna for around $30 that allows us to get approximately 15 channels, so we still get all of the major stations. We have rokus, netflix, amazon prime, and hulu plus. We don’t miss the cable at all. My hubby watches all of his sports on his computer and the girls love netflix. We only pay $16/month now for the services instead of $75.
We are in the middle of a move and have not had cable now for almost six weeks. We do have a roku with Netflix and Amazon Prime and its actually been fine. We think we might add Hulu + at some point too. Normally we have Dish network and only pay around 25 bucks for their lowest package, but we are planning o getting rid of it once our contact is over. I discovered we didn’t need as many tv channels as I thought.
OH MY GOSH! That is insane!! We just do Netflix, Hulu Plus, and yes we do use an antenna to get local channels which we never use except in case of a PBS show I want to watch. 🙂 But if there were a local-channel sports event like the Super Bowl, we’d be able to watch it. I know Andy needs his sports channels, and I bet if you call your provider and tell them you are paying too much, they would bend over backwards to find you an alternative plan/rate rather than losings your business. When we cancelled our cheap-o $10/month local channel cable, they did their darndest to sell us a bundle including internetz and what-not. So we called AT&T and said “this is what they are offering us for internetz” and AT&T matched their price. Whoop!
we ditched our cable over a year ago and we have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Best decision we ever made…okay, maybe not the best, but it was a good one. We took the money that we saved and actually bought a very nice tv that the husband has his eye on after about 8 months. I can say that I don’t miss cable all that much, maybe during football season, but last year we would get together with my father in law every week to watch the game and that was pretty nice. The girls watch less tv and the stuff that they do watch is a lot more intentional instead of just mindless tv watching. Plus, no commercials!!
We bundle our home phone and internet through TW for $56/month (it was $50/month for the first year) and then we had Netflix for awhile (cancelled it for the summer though). We use an antenna to get our local channels which come in surprisingly well. We have enough kids’ movies to keep them happy without cable (and they still watch PBS a lot too). Good luck!
We got rid of cable about a year ago. We have Netflix and Hulu and an antenna for local networks. It’s crazy cheap, and my kids never watched anything besides PBS when we had cable, so I feel like there’s way MORE kids options with Netflix. I like how it’s on demand, so you can watch any time, not just when an episode is being aired. And when their episode is done, then you turn it off…there are no commercials for what’s coming up next, and no ads at all, in fact!
For adult shows, we mainly watch things that are on networks with our antenna (record to DVR, actually). My husband tends to watch a lot of tv seasons of various shows on Netflix, when he’s downstairs without me. We feel like there are PLENTY of options, and it feels so good to pay so little.
When I called to cancel our Time Warner cable, their retention department offered me unlimited digital phone, a very fast level of broadband internet, and the mid level digital cable with a DVR for $99/mo. Maybe you should call and tell them you’re canceling.
We used to live in apartment and had cable then. We bought our house in the summer time and said we’d get cable again in the fall after we’d settled into the house and gotten a few things done. That was almost 16 years and 2 houses ago. We never got cable and guess what??? We’re still alive. (Never even had Netflix until about 6 months ago.)
quite frankly, I would be fine with just netflix, and movies. We’ve lived most of our married life without tv. Only periodically when it was included with the rent. This last year though, we got Dish…I’m so done with it!! I’m really glad we’ll be moving in the next week or two again, and most likely to an apt without cable. YAHOO!! My kids are going to get their imaginations back, and I’ll have my sanity back.
and that is insane, because with DISH we don’t even pay half that amount.
We haven’t had cable for about 3 years now… and I prefer it that way. We do have an antenna for local news and America’s Got Talent, my family’s favorite show. Other than that we have Hulu Plus and Netflix. Also, PBS has a new Roku app which we nerds enjoy.
And there’s always Redbox and the library for movies not on Netflix.
We got rid of cable when we moved to the farm. It isn’t offered here. We do have a DSL for internet access that is about $40 per month.
We got HDMI antennas for our TVs so we get local channels for sports, mostly. We use Netflix and Hulu with a Roku device for everything else. It’s actually been fantastic not having it. The kids are outside more. No one is sitting around at night mindlessly scrolling through channels. It really is great!
MLB.com has a way to pay to stream your team’s baseball games. And as long as not all of your relatives get rid of cable….;)
We actually got rid of cable a few years ago and have never looked back. A friend shared a YouTube video with us that walked Steve through building his own antenna using a 2×4, wire hangers and some washers. (It’s a hideous sight…but is easily hidden behind our entertainment center!) It picks up all the major stations, several PBS channels, and several Spanish channels (including one that’s all Spanish music, all the time…we jokingly call it our MTV). Surprisingly, the antenna even broadcasts all the major channels in HD.
We also have netflix and amazon prime, but those are pretty cheap. Sports were definitely an issue at first, but we’ve figured out online ways to watch just about everything, and during hockey season, we spring for an NHL package we can use with the Apple TV so we can watch the hockey games. I wasn’t on board with the whole “no cable” thing at first, but once I saw how much we were saving and realized how many other ways I could still watch my favorite shows, I was sold!