Guest post by Jenae at I Can Teach My Child
How much do you spend on cable each month? Stop reading this post, go get your last bill and say it out loud. Now, multiply that number by 12. Wowza…that’s a lot of money in a year’s time, huh?
Let’s just say that it’s an even $50 each month (which is probably a very conservative number), if so, this means you are spending $600 each year on cable. That’s money you could have saved to pay off your house, to pay for your kid’s college or to spend on a brand-new dining room table!
There are so many alternatives to paying lots of money for cable each month. Here are three we’ve found to be helpful for our family.
High-Definition Antenna
What if I told you that you could still watch most of your favorite shows for free? ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS and even a few other random channels can all be received for free in most areas* with a high-definition antenna. After a little upfront cost, you can watch these channels for the rest of your life. All you need is a converter box (if your TV does not already have an HDTV tuner — every new TV has one) and a high-definition antenna (which can go in your attic, wall or outside).
High-definition antennas range from $40-$150. You can purchase them at your local home-improvement store (Lowe’s or Home Depot). You can also go here for more information and to purchase one as well. And if you’re really handy (or you know someone who is), you can supposedly even make your own HDTV antenna for less than $10! It might be worth a shot!
If you own a TV that was manufactured after July 1, 2007, it should already have an HDTV tuner. You only need a converter box if your analog TV is older than that. Converter Boxes start at $40 and go up from there. Go here and here for a few converter box options.
*I realize that good reception depends in large part due to where you live. If this isn’t an option for you, you could still opt for the cheapest plan from your cable or satellite provider and implement the other two suggestions.
Netflix & Redbox
Many of you know that you can receive unlimited DVDs in the mail for about $10 a month from Netflix. But did you also know that they have thousands of movies on instant play as well? We’ve watched entire series of very popular shows instantly. You can stream it to a Blu-Ray player, XBox or Wii, or you can just watch it on your computer. Netflix is also a great resource for children’s television shows. The best part is that there are no commercials.
Redbox (a $1-per-night video rental kiosk that can be found outside many McDonald’s, Walgreens, and Walmarts locations) offers at least one free rental each month (usually the first Monday of every month) when you create an account on their website.
Borrow
Libraries are not only a great resource for books, most libraries also have movies as well! And the best part is that it’s free! You can browse most titles on your library’s website. Another option is to borrow movies from friends.
We’ve gone without cable for our entire married life (almost seven years). At first, we simply couldn’t afford cable and opted for bunny ears. Now that our income has increased and we could afford if we really wanted to, we still choose not to. We enjoy enough television and movie time without spending all that money every month!
Jenae is a wife, mother of two boys’ ages 3 and 15 months, and former first-grade teacher. She loves spending time with her family and sharing fun and educational activities for young children on her website, I Can Teach My Child.
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When we moved we didn’t get our cable installed. We have DSL for internet and have Netflix, Hulu Amazon prime and Acorn still cheaper than cable
Here in Albeta, Canada I paid a one time fee of $250 for a little black box called Kiwi Media that allows me to watch all channels’ programming with no commercials from pretty much everywhere internationally! It’s a great alternative for TV series, old and new movies, sporting events etc
Does anyone have any ideas about Internet savings? My provider wants a ridiculous amount of money to cancel my cable and just keep internet. I am alittle rural and seem to have no reasonable options other than my present provider.
We use our ROKU and pay for Netflix, Hulu plus and Acorn Tv so a total of $21.00 a month for all we want to watch. Well if you add Xfinity internet at $44.95 a month which I have to have for my business the cost is $65.95. But so much cheaper than what we were paying. Plus we watch when we want to watch. Plus Acorn tv has the best British tV. Love it!
These are ok suggestions but they don’t compare to satellite. They do not carry the new shows on these options. So it really depends on what you already watch or what you’re willing to give up.
We cut the cable about 3 or 4 years ago. It was really difficult at first. We couldn’t even get our local channel(s). We finally got a small hd tv and antenna. It did ok, but we still had problems when the weather wasn’t too good. I finally was able to get a 32 inch hd tv. What a huge difference!!!!! We now get about 6 channels all the time, and sometimes Fox. That depends if our local Fox station has their signals working. As for movies, we already have quit a selection of dvds. When we want to see something we don’t have, we check the library or the $5 bin at Wal-Mart
I would do this in a heartbeat but my husband would not be ecstatic about it! We would not only save $$ but TIME! Yes DVR is nice to get through the commercials, but I am convinced it actually makes us watch MORE T.V. because of it. Excellent article.
Somebody please answer me this. What is the quality of the hulu shows once they are on a 40″screen if you use the MAC mini? Are they in HD and look just like they did if they were coming in through cable? Or are they like non-HD broadcast or worse? Also, CBS, TNT, and TBS are not on Hulu so if I want to watch shows on those websites are they going to be good picture quality? What is the point of having a nice TV if the quality is going to be bad? Thanks.
My husband and I did this last year & we love it. We were paying $840 per year for AT&T u-verse and after setting down and making a list of the shows we watch they were all either on the main networks or could be found on Netflix. Thankfully my husband is a techie & built us a home theater PC so we didn’t even have to give up DVR. It took us about a year to break even on it, but it is so much better than cable.
We have DISH and have been mulling over getting rid of it. We live in an area where we can’t really get over the air and DISH was our best option for tv, but the $85/month was just getting to be too much. I contacted them and we’ve switched to a very low cost plan (called the welcome package – if you ask them for it) which includes locals and a few other channels, and then we can still keep our dvr and pay $21 + tax which for us is worth it.
I would rather spend the money on a cheaper satelite plan than I would on cell phone bills. I have seen and heard of people spending way more on their cell phone bills than I have ever spent on my house phone$21.00, pre-paid cell phone$7.00, satelite $54.00, and internet $26.00 combined = $108.00 a month. I realize there are cheaper satelite plans but this is the one that works for us. We have a digital T.V. and an antena that we use in the bedroom, but when we want to watch Fox News we have to watch it on satelite, it is not a local channel and we refuse to watch ABC, NBC, or CBS news. Besides my husband is an Alabama fan and he cann’t get a lot of his games on the local TV channels.
I like cable tv. I like TIVO. These are things that we can easily afford in our budget. I scrimp and save in other places but I won’t cut out cable. We don’t have HDTV or big screen tvs. Our tvs are from the 80s and 90s. We’ve saved money that way instead.
We just canceled our cable. They were requiring extra equipment for our favorite shows and after looking at our checkbook, we noticed that they raised our bill $25 over 5 years to nearly $70/month for standard service. We hooked up the antenna already on or roof and discovered that we can get 20 channels with that for free (my dad hooked it up)! We miss a few channels but not they are not worth $70. I discovered that PBS has shows of often higher quality than Food Network, HGTV and the History Channel. We get Highspeed internet for only $20/month from Netzero. I don’t think we will ever have cable again 🙂
We did away with our “cable”. We were only paying $25 a month to get local channels plus TBS through our cable company but decided to switch over to antenna a few months ago. It was a great decision for our growing family (baby #5 is on the way!). My husband was able to make an antenna for about $6 and it worked better than the $50 antennas he purchased and later returned. We now get everything we were normally watching without the bill each month! Even though we weren’t paying alot to begin with, it is so nice to know we are now paying almost nothing to watch a few shows each week – very freeing!
We did this a couple years ago when an ice storm knocked out our dish. They wanted to charge $50 to come out and look at it with no guarantee that that trip would fix the problem. We thought about it for a few days and realized we just didn’t need to spend $600+ per year for t.v.
We have a digital antenna and get about 15 channels plus watch some episodes on-line.
My husband and I have not had cable since we have been together (this is has been 2 years and going now) and we don’t even miss it. We use bunny ears to get local channels like ABC, FOX, and of course the PBS channels. We also have nextflix and here in the last week they have add hulu to xbox live. With the hulu you get a free month for just making an account on their website. We are a young couple (24 & 25) and this has saved us a great deal of money. I think we are paying like $35 monthly this includes our internet.
My novel idea for not paying for cable tv is to have a membership to a local gym. I pay $12.95 per month for a membership to my gym and go work out several times each week. I bring along headphones and watch all my favorite cable shows while working out! Many gyms have treadmills and eliptical machines with attached personal tvs. I love going to the gym to watch HGTV and get a work out in at the same time!
Just this past week we downgraded from 250 channels (who needs that many) to 75. Still more than we need, but it’s baby steps for us. The bill is still outrageous (down to $115 for cable and internet), but we’ll downgrade again in a few months. Has anyone used the Amazon TV service? I think I’ve heard about it somewhere, just haven’t done enough research on it.
We currently have cable because of a discount that I received through a special at work (we pay about $25 a month for a year-Direct TV). However, up until then we did not have cable. We pay $25 a month for our internet (we live in KY and have AT&T) which is DSL and we use netflix and stream unlimited movies, etc with no issues. We LOVE our netflix 🙂
By the way, DSL does not work very well if you are too far from the Telco Office or too many lines on a hub. You will not get what they say you can or what you are paying for. I ditched AT&T , because DSL was a dog….
I got a Free Channel Master High-Definition Antenna from WRAL in 2009 and did the government converter box … Not that much on Cable to watch, unless you pay too much for it.
Does anyone remember when you could get everything for $45 a month and there were NO Commercials?? Yikes!! We ought to go on strike.
We cut down our Charter from phone/internet/cable bundle at $130 per month to fast internet for $55 per month.
We also switched to prepaid cell phones and signed up with net flix, and hooked up to the attena. We stream it through something called a Boxee Box, so we can download shows to a hard drive, and stream through that way as well. The Boxee was 200 bucks to purchase, but it has more than paid for itself.
All of these changes has saved me over 100 dollars per month. I don’t miss the overpriced cable, or the unused land line. I had to BLOCK charter’s phone number from my prepaid because they would call everyday trying to get me to bundle up again.
We watch a lot of older shows, so Net Flix pays for itself.
I feel we shouldn’t have to pay a small fortune per month to watch decent TV. (Half the time I don’t even turn it on…)
Sports, SPORTS!
I think we might be able to manage getting our favorite show (TOP GEAR) off of Itunes and going through Apple TV. But I can’t find a cheaper way to get the English soccer.
We have Dish and our bill is like $75 bucks right now because we have been with them so long. That being said I do love Dish, they have the nicest customer service in my opinion. WAY BETTER than ATT and better than Comcast.
We cut the dish a few months ago in preperation for hubby’s military retirement (medical). The biggest hold out was our 13 year old b/c she didn’t want to miss her disney shows, but we use our Wii to stream netflix in the living room(and she is happy with the content and the speed of the new arrivals) and for our room we got a Roku box that streams Amazon, hulu plus, netflix, etc. We hooked up an external ant. and we get ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS (requested for the cartoons for the little ones and I was so happy to have it! 🙂 On our Roku, we can rent movies with Amazon credits earned on swagbucks or watch shows on ABC and NBC. It’s not a DVR, and we don’t get CBS, but we can watch any of the shows on the other 2 networks PLUS things from Fox, etc. on our own schedule. WE love it and it costs us $7.99 for netflix and $9 for hulu plus each month vs. the $75 we were paying. The ant. was $80 and the Roku was $69(but was a christmas gift) 🙂
My husband works for a cable company (and I’m not mentioning which one because I’m not advertising for it). He installs and I understand the choice for many to go without cable, but it sure hurts us :(. A lot of the reason those cable companies charge you for cable and internet is because the higher bandwidth that internet is on. It’s harder to block out the cable and let the internet go through. Also, if you have multiple computers, DSL may not be the best choice, depending on the speed. For example, in our area, the DSL is only at 1.5 megs at its fastest. We’re not able to get cable where we live, but what we are paying for 1.5 megs (40.00) we can get basic cable and internet speeds of 8 megs. I really feel like the decision on internet, cable, and telephone is really a personal one, and I definitely have seen the benefits of trimming our own budget (we can’t get cable where we live, so we have satellite, internet, and cell phones). We now have a cheaper satellite bill because we went down two steps with only one set of movie channels, and then got Netflix to supplement. We still get all the channels we want.
My husband also works for a cable company. We recently moved out of the subscription area where we got cable for free and now pay for a dish service. My family will always have cable. We love the sports! I don’t think paying for cable is a bad thing, you just have to be willing to compromise else where and we do. Thankfully for our husband’s careers many families are willing to pay for cable services.
So glad you posted this! We’ve gone without cable for the eleven years of our married life and haven’t missed it at all! And that was way before Netflix was around. Now with Netflix, I feel like we have cable for just $8 a month!
We did this a few months ago. We switched to Uverse for $29 per month for high speed internet and dropped the $180 month bill from our cable company. We pick up all the locals plus some really cool religious channels that I am just loving. We also picked up Netflix with streaming and 1 video rotation for $10.91 per month. We watch TV shows and movies all the time now on Netflix via the internet or through the Wii. We are never bored flipping through channels trying to find something to watch. This is the way to go for us and I am loving it!!!!!
I pay 20 bucks a month for internet right now and don’t have cable. However, our apartment complex is forcing us to get internet when we renew our leases, which will add another 40 bucks to my bills. Does anyone know if this is even legal? I am barely making ends meet and the internet is a work expense.
I love Hulu for watching free shows!!
My husband and I have been cable free since we got married, but not necessarily as a money saving strategy. We only watch a few shows that we can catch online and we have Netflix. I’ve also found that I get alot more done during the day with no tv running and we do more as a family with no tv in the background. We make movie nights special nights and are much more likely to get out of the house for a walk or trip to the park after dinner instead of watching tv. But I completely understand those who are saying it’s just as cheap to have cable and internet together…I only think we are saving like $15/month by not having cable. There’s only really one decent company around here and they keep the prices pretty unreasonable 🙁
Ditto on lamenting the need for sports programming! I would love to cancel our cable service, but the hockey and football packages are, apparently, sacrosanct to other members of the household.
Yeah for this post! My husband and I have never had cable in the 10 years we’ve been together, we’re outdoorsy and just enjoy a few movies a week together. All our friends used to tease us about Netflix and tell us how weird we were since we only got 1 channel (NBC with our antenna). Now that we have kids while it would be nice when I’m having a meltdown to just plop on the TV, I’m really glad we don’t have it. We’re not just saving by not spending on a monthly bill, but we’re skipping all those commercials for all the toys that kids “HAVE TO HAVE”! Plus now Netflix has great educational shows like Sesame Street on instant viewing… Thanks for the post, at least I know we aren’t the only “weird ones” out there… :o)
i wish i could be flexible with cable/internet. but alas, our apartment complex bundles water, cable, and internet for about $100…which is about as much as comcast (the only local cable company) charges for cable/internet. plus whenever i mention ditching cable after we move, my husband flips because of sports. 🙂 so i think unless we are really strapped for cash we’ll always have cable…which i am okay with because of my liking for law & order, tlc, and the food network! not that i have time to watch during the school year but it’s nice occasionally.
Every time I see a post regarding different options for cable, I keep hoping there will be more options for sports fans. We could use the internet/movie services for regular shows, but there’s not usually an alternative for sports. I keep hoping for more options, but until then, not having cable is non-negotiable for my husband.
Don’t forget you CAN stream it through a PS3! We do it! We live in a condo so we had a big antenna installed on the roof, and we get ALMOST all the channels we want to watch. The only one I wish we had was FOX. 🙁 I miss Bones! 🙂
My husband made his own antenna when TV signals switched to HD. It works better than the purchased antennas that we tried and returned! 🙂
$19.99 for internet, $16 for Netflix, and a lot of free Blockbuster Express movies make me a happy girl 🙂 I let my library card expire, but that is also a fantastic option for DVDs. Great post!
I would just like to add our story of how we dropped cable. Since this is a Christian blog, I assume most readers are also Christians and wanted to share in hopes someone else might come to the same conclusion as we did.
My husband and I had always gone out to watch the latest greatest movies and frequently watched all sorts of shows on TV. We didn’t see anything wrong with this since it was ‘entertainment’ and besides, even if the movie or show projected a lifestyle or value we didn’t agree with, we could just brush it off and take the entertainment at face value. Now, these shows and movies were not ‘bad’ per se and many of them had great premises or morals. However, even in the the best of movies today, MOST still contain a fair amount of foul language, violence and sexuality. And with TV, you may watch a ‘clean’ show, but the commercials that pop on may be just what you are trying to avoid!
In a nutshell, what you watch has an effect on you. The Bible does speak on this- who do you surround yourself with, what type of activities and friends you have makes an impact on you. We realized we didn’t want our daughter growing up with horrible images displaying on commercials or her parents being less of what they could be because they were filling their private lives with movies and shows that they wouldn’t allow their own children to watch. If all you see if violence, you will think violently, if all you see is profanity, you will have a problem with it, if you feast your eyes on sexual images (which so many have become accustomed to and thus claim thats not what it is) then you will think about them.
We chose to completely eliminate the TV in our household as a matter of urgency and concern for our family. Jesus probably wouldn’t watch most TV shows or movies, so we decided not to either. I have to say it has definitely made a wonderfully positive difference in our lives. I am not saying you have to do this, but I encourage other Christians to think about it and pray about it. Not only will it save you money, but it just may save your family!
Uugh…I wish we could eliminate ours. However, my hubby is a HUGE sports fan. He is a wise and Godly man. He is very good with money but this is a non negotiable in our house:) We can’t get DSL for internet. Our ONLY option is comcast. Trust me…I’ve searched and searched for alternatives. So, we pay $60/mo just for internet. I am TOTALLY frugal so that stinks!!
It’s frustrating to live in areas where there are few options. 🙁
$60/month for internet — ouch!
I feel your pain. In our rural area, there is only one phone provider & they own their lines so you use them or no one. You have to have a landline to get DSL and our monthly bill is about $80 (including taxes). I checked into satellite internet, but it’s very spotty out here and not significantly less expensive.
On the plus side, this is a local provider so when I have problems and call in, I talk to someone from my area who actually knows where I am when they look at my address. They are always super helpful & friendly – some of the best customer service I’ve ever had! 🙂
we’re in the same boat, we cut the cable tv last year when it jumped up to $140/month and then they jacked up our internet to $60/month and it’s not even good internet, but our only other option is at&t which only offers the slowest basic internet in our area at $40/month. Hubby has given up most of his sports to listening to them on the radio, but he really misses his Nascar and I feel bad for making him give it up when we could now upgrade our package for an extra $20/month (for a year before it goes up again), but it’s $20 just to watch a race every weekend (and sometimes he has to work anyway). To me that’s too much money. 🙁
This is my EXACT issue!
another option is Hulu , you can now get get hulu plus for $7/month and see all the new seasons of your favorite shows the day after they air on tv , they just started streaming to xbox last week , check your xbox and you can try it 4 free for 1 week right now. there are other devices it works with , u can check their website, i don’t know them because i use the xbox. they even air some talk shows i belive
We just cancelled our cable -Directv – yesterday. We’ve been paying a whopping $82/month for television! That’s crazy. Now that 80 bucks is going towards paying off my car early.
While I think I could live without cable, I don’t know if I could live without a DVR. I want to watch my shows when I want to watch them…especially when the kids shows are on.
Any suggestions on what to do about a DVR without having cable service?
I thought I would not be able to live without it also but when we got rid of Dish several months ago, the DVR went with it. I watch most of my shows on the tv via the antenna. I used to never watch shows when they aired just because they were dvr’ed (I didn’t even used to know when half of them came on). Now without the dvr, I am more aware. For instance, tonight at 8pm Nikita and Bones will be coming on so I know to get my stuff done earlier so I can watch Nikita. Then for Bones I will watch that via the internet (Fox uploads shows quicker than CW so CW always wins over on the tv).
More specificly for your question, on the internet you can pull up the shows when you want. Last year I bought my husband a laptop on sale that had a bluray player as well as a built in camera and an hdmi port on it for about $500 including taxes. We love it. So we can hook it up to the tv via the hdmi and watch the tv shows either from the networks website or something like hulu. MANY many shows are available online on cw, cbs, fox, hgtv, lifetime (I still get my Army Wives), etc. That laptop cost less than a years worth of Dish (with the dvr fee, taxes, etc) and he need a new laptop anyway.
On Hulu, you can watch a lot of “older” kids tv shows. My kids enjoy He-Man and Inspector Gadget. Today I saw Pink Panther, which is something we’ve checked out from the library and they love. I LOVE it b/c it’s so quiet, just a little music and the occasional noise. Not some long singy annoying song that gets stuck in your head. 🙂
Like the previous poster, you can hook up a laptop to your tv or get an internet connected blu-ray player, wii, or ps3, or whatever so you can play things like Netflix. Currently, we have an internet connected blu-ray player but don’t have Netflix but the player does have a link to Crackle so we’ve been watching shows from that.
When I got married (almost a year ago), we decided this was one way we were going to cut down on our combined monthly expenses. Coming from a situation where my roommate and I had been paying for cable and DVR etc., I was a little worried about how I was going to adjust, but after almost a year with no cable, I’ll say it’s probably the easiest way to cut back on expenses. I don’t even miss the channels we don’t get. And for Christmas, my inlaws gave us a new tv that has internet connectivity capabilities so we can watch netfilx view instantly titles without having to sit in front of a laptop or connect it to the tv. You can also connect to hulu plus, pandora, and other great things right from the tv with no expensive cable plan. 🙂
We went the first 6.5 years of marriage with just internet and basic cable . It was $56/mo and we thought we were making the smart, sensible, cheaper choice as newlyweds. Just a few months ago we opted for satellite per DH’s request, which I don’t mind. I rarely watch tv anyway, and he enjoys watching the sports. Here’s the funniest part- would you believe that the internet + satellite package is cheaper?? We went with a different internet company, and we now pay $47/mo. Crazy!! Our internet alone would cost that same amount, but bundling brings down the rate. Also, Blockbuster Express is a good way to rent $1 movies, too.
Well, we are the opposite. We went almost 7 years without and recently added cable. For us, now that we have the money it is a treat that we truly enjoy. We were only getting a few stations after it switched over to hdtv here in a major city (we actually got more living out in the country). I don’t know that we’ll do it forever but for now it is one of those things worth the extra money to us. If we got new furniture my small children would just ruin it….ha!
I’ve come to the sad realization that I won’t be getting a new couch until after my childbearing years 🙂
We dropped our cable a year ago in June and only have internet and cell phones. we pay 40 dollars a month for internet from Att. We also share a netflix subscription with my brother and never have any problems using his account. He has his set up on ps3 and we have ours set up on wii and our computer. Fancast.com and casttv.com will air shows that are newer a day after the original air date and they are free. We tried nhl.com to watch hockey games but they also will not air in market games. That is the only area we have some trouble watching without cable.
There is also a way to make most tvs into computer monitors that way you can play anything off of your computer on your TV
I bought a wireless adapter system through compusa for less than 100 and I can get all of my shows when they are posted on their network
We gave up cable about 9 months ago and it has been SO freeing! My husband & I spend so much more time talking, reading, playing games together, etc. We use Hulu from time to time and we have a bunch of kid-friendly DVDs for our toddler. The only thing we’ve “missed” is the NFL, but even that is not worth paying for cable again, at least not to us.
If it’s available in your area, I highly recommend Clear Internet. We pay $40/month for high speed internet. We stream movies on Netflix ALL the time, and don’t have problems with speed. Also, with a three year old, she gets to watch the Nickelodeon shows she loves. We also use Hulu for some of our favorite shows.
We have our TV set up as our computer monitor, and have a wireless keyboard and mouse, so we can watch our shows on the big screen (which we bought with our income tax return). Of course, this only works if both your computer and TV have an HDMI connection.
So for internet and Netflix together, we only pay $50/month.
We also have Clear, but I wouldn’t recommend it, especially for an application like streaming movies/ television.
High volume users sometimes get their bandwidth capped for a short window (google “clear throttling”) . Think of it as the corporation putting you in time out and reducing your download speeds to where you can’t take advantage of things like Netflix or Hulu.
Of course none of this is advertised by Clear.
If anyone is going to ditch cable and rely on streaming entertainment, make sure your Internet Service Provider does not cap usage. Streaming HD movies will chew through bandwidth extremely quickly and you might find yourself paying for overage.
AT&T is starting to cap usage, there was an article today from the Yahoo home page. My husband and I are starting to wonder if we want to switch our internet from AT&T DSL to something else b/c of this cap usage. They say it would only affect 2% of users but not sure if we were watching High-def Netflix every day if we might go over. Any ideas for cheap internet?
…or simply pass on watching television altogether. Works well for me.
I grew up in a family with no television in the house. We read lots of books And btw, I earned an MBA from the #1 graduate business school in the USA, so it’s not as if I’m lacking anything…or out of the loop. I still do not have a television, but occasionally do catch some shows that I stream from the networks’ websites. I bought a house that had several built-in televisions, but removed them to sell for ca$h, because that’s what a smart “Broke Girl” and avid fan of the Money Saving Mom does!!
We stopped axed cable bill about 6 months ago! We were paying $72/month through DISH. That is $864 a year! We bought bunny ears for our flat screen and have been very happy! We get Fox, CBS, NBS, and Qubo (kids channel). We also bought a subscription to Netflix for $9.99/month and stream many shows. Since we have four kids, we don’t have much time for TV. When we have free time we are playing outside, reading a book, or cruising the internet! At one time, we didn’t pay for wireless either, we used wifi from my husbands cell phone! But he works 24 hour shifts and I needed the internet, so now we pay $44/month for wireless and home phone!
Well after my husband got laid off we literally had to go to basic everything, but once he got a job we still decided to not have cable. We pay $30 a month for internet, 7.99 for Netflix and 4.99 for Hulu on the PS3. Hulu is the best way to watch all the new shows on tv. I get dancing with the stars, biggest looser, and many more. I dont miss cable and sure dont miss the 60 cable bill
netflix is great unless you have folks in your home who enjoy watching sports, which are mostly telecast on non basic channels…we’ve gone all these routes and they just don’t offer the viewing options that live cable does…we were able to save quite a lot be switching from cable to a satelite package.
I loved checking out DVDs from the library – until I realized that about 90% are scratched and 35% are scratched sufficiently that I missed too much of the story and ruined the experience entirely. I alerted the library staff each and every time, but that couldn’t fix the problem of being halfway through a movie and unable to finish it, which is incredibly frustrating. At the begging of my significant other, we finally stopped checking them out from the library.
I’ve had a similar experience, and when I do report something as scratched to the librarians, they usually place it right back on the shelf again anyway. When the DVDs are in good condition, though, checking them out from the library for free is great.
hehehe, but you wouldn’t have to live with my husband who NEEDS his sport networks! Cable is worth it (at least right now, I foresee internet options increasing over time) right now!
my point exactly!
I’ve been thinking about ditching cable for awhile. I can’t wait to get out of my current contract… I feel like it is such an enormous expense and such a waste of money when you can go through the other options like you have explained.
We’ve never had cable either for a multitude of reasons. We did try making that same antenna and I have one word for anyone who might consider it: DON’T!! Its not worth the time, doesn’t work well, and as an added bonus, it fell and impaled my husband’s hand. The wires are sharp unless you take extra time to file them down.
I’m not very handy when it comes to stuff like that, so I wouldn’t even attempt it. Besides, I’m doubtful that it would pick up the signals in our area.
OUCH!
For those wanting to try this though…My husband decided to make our antenna and it works great. It sits in the corner of the top of our fireplace ledge and doubles as some sort of modern art looking thing 🙂
Ok apparently I am losing my mind because I can’t find the comment where somebody suggested the titantv website so whoever that was… thank you! I have antenna right now which nobody has mentioned is SOOOOOO much clearer to watch hdtv over antenna than standard cable or dish was when we had that. But anyway, that gives us a tvguide that actually accounts for the . channels. Like 68.1 is Ion (love this to watch Criminal Minds), 68.2 is Qubo (the kids love this for Magic Schoolbus), and 68.3 is Ion Life. In the guide in the paper it just has “68” so this is great. I know I could have looked up each channel individually but this is so much better 🙂
I got rid of cable about two years ago- I didn’t have cable and used Hulu and Netflix to watch all my favorite shows…but everything I watched wasn’t available and not only that, but I hated having to use my laptop. One thing I missed was Showtime & HBO series, which I had to go to a friends house every weekend to watch…which became a hassle.
What I decided to do ( because it is possible) is I subscribed to the basic cable package through the cable company, and I only add HBO & Showtime when the series I like to watch are coming on. Because the digital box isn’t included with my cable package and I need it to be able to watch HBO & SHO, I pay $1 a month to rent it….but it still saves a lot of money. I only pay about $13 a month, and there is always a discount on the two premium channels- for instance they are free for 6 months this time around. Once my series are off, I remove them and just go back to the basic package. It is a hassle to add it & remove it, but it saves me a lot of money.
I only pay $1 more a month to have cable & internet than I would to have internet by itself because of multi-product discounts…and I just have an entry level internet package. Its not the fastest speed, but it’s reliable & fast enough for me to stream movies through Netflix..which I LOVE that they now have a streaming only package, because that saves me more money. To sum it all up, I pay about $69 after taxes for TV, Internet & Netflix.
We bought a cable for $12 from Big Lots. It connects our laptop to our tv. We have a wireless internet router, so we can bring the laptop into the living room, plug it in to the wall, and then connect the cable between the laptop and the tv. This is even better than the Roku box and similar items, because I can watch video from ANYWHERE online (the box and similar items only let you watch from certain places); our tv screen is just a huge computer monitor this way. The clarity is great. We have watched Hulu, Netflix (we have had Netflix for very short periods of time), ESPN, Amazon (thank you MSM for the free movie codes!), our worldwide church General Conference from lds.org, and other videos from lds.org. Also, many tv stations let you watch through their websites, which we can also do.
We have the slowest cable modem speed available to minimize the cost. My husband works from home, so internet is a must for us.
We watch our TV from the main channels’ internet websites. We bought an HDMI cable through amazon (much cheaper than a retail store). We leave it hooked up to our tv and then when I want to watch something, I hook it up to my computer.
As for HGTV, Shannon, I just discovered that you can watch full episodes from their website as well. Love it!
we’ve tried to cancel our cable (which was limited and only $26 a month) but when I did they offered me a deal to stay and it computes to about $3 a month. When the first 6 months ended I called back to cancel and they extended it another 6 months.
Silly I know but what I love most is the digital radio channels without commercials! I have that on all the time! We do let baby (16 mo) watch Sprout TV for 10-15 min on occasion but that’s not a regular thing. I admit I do love to watch a few shows but would be more productive without it!
We had basic basic cable for the last year and a half. It was $15 a month, then they raised it to $20. We cancelled and got netflix. I actually enjoy the antenna more. 3 pbs channels with cooking and craft shows I never got with cable. Bonus! Even a 24 hr weather radar station.
We love Mad Men and pre-paid for last season for $20 and we own the episodes so can watch whenever. We buy through itunes or amazon, whoever is cheaper.
We ditched cable YEARS ago (15). Our daughters have never watched it other than our semi annual trip to grandmas. Then they only watch disney but only a little in the morning during snuggle time with grandma. There is almost nothing edifying on TV.
No cable for our whole marriage. It’s not just for financial reasons; we also don’t want to get sucked into wasting too much time. TV is too, too easy. It’s so easy to just sit there and watch the next show just because it starts, even if it something I wouldn’t have ordinarily thought of watching. But it takes a slight bit of effort to watch online or rent from Netflix or Redbox, so that helps us be more deliberate about our choices. My husband gets ESPN online free through our Internet service. Not all games, but a lot of them.
Bonus: when we travel, the kids are glued to the TV in the hotel room because those cable cartoons are a novelty!
This totally describes our family too, right down to the TV-transfixed kids in the hotel room!
We do all three. We get about 20 channels off the satellite, and there are tons of new shows on the netflix. Like someone else said, my kids have no idea what the ‘hot’ toys or food items are. We get PBS kids, which is commerical free.
The first few weeks we had this, I thought I was going to DIE without HGTV or Food Network. Now, I don’t even miss it. I realize now how cheesy some of those shows are now.
We had satellite which was killing our budget, and ditched it when we had our second child a year ago. We don’t miss too much, and have even found some great programming on PBS (we get a total of 7 PBS channels, and most of the time they have different things running on them). The one thing we do miss is sports. I’m huge into college football, and this last season was difficult for me. We tried pulling games off the internet to the tv, but it was pretty bad, and there weren’t many options. We found that if there is a game we have to see, we pay a visit to the grandparents. They spend time with the kids, and we get to watch the game. The money saved was WELL WORTH the sacrifice.
Just wanted to add, cable is definite want and not a need but if our “extreme couponing” (Sorry, couldn’t resist the new fun term!) allows that bit of wiggle room for TV, go for it!
TV is always a hot button issue. Families who choose to not have TV feel their choice is the best. Families who enjoy TV for family-friendly (ish) things like sports, HGTV, Food Network, ect. feel they are making the right decision.
For many families on tight budgets, TV is the only entertainment budget. We never ever go to movies or amusement parks. It IS possible to watch TV as a family and have it be positive. We love to cook along with Paula Deen or cheer on our favorite baseball team TOGETHER.
I totally agree. My husband and I have shows that we watch together and it’s a lot of fun. Right now we watch “The Killing” every Sunday night and spend the whole time talking about who we think the criminal is, theories, ect. It is entertaining and fun for both of us! In the fall we love to spend our Sunday afternoons cheering our favorite football teams. I would never get rid of my cable tv…we have plenty of money to pay for it and we both really enjoy having it. I think it’s worth every penny!!
Don’t forget about Hulu Plus! We stream it through our XBox…
I can’t live without HGTV. Seriously.
This made me laugh! My husband calls it Happy Girl TV. And although we don’t have cable, my mom Tivo’s my favorite shows so I can watch them later on.
I purchased a roku box ($79) got rid of FIOS and only have internet (49.99 a month) and download hundred of free movies and kid shows from netflix (7.99) a month….it beats the 113 plus I was pay a month by having cable…I dont miss tv at all !!!
Actually, there is no such thing as a high-definition antenna. HD refers to the picture quality, not the signal, which is still either in VHF or UHF. Our station engineers explain it by saying that the antenna picks up the signal, but you need the digital tuner to translate the languge–the language is what’s changed.
I’m using the rabbit ears I purchased several years ago, but sometimes you do need to upgrade because the quality of the coax cable in the antenna isn’t strong enough to maintain the integrity of the digital signal.
Digital signals also don’t get weaker or more static-filled as you move away from the tower. They just drop off. It’s called the shelf effect. The signal is either strong enough or it isn’t, there is no in-between. In many places people are discovering that they need outdoor antennas again. AND–the FCC has ruled that housing covenants cannot prohibit outdoor antennas, so don’t let your neighborhood association tell you differently.
Another thing to note about over-the-air broadcasters is that many of them multi-cast — air multiple channels. The public television station where I work broadcasts three channels (11.1, 11.2, and 11.3). And all three of the major commercial networks are airing two channels. Without cable we still receive 13-14 channels.
We have not had cable or an antenna for over a year and it has been great! We don’t watch shows on our computer either. Once a week, we rent 2 movies form Redbox (one for the kids and one for us). Getting rid of TV altogether has been great for our family. We no longer stay up late watching shows so we get plenty of sleep. Our kids don’t scream about the toys they want from the commercials on TV. Our boys (3 and 5) spend way more time outside playing and playing with each other then any of the kids in the neighborhood and sleep great because they get lots of fresh air and exercise.
We have not missed it one bit. Even for the Superbowl, we went to a friend’s house for a party and enjoyed the company of others much more than the show itself. It’s really amazing how you are forced to talk with your spouse and children when the TV isn’t around to distract all of you. My husband and I’s communication is much better now. And since we have more energy from getting more sleep, we get less irritated with each other and the kids
If you really think you need your TV, think about what you are watching and why. Then, find those means elsewhere… cooking shows? buy a family cookbook or take some cooking lessons. American Idol? buy a karaoke machine and have a family night. Husband loves football? for $600/year, buy him some tickets to a few games or play with the kids in the back yard. Even Nascar, for $600 you could drive and attend a real live race – TOTALLY something worth doing if you are a fan.
Really, TV is NOT a necessity in life.
it’s certainly not a necessity, but if you have a very limited entertainment budget then tv is a wonderful way to enjoy watching something together. Also, for $600 you can maybe go to ONE or two sporting even per year (and certainly not any play off game) or watch/dvr anything you want to be watched in the comfort of home. We definitely budget our time with all electronics, not just tv which forces my kids to use discernment with how they will spend their allotted time. They get plenty of fresh air and sleep long hours at night. I have no problem saying no when my kids ask for toys they don’t need as well. I have learned many tips from certain cooking shows that I would never have gleaned from books (which I also utilize) Mainly because when it comes to learning things I am a visual person. I think that if no tv is your family’s goal, then so be it. But for many of us it is a great value for the cost.
I agree with you 100%. Thanks for posting this. Our son is 2.5 and we limit his time watching tv, but he does enjoy watching some of his favorite shows – Thomas, Curious George, Micky Mouse, etc. For us it is worth the expense, and we’ve made cuts other places.
I would love to be able to use an antenna, but I live in a remote mountainous area. Unfortunately, getting satellite service is a must if you want to watch tv in my area. What I did is got in on a good introductory deal on a more expensive package and will change to the cheapest plan (w/o HBO or Cinemax) after the intro period is over. Also, I use the library for DVDs and take advantage of free offers for Redbox. Internet TV is another option, but then you have to pay for high-speed or broadband, so it seems like six of one or half dozen of the other.
We have done away with cable completely and are so much better off for it. I recently wrote a blog posting on being Cable Free for 6 Months and all the wonderful benefits to our family. You can view it here http://jhchandler.blogspot.com/2011/05/cable-free-for-6-months.html
It’s a personal decision for our family. It was hard at first but we realized that time in front of the TV was time away from building strong relationships with our children.
YEAHHH!!! Us too. It is so worth it!
We dropped cable for Netflix a few years ago and never looked back. Now that Netflix Instant has a huge selection, it’s perfect – pretty much like having a giant DVD library ready for you, without the trouble of actually opening the DVD box and going through those annoying unskippable trailers.
Another bonus? No commercials. You wouldn’t BELIEVE how freeing this is! My daughter is 2 1/2 and she doesn’t know what Disney Princesses are (other than that they’re on her pull-ups!), doesn’t recognize any of the sugared cereal mascots, doesn’t plead with me to buy XYZ toy when we’re at the store . . . I know she’ll be exposed to all the peer pressure to have the newest coolest popular fad toy once she gets to kindergarten, but by that point she’ll be old enough to understand what a “commercial” is.
I find it really freeing, too. When we’re visiting family and I get the chance to watch TV, all the commercials are actually new and funny because I haven’t seen them before. TV isn’t all “reruns” – I can turn on my parents’ TV at some random time and find something interesting to watch that I haven’t seen before, even if it’s been aired several times previously. Plus, I don’t see all the promos for “watch this new show now!” so I don’t really miss it. I watch a few things online, watch some on Netflix, and don’t even notice missing the others.
We did the same thing a few years ago, and we love Netflix. 🙂
One thing I would suggest is calling your cable/satellite company and asking them for a credit. We were going to cancel our satellite services, and when I called they gave me credits that made it work for us. With bundled service, and the credits, we pay less that $40.00 for our TV, and that includes 2 DVRs. We’ve been customers for several years, and good companies do value their customers and want to keep you using their service. Just a thought!
Only some states have libraries that rent DVD’s for free. Other states charge. MI charges and it is a little cheaper than a movie rental store, but not much, plus is you live in a small town there is a very limited selection and qty. of each title
We’re fortunate to live in a place where we can check out DVDs for free from the library. There is limited selection, though, and sometimes the DVDs are scratched and unplayable–especially the kids’ movies, which are what we usually check out.
We’re another household that can’t drop cable/satellite because of sports. We have directv (it was the best deal) and it’s bad enough that we only get certain Phillies games a month (Comcast has a lock on most games). Probably 90% of my television viewing is sports and online streaming for those events, when not blacked out, doesn’t work well.
Netflix streaming is fantastic for children’s shows. It’s great to sit through an episode of Dora or Phineas and Ferb and not have to listen to my children say “Mommy, can we get that…” while watching the commercials.
We went with basic cable for several years until they doubled the price of it. Then we switched to just an antenna, which fortunately came with our house when we bought it, so it is truly free for us. We also LOVE Netflix and find it to be an invaluable asset especially for homeschooling. I just wanted to make sure you knew that they also offer a no-disc option for $8 a month, which adds up to a savings of $24 a year from the disc option. You still have unlimited instant play, but cannot borrow the physical DVDs. Since they offer so much, including several newer movies, on instant play, it has not been an issue for us. We also have our computer connected to the tv via HDMI cable (purchased on amazon for MUCH less than the stores here were selling them for) so that we can watch tv shows that are not on instant play, but are available from other online locations.
Yup, can’t quit it because of the sports. That is the only reason we have it anyway. We always redbox or blockbuster movies but with hockey, football, american football, mlb, nba, etc. etc. etc., we have to have it. You can find some games online but the streaming is ALWAYS HORRIBLE. My husband doesn’t do much for himself and is always busy so it’s an expense we just do at our house. I guess you could call it his monthly gift from me.
My hubby winds down at the end of the day by finding some, any sports to watch while I do the bathtime/bedtime routine with the little one. It is a nice gift to our husbands 🙂
Yes, exactly. My husband freely admits that the only reason we have cable TV is because he really wants our children to grow up watching baseball with him. (Red Sox, as we’re in Massachusetts.) Since we are inside the “home” region for the team, it’s the only way to watch the games unless it’s a rare weekend game covered by a major channel (Fox, I think?)
For the majority of our TV watching, we do the tips above – digital w/antenna, Netflix, and Hulu.
for $600/year you could buy him tickets to real games. That would be a great gift!
I’m with Taters… The ONLY reason we keep cable is for sports. While we are season ticket holders to one of his favorite teams. Going to a game doesn’t replace nightly Sports Center, or watching a game over again (which he is currently doing as I type). Daily sports is his outlet. If there were a better option where we could get the sports he’s interested in over the internet, we would absolutly do it. But sadly, we have not found that option.
This is the beauty of this site…we all share our opinions and what works for our family. I’m happy having cable, and we cut back in other ways that other families may not. Saving money isn’t about how you can get rid of everything possible, it’s about being a good steward of what God’s given you. That’s why I come to this site…I get ideas for things that may work for us, and learn about what works for other people. No one should have to justify why they do or don’t have cable. There are more important things in life 🙂
Amen sista!
Well said, TatersMa! I just wrote a lengthy comment explaining exactly why we have cable now, but that we didn’t have it for many, many years. I deleted the comment. Like you said, no explanation needed 🙂 I’m like you in that having cable is a gift to my husband.
As a heads up, if you live in a house thy still has an antenna on the roof you don’t need to buy a separate HD antenna. You can get your local channels in HD over it. We got rid of cable almost 2.5 years ago and it has been great. Between Hulu and the antenna we can watch most shows we want. Even purchasing the DVDs is less then what we were spending on cable.
There is no such thing as an HD antenna. While the box in which the antenna is sold may contain the words “DTV Antenna” or “HDTV Antenna,” the analog and digital television signals share the same frequency bands (low-VHF, high-VHF, and UHF) and therefore can be picked up (i.e., received) with the same antenna.
And, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits neighborhood associations from restricting outdoor antennas in housing covenants. http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html
Exactly. I think it’s kind of misleading for antenna manufacturers to market them as digital antennas when an antenna (even a homemade one) picks up both digital and analog signals. I was just reading reviews on indoor antennas because we rent a townhome and can’t install an outdoor antenna on our building, but I would really like to be able to receive regular TV broadcasts. (We cancelled cable several years ago and signed up for Netflix instead.) We’re about 30-35 miles from the TV stations in our area, so we would need a moderately strong antenna. We used a cheap antenna with our old TV before the switch to digital, but it never worked very well even for analog broadcasts and couldn’t pick up the digital signals at all.
I agree. We just use a cheap regular antenna to get our HD programming. I have hooked up to our TV and then one hooked up to our computer, which we use as our DVR.
Yes, this. I think it’s also a bit misleading for this article to say that people need to shell out $40+ for an HD antenna when a basic $10 one picks up HD channels just fine.
There can be a difference in how well certain antennas work though. We haven’t had cable or sattelite since we’ve been married and don’t watch much TV at all even with our convertor box.
However, we when used our old rabbit ears antenna after everthing swtiched to digital it didn’t pick up very many channels. We spent around $25 on a new “digital” antenna and it picked up much more channels than our old one. I’m sure if we had an antenna in our attic or roof it would work even better, but our antenna sitting on top of the TV picks up around 20 channels.
I get what you’re saying about there being a difference in what different antennas pick up. Your rabbit ears antenna was probably a simple dipole antenna. However, they now make antennas that look mostly like what you would call rabbit ears, but they also have an UHF loop so you can also get channels broadcast on UHF. And yes, they’re only $10. What I’m trying to say is that it’s not an issue of HD antennas versus non-HD antennas. There’s no such thing.
We used to have a cheap rabbit-ears antenna with a UHF loop before the switch to digital, but where we live it barely picked up the analog signals and didn’t work at all for digital signals. Even though there’s really no such thing as an HD antenna, there can be huge differences in how well an antenna works due to factors like distance from TV stations, terrain, obstructions (trees, tall buildings), proximity to airports, what type of building a person lives in, how high the antenna is placed, etc. We can’t install an outdoor antenna, and we’re too far away from the transmitters in our area to use a cheap $10 antenna. So sometimes to get an antenna that works for a certain location, it really does cost more. Still, I was able to find a stronger, amplified rabbit-ears type of antenna for $30 that works for us (VHF plus UHF loop, but I didn’t even attach the rabbit ears because all of our local stations are broadcasting on the UHF band). I’m happy that for a one-time cost of less than a month of cable, we can watch all the free broadcast channels in our area. With that and Netflix, I don’t miss cable at all.
Yes! I was coming to say this exact same thing. We just hooked up with antenna that had been on our roof unused since the 1980’s and it works perfectly for all the HD channels! No need to make or buy anything new if you used to watch tv over the airwaves you still can!
I have been wanting to ditch our TV service for YEARS, especially since we do not turn the TV on when our children are awake. My husband has finally agreed to it when he calculated what we were spending per hour of TV viewing. Since we only watch about 2 hours a night after the kids go to bed–and that is often a Netflix movie–we realized that we were paying a ridiculous amount of money each month to watch Law and Order reruns.
We have a Roku box that sends our Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon movies to our TV. The box was about $80, but it’s very easy to set up and use. (We did have a computer hooked up to the TV for Netflix viewing, but we had to swap out cables to use it and log on with a wireless keyboard and use a remote to get it to work…I told my husband that I wanted something simpler than this.)
We rent movies from Amazon when we really want to watch a new release and can’t wait for it to come through Netflix. We primarily use Amazon to watch TV shows that we enjoy (Mythbusters and DirtyJobs. Because we are kind of geeky.). We pay $1-$2 per episode, but even at that rate, we are paying far less in entertainment than we would with actual satellite or cable service.
Some channels (like TNT) also have websites that allow you to watch the most recent episode of some of their shows (like The Closer) for free.
We have also found that getting rid of satellite service has increased our productivity. We used to have the TV on just because it was there, all the time. Now that there isn’t a bunch of junk on TV to fill the background noise, we just turn on the radio if we need to break the silence while we work (I work online from home, and he does some programming contract work on the side). We talk more; we read more; we just do more things together, like jigsaw puzzles or what have you. Now that we are without TV service, it is amazing–and a little sad–to see just how much of our life was spent (wasted!) staring at that screen instead of being actively engaged in our lives.
We LOVE our Roku too! We’ve had it for several years and it has saved us so much $$ and we “feel” like we have cable!
So glad someone suggested the Roku! Such a good idea! If your husband is a sports nut then there might be a fight to give up ESPN. Still working on that.
I have never heard of Roku! Sounds like a great idea. The main reason we still have cable (expensive digital cable even) is b/c it is SO handy to just be able to grab a dvr’d episode of Dora or Mickey Mouse or whatever for the kids so I can make supper or mop the floors, etc. Can you do this with a Roku? I can honestly live without tv for my own use (and dh would be fine too), but I don’t know if I could give up the kid side of it, as sad as that soudns! Any advice for this?
You instantly stream many episodes of Dora and other shows like it on Netflix.
Yup, there are lots of shows for kids to watch instantly on Netflix. My girls LOVE Blue’s Clues, so that’s one that I use a lot. They also have a few seasons of Fraggle Rock that we watch often…and that’s just as much for my husband and me as it is for the kids. 🙂
Yes, netflix has an awesome collection of kids shows that you can stream on the roku!
What about sports? I’m a NASCAR fan and my husband likes NFL and NBA. We’ve considered going without cable but would still like to view our favorite sports without having to go to sports bars.
Mary Ellen
The Working Home Keeper
My hubby was worried about the same thing when we made the decision to go cable – less two years ago. He watches a number of games online through ESPN. If there’s a big game we don’t want to miss we hang out with my parents or a friend’s house w/ cable so that we can all watch the big game together.
my husband does the same. watches what he can online, but for the big games we go to the parents. They love the visit and he still gets to watch the big games!.. plus a free dinner here and there is always helpful!
The games and races are online but unless you have super fast speed Internet and a new computer, you are going to get very annoyed. To us women, this may not matter but your husband may care a lot. The streaming on sports channels online is really bad. If you stream them through your tv, its even worse. Plus, if two things are on, like two games on Sunday, you can’t start watching another game like you would just flip a channel. You have to wait awhile to swap the game. In my opinion if you are sports buffs like us, you should keep the cable and ditch something else. We actually don’t have cell phones, just a pay as you go for emergencies. I don’t want to be on call anyways. I’ll take the switch.
Right on! We are Netflixers all the way. We paid for cable once about 6 years ago. We’ll never do it again, just way to expensive for us.
We have thougt about it but have decided we have made so many other cuts I want to keep cable! Good ideas though….
we’re sort of ‘trapped’ by needing great internet access. To compensate, we trimmed down to the smallest tier that would allow the net access we need.
All You did an article on this topic a few months back and that is what helped me finally ditch cable. When I first moved in to my new apartment I tried to use my antenna but it wouldn’t produce any channels. Then for Christmas, we got a new TV and I was finally able to get almost* all the basic channels with my antenna.
One website that All You listed that really helped me in making my decision was titantv.com. You input you zip code and they tell you what channels should be available with you antenna. Now, they listed a bunch I don’t get so don’t get to excited when you first see the list. I ditched the cable company a few months ago and could not be happier.
One last though- why pay for the box/service to record live TV when most shows can be played on the internet? You can start, stop, and pause whenever you want for free.
*For some reason, I can’t get CBS or CW which are common antenna channels. I just watch the shows online.
Jessica–
If you haven’t done so recently, you may want to run a new channel scan on your TV or converter box, whichever you’re using. I couldn’t get my ABC affiliate for awhile because they were using a lower channel number (lower numbers have more problems with their signals). Now they’re using channel 50 and showing up on 5. One of the engineers here at the station told me, I rescanned and voila! I receive them now.
We got rid of our satellite 2 years ago when DH was laid off. We havc not missed anything. I wish we would have wised up many, many years ago. We would have saved over $20,000. Crazy, isn’t it? We use an antenna, watch online, Hulu, etc.
We went without cable for 1 year and then last year when we got our taxes we paid a lump sum for a years worth of cable and interent. Well now the bills are coming in and it is $97.50 a month! It we cut the cable out of the deal it only drops $17 so we are dealing with it for now but it is not easy! I wish cable would let you just pay for what you use….lol. I have been thinking of going back to the converter box and then the netflix which would save us money.
We don’t watch much TV at all. However, our internet is through the cable company so the cable is free! It’s the only internet available here in the sticks, so I’m not complaining at all! (It’s about $30 each month.)
wow $30 would be nice!
wow cable and internet for $30 is great. I have to pay that much here just for the internet and I have the cheapest stuff available in my area (besides dial up which I just wouldn’t do)
My husband works for DirecTV so we pay a whopping $10 a month ($5 per month for the HDdvr and $5 a month for extra HD channels). We also get almost all of the sports packages for free, so it is totally work the $120/year! When he doesn’t work there anymore, there’s no chance we’ll pay the $350 a month to keep the package we have no. We went without TV for our whole marriage until he got this job, we’ll do it again :]
One thing you can do is DirectTv will let you put your account on hold for up to 6 months. That way you can see if you can go with out cable.
I SO agree. There are things we want, and things we need…cable is not a need for us.
We had it once upon a time, when it required that little grey box with a red digital chanel number box (I’m that old!). I gave cable up once I left home 12 years ago. 🙂 Too much life to live and too much trash on TV for us and our 3 kids. Though I do miss Discovery Channel and HGTV (discovered that while in the hospital, giving birth!).
Thanks for your site and postings!
Melanie
Discovery Channel and HGTV have many of their shows online, some on Hulu for free.
No cable or Netflix here; we watch many of our favorite cable shows from TLC online free. Our library charges $.75 per dvd now; with increased gas costs even that splurge is adding up with our large family vehicle.
We always had a very modest satellite bill, but even 30-40 a month is alot of money! Last year we had it shut off and used the antennae idea. One station we get is kind of like TVLand but with much better programs.We loved it! We did decide the first of the year to go with Netflix for $7.99 a month instead getting movies from Redbox(it is a hassle to make a special trip to return them). We have it streamed through our Wii and will never go back to paying a cable/satellite bill again! It is not worth it.
My husband said he found a DVD player that would stream the Netflix also. The only thing he misses is Fox news, but listens to the same people on the radio.
I agree, although we do not have the antenna (good idea though!). We haven’t had cable for one year now – it’s hard, but we are able to watch tv online. I hook an HDMI cable from my laptop to our big screen tv so we can watch just as if we had tv!
Thanks for you post – love reading them 🙂
Shanna
We have considered getting rid of cable, but can’t possibly convince my family simply because it’s the only way we get to watch our hometown MLB baseball games 🙂
We do get good bundled rates, though, by having our cable/internet/phone through the cable company. We save at least $50/month doing this.
It might be possible to watch these games online. Probably this works differently in different markets. I think my husband found he could pay a yearly fee to see all of his favorite team’s games (need to check this out further).
You could feed your computer to your t.v. to watch it on the t.v. screen, which is what we do.
MLB.com restricts in-market games. You can only watch the games that are out-of-market. But, although I have previewed it, the quality of the picture is not very good, and seems to skip a lot. I would probably need to buy a new, faster, TV capable computer, which would cost more than a year of cable 🙂
The MAC mini was about $600 (we paid cash), but works with the TV and no monitor…yes about a year of cable, but a longer investment with more uses , than giving it to the cable company!
We are the same! Watching sports is a social thing here, and would be impossible to crowd people around a computer
I can vouch for the homemade antenna. My father-in-law actually made one for us & it works great!:)
Don’t forget Hulu! Free shows!
How do you get the Internet without cable? If we downgrade our cable to just Internet, it actually costs more than basic cable and Internet. I know that seems crazy, but it is true. Wish we could get Internet through a high def. antenna.
DSL is available through your phone line in most areas that get cable. I don’t believe you have to have a land-line, it just costs a little more. We pay less than $40 for a home phone and DSL with ATT.
This works IF you don’t want to watch netflix or something through your internet. DSL is just not sufficient for streaming…
We have DSL and watch Netflix streaming through the bluray player every day with no problems. I have run into problems occasionally when we try to watch 2 shows in two different rooms at the same time though.
My family lives in MA and we pay $40 a month for just internet. We decided not to get the cable added even though they tried and tried to give us these great deals. We did the antenna thing. Brenda who is your service provider? I have a hard time believing its more to bundle than to have a single service.
It’s true for us, too. Removing cable from our package would result in an increase of $12 per month for our high-speed internet (which I choose to maintain so that I can have work-from-home flexibility – my employer allows is as long as I maintain that access). DSL is not available where we live so internet plus cable it is, at least for the foreseeable future.
It is true for my family too. Internet by itself is around $80 but if you bundle internet and cable they are $40 each, making your bill $80.
Our service provider is Charter…it’s the only choice for cable in our area. I have to make numerous calls each year my 12 month service agreement is up to renegotiate with them. They usually have to go to management to get our rate down to $58. If you do JUST Internet alone, it is $66 in our area. They have told me that when you downgrade your service, you lose all of the “specials” that bring your rate down.
In terms of DSL, others in our area use it and they say it is awful. We have not had a land line for over 6 years, so that is how we have trimmed back. Wish we could trim cable b/c we really don’t watch TV.
I guess the point of the article is to trim somewhere…whether it be land line or cable. But in our wired world, it is hard to get rid of Internet. Tried using the Internet at the public library for two years, but now homeschool and tutor, so I need the Internet. We trimmed down to one car 12 years ago, so it is not feasible to get to the library when many days I don’t have the car.
I agree with you! We’ve trimmed in this area all we can without just doing away with internet. We also found that dropping the internet increased our rate with Charter. My hubby negotiates with them often and keeps finding the greatest deals.
While Charter may be the only source for cable, you probably could find more options for internet service….If I had good neighbors and we could boost signal enough, I would split the internet cost and just have everyone use the WIFI…the cable companies are SUCH A RIPOFF, especially for something that CAN be totally free!
I think what you’re paying for the bundle is pretty reasonable considering we pay $54 for internet alone. I think? It just went up again.
We do the streaming thing for Netflix and Hulu through our gaming systems (which aren’t necessarily frugal, of course). What we worry about is how long before the cable companies get wise to this and start limiting streaming access. Until then U plan to keep enjoying my streaming!
We have Charter as well. We cut our cable 4 years ago and have been negotiating our rate for internet with Charter ever since. We actually signed up for a 2 year plan with them that gives us a rate of 29.99 a month for our internet. We knew that we would not be moving and knew that internet is a staple so it was a good deal for us. You might want to check and see if they still over that.
Not sure where you live but, I live in Northern Michigan and we only pay 19.99 for Charter internet. We signed up for the Internet Lite Service (what it’s called on our bill) about 4 months ago. My in-laws also have it and only pay $19.99 and they do not carry Charter for their cable service. So it might be possible to lower your service. I would call and ask. They will probably tell you that it makes you service much slower and all but we have not really noticed a difference. Hope this might help 🙂
Me too- cable alone is more than cable and internet and we are in MA also.
we live in the chicago suburbs and we pay for Clear internet. $49 a month and its 4g. not the fastest in the world but sufficient for streaming netflix
Luckily, I currently live in a place where I can buy just DSL for $50/month. However, I do understand your pain, because before this townhome I lived in a place where only cable internet was available and it was the same price to get cable and internet through them. Frustrating, I know. Hopefully some of these ideas will work for you.
Same situation here. I actually called yesterday to cancel our t.v. since it went up almost $20 unexpectedly. To my surprise it would cost more to have just internet alone, since our internet price was a promtional that was only valid with some cable package. I think the prices are insane, and if Internet wasn’t such an important part of our homeschool/daily life/business, I’d cancel it all together.
I agree! We had the same problem. We wanted to get rid of cable & it was MORE to keep just the internet than it was to have cable & internet. AND we don’t have DSL available “yet” in our area (even though the neighbor next door can get it, it hasn’t been extended down our road).
I was thinking that too! And Crackle has some free tv shows too. 🙂
Great advice on ways to cut the costs, thanks for sharing. It is possible to cut down the cost even more. We have never had cable in our household, it is one expense we decided wasn’t worth paying for because we need that cash for other areas in our budget. Although you have to decide what’s best for your family it is possible to watch TV and movies (legally) without paying for cable or an antennae.
There are 3 main reasons we do not have cable in our household:
1. It consumes a lot of time – there are plenty of constructive projects, outdoor activities, and fun moments to be shared with our family and friends during our time at home.
2. There are plenty ways to watch TV for free – Hulu, Free Movies from RedBox, Blockbuster and more.
3. It costs extra money – we have more flexibility in our budget by cutting out cable plus we have the opportunity to give to others.
I love watching TV and Movies as much as anyone else. Our family has “movie nights” and watches free TV whenever time allows, it’s just not a daily activity for us.
I was just going to say, you can skip the whole antenna thing and just do HULU for networks shows.
We have a MAC mini, which is a powerful little computer that hooks up to our plasma tv instead of a monitor. With the cable modem we can go to HULU and watch our shows in High Def on the TV!
When we move out of my moms, we are not going to sign up for anything other than internet and just use these methods.
We do that too with a mac mini and vizio flat screen instead of a monitor. A lot of the networks have their shows up even if they’re not on Hulu. That and the library gets it all done for us.