Ahh I’ve been waiting to do this post for a while and I gotta say I’m pumped! Mr. Not So Paleo and I did something that some might see as drastic…others are going to think I’ve lost my marbles and some will be excited. That’s right we no longer have cable… You ok? I know..it’s shocking, it’s scary… but it’s awesome!
Me.. the Queen of TV Movie Marathons, Cooking Shows and love of all things HGTV just said… I LOVE not having cable.
When you break down how much you actually watch TV {and I mean watch… not just have it on as background noise} what are you going to say…. a few hours if that? Do you even like what you’re watching? Is it even adding to you being productive. For me it was hurting instead of helping. I’d put it on for noise but then get sucked in… dinner wouldn’t get cooked when it should, I’d end up having to stay up later to edit because x,y and z was so “interesting” {but in reality it wasn’t}.
Our cable bill with taxes Was: $175.00 / month.
Our Cable Bill Now With Taxes: $62.00 / month
That’s a $113.00 / month SAVINGS
What did I get before?
• Middle Cable Package
• High-Speed Internet
• DVR
• Modem Rental
• Free HBO {for a year}
• Home Phone {That I never used, but because we included it made everything else cheaper}.
What Do I have Now?
• High-Speed Internet.
That’s right.. just that. You’ve got to check out your cable bill…. I mean I was paying $7.00 / month for my modem alone. Went online, got one from amazon for $28.00. Boom, it’s done.. after a few months it’ll pay for itself {and it’s actually a better modem then the one I had been using….so my internet is freaking rocking right now!}.
We did get Mr. Not So Paleo an MLB TV subscription and we do have netflix {we had netflix before though the MLB TV was the only add-on}. And our TV is new enough that it picks up the basic digital channels. So Football won’t really be a problem for us either. And I LOVE netflix. I get it on my TV {through the PS3}, iPhone, iPad and iMac. Same thing with the MLB TV. So if he wants to watch baseball and I want to geek out to star trek…we can both do it and not fight over the TV..another bonus right? Heck I can even bring my iPad into the kitchen and load up a movie if I’m going to be in there for a while cooking and doing dishes!
And here’s the thing. When I watch a TV show or a Movie now, I’m enjoying it more. I’m enjoying the one-on-one time with Mr. Not So Paleo. I don’t feel like I have to be doing something else, because I’ve already done because I’m not distracted by said TV playing the “White Noise”
And for the TV Shows that I can’t miss? Like BBCs Sherlock Holmes? Amazon.com offers TV Show and Movie Streaming for a reasonable price {let’s say for a whole season you spend $20.00…} that’s $20.00 versus $175.00 and you’re watching when you want where you want.
So evaluate your TV watching and your cable bill… do you ever use your home phone? Do you actually need all those channels? Can you buy your own modem and hook it up and save $7/month? Do you need the DVR? Even taking off one thing could save you some money.
Now go forth and explore!
I am SO praud of you though I don’t know you!!! 😀
I think I’ve been living without TV for a year now and it feels GREAT!
Congratulations on this WONDERFULL disicion! 🙂
I cut our cable the end of last year and I have to say, it is one of the best decisions I have made. We are saving $138 every month and we still get to watch all of our favorite shows, even current episodes. We just use free services such as hulu to watch them. We also kept our Netflix but that may be going sometime soon, we’ll see. My TV is older so I’m not able to pick up any local channels though…an upgrade might be in order. 😉
We pay around $100/mo for cable & super, super fast internet (Verizon FIOS). We rarely use the TV aspect, usually watching our favorite network shows later on when they’ve gone online on the network’s site (like Burn Notice or Castle). I don’t think Verizon would let us drop the cable for some reason, but it would save us about $20-30 a month if we could! We love our super fast internet for gaming and streaming, it’s totally worth it.
I got rid of everything except for high speed internet in May. I already had Netflix and added on Hulu Plus so that I could watch some stuff still on my TV; the rest I catch online. Ended up saving about $100 a month.
Congrats. My directv bill is $53 a month and I think that’s too much! My kids shudder when I tell them I want to cancel it. I was just looking at alternatives this week so this post was very timely for me. I bought a Mohu Leaf Indoor antenna to pick up locals over the air. I’m now looking into Netflix and Amazon for other alternatives. Thanks for the post.
Just FYI, you can catch recently aired episodes, commercial free, of Sherlock Holmes on masterpiecetheatre.com. Episodes are available the day after an episode is aired although, there have been times I have been able to view an episode later in the evening on the actual day it airs. I just watch it on my computer. The episodes are available for viewing for about three weeks.
Teri you totally rock!!! I’m so excited for that! I freaking love Sherlock 🙂