Save Money & Your Brain - Get Rid of Cable TV

[GiftBlogger]

I'm shocked at how expensive cable TV is. My bill for Time Warner basic cable is over $50/month and I'm considering getting rid of it. Most TV show highlights and news are available online and if I had to choose between internet access and cable, I would definitely go with the former. Use the TV to watch movies from Netflix and spend the rest of your new free time outside enjoying the world.

Have any of you gotten rid of cable or Direct TV? Do you feel reborn? Let's hear your thoughts.

[disneysteve]

We are actually relatively new to cable. We got it just over 2 years ago. Just had an antenna until then. But we got limited basic. Our monthly bill is $11.30 which I think is perfectly reasonable and I have no intention of canceling it if it stays in that price range.

[Daylily]

I have not had cable or dish for nine years and I love it!
(of course I probably spend too much time on the internet!)

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

The only TV we have is via antenna. Many of my friends have no tv at all, so I don't even see cable or satellite when I visit most people. The main time I see TV is when we travel and turn it on in a motel room. Summers when we have been on the road a lot, I was almost convinced to get cable at home. There really are some worthwhile things that I was missing. But out of sight, out of mind ---so I don't think I'll be extending our TV any. At this point in my life it just wouldn't add much. Maybe if I'm ever bedridden for a couple of weeks or more and can't concentrate to read, I could use the more effortless entertainment.

So how much money have I saved over the years since cable became available? I don't even have any idea how long it has been available here. No wait, I do think I remember that around 1983 all but one of our city council members were indicted for accepting kickbacks in the assignment of utility pole rights. So how much money must I have saved since 1983? (Heck, back then I did not even have a TV.)

[fruitbowlk]

We got rid of cable when we moved in Dec. My husband doesn't like it but i told him that he can get it if he pays the cable bill. I guess he doen't want cable because we still don't have it. LOL

[Caoineag]

We only have the absolute basic and only because its actual cost to us is $5 and it adds 2mb to our cable modem speed. (If we cancelled basic, our internet would cost $10 more and be slower).

[Broken Arrow]

Me no cable for more than 2 years now....

Maybe get it again some day. Time will tell.

[PrincessPerky]

No cable, and for mindless entertainment the antenna works for now. (wont next year)

this week happens to be one of those where I need the mindless entertainment...can't sleep because I can't breath (horrible cold) Pre- antenna I used movies... fortunately I have a 5 disk dvd changer for just such a time as this (I can think of no other reason to need 5 dvds than the pleasure of not having to get up to change the DVD while sick.)

[Fizgig]

I definitely spend too much on cable/internet, about $120/mo.

My justification is that I have a renter in a garage apartment who uses the same service. He likes it a lot, and half the bill is incorporated into the rent so I'd only get a 50% benefit by downsizing my service.

A rationalization, yes, but I'm sticking with it.

It'd be interesting to try a no-TV week, though. I'd probably come up with all sorts of neat things to spend my evening hours on.

[zakity]

We don't have cable, but we do have cable internet. DH's work pays for it.

We just bought the converter boxes. One of the boys asked we had gotten cable. We went from four channels to thirteen. One of the twins is in absolute heaven because there are four PBS channels now.

[geojen]

We just moved to our new (to us) house in the country so no cable available. We took the opportunity to NOT get satellite and free ourselves from the TV. I can honestly say, I don't miss it at all. We get netflix, and you can get a lot of tv series from that. For example, I have started watching the Ghost Whisperer and Charmed because I get them from netflix. Pretty cool.

If we have an SDTV, do we need a converter box in feb? Will our antenna still work or does that need a converter as well?

[poundwise]

I can appreciate not having cable or satellite, however, the whole "save your brain" part is a bit off IMO.

Though many pay channels only deliver outright tripe, the over-the-air programming isn't much better. With pay service, you can also choose to watch History, Discovery, A&E, AMC, TCM, etc. not to mention the additional sports programming.

Even so, I love the line from the beginning of the movie The Princess Bride, when Peter Falk as an elderly grandpa says to a young Fred Savage...

"When I was your age... television was called books."

[LuxLiving]

I'd love to! Hubster says No Way!

[PauletteGoddard]

I haven't had cable since July 1996.

I know I'm missing good stuff. However, I'm overscheduled as it is. My brain isn't really improving or even being maintained without network programming:

* I can watch DVD box sets of television shows. However, as many of them are due back in a week this makes for a couch potato existence.

* some pulp novels and stories are brainless entertainment, either by radio or by book.

* Youtube: preserved nostalgia and peephole of base entertainment. My household has enough problems with screen media beyond commercial network television

* I am still waiting for a la carte offerings from the cable conglomerate.

[SnoopyCool]

We have been married 8 years and have only had an antenna. We recently put our t.v. in a closet. We do have a small one in our bedroom, but that is usually for movies. I am loving that we don't watch that much t.v. now that it is put away!

[dexter]

We just shut ours off. We live in the boonies and it was the only reception we had but we figure if the world is going to blow up, we'll just read about it on the net. lol

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Last night I went down to the cellar to where we keep our tv. It had been so long since I'd watched it, I could not remember what our local channels were. Nope, no need to add on cable, though like others here we might sometime in the future like to have cable internet.

[MomofFour]

Where we live, we don't have the option to have cable. We do have satelitte, the basic "family" package, it costs about $20 a month. I have seriously considered cancelling it many times, but the kids do like discovery kids and the animal planet!

[kork13]

I'm like many others, and i pretty much stopped watching TV about 6 years ago, even when my family still had cable... just found it to be (mostly) a waste of time. Some good stuff on there, but I haven't missed it too much. I'm moving into my first apartment this July, and I'm not sure what my roommates will think on the issue... not sure how to tackle that one, but whatever. Personally, I'm a fan of Netflix, especially now that alot of the good TV series are being put onto DVD.

[maat55]

I lowered mine to basic a couple of months ago and am not missing much, except HGTV.