No More Cable!
A year ago my husband and I broke up with our cable provider. All of those channels just sat there, day after day, not being used the way they were intended. Honestly, there are only a few shows we love to watch and most nights we didn't have time to watch them. Thankfully, we had DVR so we could catch up later, but we started to re-evaluate the role of cable in our home.
We started looking hard at our finances and decided that $100+ per month was just ridiculous, especially with all of the other TV services out there in the world. Our contract was well past being up so we called and canceled and never looked back.
Some people thought we were crazy, but the more we go without cable and talk to people about it, the more I hear of others doing the same thing. Why pay the crazy rates when you do not have to?
So how do we watch TV?
What we decided on is what I lovingly refer to as "The Tri-fecta." Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime. Between these three services, we get every show we love and we can watch them any time. Netflix and Hulu Plus each run $7.99 a month and Amazon Prime is $79/year (plus I get free two-day shipping!). That works out to $270.76 per year! That is a savings of about 90%!!! Even for our cable shows like Walking Dead, we can get those inexpensively on Amazon Prime - which is still cheaper than cable and then we own the episodes for our home. There is no need to go purchase the DVD's. Yay!
The only thing was...
After a year without cable, the only thing I missed was watching the news. So, a few months ago, I went out to Best Buy and purchased rabbit ears for $40. Now we get all of the local channels and I can catch the evening news or watch Good Day Sacramento in the morning as I fold laundry and get the kids ready for school. Life is peachy now.
So what about your family? Have you cut cable yet?
This is quickly becoming the new trend. We canceled our cable in early 2011 after getting a gift subscription for Netflix for Christmas. As soon as that service entered our home, we didn't touch the cable box for weeks and it just seemed like a waste. After canceling the cable, we signed up for Hulu Plus and had only it and Netflix for 2.5 years. My dad got us a digital antenna about a month ago, which is great for the news, football, and other live television. Now I'm becoming a little curious about Apple TV...
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't make sense to have cable anymore. I was at my mom's house today and found myself flipping through hundreds of channels and found nothing good to watch. The channel ended up back on Channel 3 for the news.
ReplyDelete