Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about how they plan to cancel their cable tv. Not just the movie channels, but all of the channels. No tv at all.
These people aren’t planning to stop watching, of course. There’s Netflix for movies and you can find a lot of tv shows online for free or through iTunes for a small fee.
I’m planning to at least look into getting rid of some of my cable channels when my contract is up in September, and I toyed with the idea of just cutting out cable all together.
That thought lasted about 2 seconds. Sure, there’s a lot that I can watch online for free. Not everything, though. But I can’t watch the news live every night. Some sporting events are available online but not everything. And there are always specials that you can’t find online (at least not legally). I think I would feel very cut off from the world without being able to turn on the tv and see what’s being reported about current events. Sure, I could get the same in text form online, but it’s not the same. Besides, do I really want to watch all my tv on my laptop?
What do you think? Do you want to get rid of your cable? Cut back? Or do you have all the movie channels and love it?
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Everything I need or want to watch is online
I read the news online, I watch TV online, even movies. Haven’t missed TV much.. except for not being able to get full episodes from TLC or HGTV 🙂
But I can live without it! I have awesome fashion bloggers I follow.
I haven’t had cable for three years and while I miss HGTV and Food Network, I definitely don’t miss the bill.
I have an Apple TV which allows me to easily pick things up off of iTunes and allows me to use Boxee which has more feeds (including Hulu) than I’ll ever be able to watch. It’s highly customizable and works pretty well for me.
For basic channels, I’m able to get everything for free with my antenna.
I thought about canceling the cable recently but like the other commentors I have not been able to give up HGTV. I heard that House Hunters is available now on Hulu but I have not checked that out yet.
Canceling the cable would mean I have to upgrade my internet connection because right now it is a bit slow for Hulu to play properly and I have to pause all the time to let the buffer fill up.
I’ve never had cable. We do get TV – we got a digital converter box and we get about 20 channels that way. With rabbit ears we got about 12.
But if you don’t want to invest in converter box, you can probably read the local newspaper online instead of watching the news. It’s faster because you can just
I used to skim TV guide in the checkout line so I could participate in TV talk at work and not feel like such an outsider, but it seems like as long as i keep up with the news I do OK with small talk anyway.
I think it is easier if you don’t watch sports. I don’t have cable, we just watch it over the air (so we could get news). The only shows I really miss are TLC and Bravo. And HGTV. But I think my life is better without knowing what is going on with the Real Housewives. 🙂
I have definitely considered cutting cable before, especially this year. But when I do the math and realize that once I cut cable and my Internet service shoots up another $25 a month, I’ll only be saving about $40. Of course, that $40 would add up, but we spend so little on entertainment, that I choose to keep it.
I am curious how life would be without it, though. I think we’d probably be better at entertaining ourselves than we think. Lately I’ve been considering a cable fast to test whether we could entertain ourselves without it. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes!
I have to say that getting rid of the cable was one of the best things that I’ve done. We had it for a while at our old house, and it just stressed me out.
I don’t really *want* to see things the way the television wants me to see them. I’d rather read several news articles about something online and then form my own opinion–the idea of listing to the talking heads on CNN of Fox of NBC pushes all my buttons.
I’ve found, too, that I like watching television a lot more when I’m not doing it on a schedule. I don’t have to watch commercials, or fast-forward them–a minute or two at the start of the show, and we’re done.
I didn’t realize how stressful and misery-inducing I found television until we got rid of it. I’d thought that I was really enjoying it–we watched Top Chef! Maura watched cartoons!–but when it disappeared, it was a relief.
Well, I think I may just be the sole couch potato to chime in. I love our satellite. Of course, currently my husband is unemployed and I do some contract work from home. So we’re always home. And don’t have a big budget for entertainment. TV is our answer. (It’s not really an option for me to turn off the TV and go hiking/get outdoors, as I have chronic fatigue that limits my daily activities.)
I still read plenty. And do other things. But for $56 a month, we get tons of entertainment. And not everything we like is free online. Also, we don’t like watching things on our computer.
Finally, by watching TV we learn about interesting programs we’d otherwise have missed. My husband loves Warriors, which is a Green Beret going around the world to learn about various martial arts. Last week he went to Hawaii to learn how natives repelled European forces for years. Fascinating stuff.
So I think there are times when it’s smart to keep your cable/satellite. A lot of it depends on how many other things you want (or think you should want) to do.
My husband and I got rid of most of our cable except for basic last year. The only thing I missed was DVR and my Forensic Files show. Most shows and movies I can get online from sites such as youtube, Hulu, The WB, etc. The official websites for House and South Park also offer episodes for free. I did like cable, but we went down from $120 month to around $60 (internet too) and I think it’s worth it.
I haven’t had cable since 2001 and, while I am a big TV lover and it has been a little hard, I have to admit it’s been for the better. I think I would’ve wasted a lot of time watching stuff I didn’t need to instead of reading, playing with my dog, playing the piano, working on my blog, etc. all this time.
But as for one of the comments about not being able to watch HGTV and Food Network, almost all these networks and channels have free online episodes now. I compiled a list of links to all these sites a few months ago:
Websites for Watching Free TV Full Episodes, Movies and News Online
You can catch up on missed episodes and don’t have to be stuck to the broadcast time. News networks also have online videos so you can keep up with the news from the same day on various sites. Just Google your local station’s website or visit the links in my post.
All in all, I think even though I’ve often wished I had cable, I think it was the better decision financially and mental-health-wise, to go without.
2. I made a post for every episode of the show I was doing, with each post being a recap of the episode that I got from online episode guides, and then an SEO’d title like Watch Seinfeld S01E01 – Pilot episode. Then I went to Digg.com and dugg each individual post since that will get you high in search engines (probably first page) for that show, and you will get some clicks.