Recently my husband and I decided to give up our cable. Our introductory rate had expired and we did not want to pay $80 a month! We discussed the pros and cons and then decided to give life without cable a try. It has now been about one month since we did this, and it is working great!
Instead of cable, we have been watching online shows on our TV using some A/V cables that I purchased at Target. We just hook up our laptop to the TV and we're all set. We can watch most of our favorite programs on the website Hulu.com, or on the various network websites, and in full-screen mode the picture is just as good as it used to be with regular cable. For the few shows that aren't available for free, we purchase them on iTunes for $1.99 an episode. Even if we have to purchase a few shows a month, it's still way less than $80! And all with fewer commercials. I call this little set-up our free TiVo, since we can watch the shows on our schedule, not the network's schedule. (We do have to wait for the show to become available, but that just teaches us patience...)
The real test of this method came last weekend, with the start of the NCAA basketball tournament. We are both HUGE sports fans, and we usually contribute to the low productivity that occurs when the tournament starts in March. I was nervous about not being able to watch the games without going to a sports bar, but CBS is streaming ALL of the games live on the internet. So we hooked the laptop up to the TV, and were able to watch basketball all weekend. (We even get to choose which game to watch, which is great since hubby's alma mater is a smaller school that doesn't get a lot of national attention!)
A side benefit of not having cable is that when I get home from work, I don't just plop down in front of the television to unwind. Which means I've got more time to devote on other things, like reading books from the library and spending quality time with the husband.
We are thinking of saving half of the $80 we would have spent, and donating the other half to our local library. I want to save it all, but our library is always facing budget cuts, and we do use it quite a bit!
Kicking cable to the curb
March 28th, 2009 at 01:32 pm
March 28th, 2009 at 01:58 pm 1238248739
March 28th, 2009 at 02:50 pm 1238251802
March 28th, 2009 at 02:58 pm 1238252284
Great idea to split the savings too. Your library will love you!!
March 28th, 2009 at 04:16 pm 1238256971
March 28th, 2009 at 06:38 pm 1238265504