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How many of you have gotten rid of cable...?

ktwensel
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ktwensel

ktwensel

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How many of you have decided to get rid of cable?

 

We have made the decision (after two years) to get rid of cable and utilize the library, Netflix, Hulu, etc. It just is taking too much of our budget and we only watch two or three channels. It's really silly, but we are kind of nervous over it. I know I will get used to it, but we are really going to miss our sports!!!!

 

Tv has become such a time waster for us and we are looking forward to more time doing other things. I'm excited for the challenge.

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easygoer

easygoer

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It's true, I'm not a sports-watcher. I get my news from print/internet, but if I still watched live sports that would bother me.

 

Consider making friends at your local sports bar/restaurant. I'm not really kidding, either. It's fun, to watch the game with the same people all season. When we were first married we would go down the street to watch even though we had the games on TV.

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Scuff

Scuff

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We just got rid of it. We canceled the DVR and were discussing canceling it all together. Then Comcast sent us 2 bad boxes. The second time DH spend about an hour on the phone with a tech who barely spoke english. That pushed him over the edge. :) We've been without about 2 weeks and we're ok. Honestly, the thing I miss the most is the Penguins of Madagascar. lol Everything else we want to watch is on hulu or Netflix.

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JoyfulMama

JoyfulMama

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WE've been cable free since January, when dh finally gave in. He was home for a week on vacation and realized he was the only one turning on the tv. I also had ALL of us keep a log for a couple weeks as far as who watched what. That was a real eye opener for him, too. He realized he was paying to watch The History Channel, and nothing else. The couple shows I enjoy are available on Hulu.

Now, I have to say that *I* miss the football on live tv. I can send dh to watch at a bar, but I can't really take the kids there myself. However, dh has had no desire to go and watch, and he doesn't miss watching it at home, either.

We don't do NetFlix, although it is tempting. We do rent from Blockbuster Express once or twice a month for a movie to watch as a couple.

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melissel

melissel

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Ugh, I would SO love to do this, but DH is the "TV when you first wake up, then TV from 8 p.m. until you fall asleep in bed" kind of guy, which drives me crazy. He would miss Comedy Central and the Food Network a lot, but I'm going to make a pitch toward getting rid of it again this month. If we get rid of cable and landline, we could be saving $100 a month! :banghead:

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Classical Country Mama

Classical Country Mama

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WE've been cable free since January, when dh finally gave in. He was home for a week on vacation and realized he was the only one turning on the tv. I also had ALL of us keep a log for a couple weeks as far as who watched what. That was a real eye opener for him, too. He realized he was paying to watch The History Channel, and nothing else. The couple shows I enjoy are available on Hulu.

Now, I have to say that *I* miss the football on live tv. I can send dh to watch at a bar, but I can't really take the kids there myself. However, dh has had no desire to go and watch, and he doesn't miss watching it at home, either.

We don't do NetFlix, although it is tempting. We do rent from Blockbuster Express once or twice a month for a movie to watch as a couple.

 

:iagree:

 

This is my family almost exactly!!! Right down to the History Channel subscription and cancelling cable last January.

 

Dd is allowed to watch DVDs on Saturdays, and thanks to my parents, she has quite the collection. She knows what a commercial is only well enough to say, "BUY MY STUFF, BLAH BLAH BLAH!" :D

 

I don't miss it one whit myself. I've got online Netflix and hulu--can't think of anything I'm sacrificing (except when I had to wait until the next morning for Lost). My poor dh, however...

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jenn&charles

jenn&charles

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We got rid of cable about 9 years ago or so. I'm glad we did...although I still miss the access to certain types of shows.

We watch all of our T.V. via the Internet nowadays for free. :) More and more shows have become available over the years.

FIL also gave us a subscription to Netflix for awhile and that was great too.

One of the benefits of not having cable is that the kids never rot in front of the T.V. ;) I also probably spend more time on things I enjoy working on like my website, scrapbooking, etc.

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ChrisOR

ChrisOR

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We would give up cable in a heartbeat....if it weren't for sports :(. If they could come up with a special dish that only gave us hockey, football, and baseball for about $5/month, I would be SO in :001_smile:.

 

Yep, this is us too.

 

DH's job is active and demanding, so relaxing during the evening watching sports together is fun for us.

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BikeBookBread

BikeBookBread

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We dumped our cable in favor of a digital antenna last summer. It was a great decision for many reasons.

 

When we moved from The Desert to Where George Walked a few months ago, we again purchased a digital antenna. There is, of course, the one-time cost of the antenna and installation. We get the "80's stations" (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS - several of those... - FOX, some local syndicated stations as well). We also stream Netflix on our PS3. We are perfectly content.

 

We are looking into an HDTV antenna. Those of you that have one, do you live in the country with a lot of trees? and do they actually work?

 

There are many different types of antennas. I would suggest you contact a professional antenna installer who would be able to recommend which type to purchase. Some have "rotators" which amplify a different way than stationary. We live near amongst many trees and rolling hills, and have not had any problems. (We get about 25 stations.) Here are some websites that helped us:

 

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

 

http://www.dtv.gov/

 

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/ - this one is a great link - it shows the signal strength for your ZIP code

 

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/dtvantennas.html

Edited by BikeBookBread
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Erica in OR

Erica in OR

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Got rid of cable two years ago and switched to only Netflix (we don't get network television reception without an antenna in our location and never bothered). We've been totally happy with the decision, especially with how easy it is now to stream Netflix content (first through a Roku box, now our Wii). We even cut back from our two DVDs-out-at-a-time subscription down to one, because there was so much we could watch on instant.

 

That said, no one in our family is an avid sports watcher.

 

Erica in OR

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Mona100

Mona100

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I haven't had cable in 4 or 5 years. It hurts during college football season but you can usually watch games on the internet thru ESPN. I depend on Netflix and Hulu. 15.39 a month is much cheaper than cable I think. I much rather watch dvds of tv seasons because I get impatient wanting to know what happens to my characters. You won't miss it after a couple of weeks. I also have a digital antenna sitting on my tv for the local stations.

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HollyDay

HollyDay

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We went cable free 2 years ago. The month prior to canceling, we kept a log of what we watched and how long we watched. Basically, we were paying for History Channel, Discovery Channel, and Food Network. We were a bit nervous too about dropping it. I missed it quite a bit during the holidays actually - all the cooking, decorating, made-for-TV movies.

 

But, we do have Netflix, the library, hulu, and many channels let you watch the current episodes. I did purchase some of our favorite christmas movies Netflix does not carry. Our TV gets 3 PBS channels, ABC, and CBS.

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LauraGB

LauraGB

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We ditched it earlier this year. Don't miss it one iota. But, we did invest in the Roku, which is way better than watching most of what is on prime time tv (who knew it was just as junky as the cable channels? Surely not I because we rarely watched it and I was basing it on memories of my childhood).

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Guest momk2000

Guest momk2000

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We downgraded to the cheapest of the cheap offered by the cable company 10 years ago (I think we pay like 15.00/month). We only have it for TV reception basically and don't get too many channels. Our kids are growing up watching PBS just like we did before there was any cable television. I personally could do without TV altogether.

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4besitos

4besitos

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Our house. We have been cable free for about 4 years. Now with Netflix, hulu, etc...there are many things that we can watch. We have a converter box and get quite more stations than I had growing up!!!!! We have three OPB stations and Qubo....my children just don't know how lucky they are!!!!

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RegGuheert

RegGuheert

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We are looking into an HDTV antenna. Those of you that have one, do you live in the country with a lot of trees? and do they actually work?
Yes, they actually work. The technology to broadcast television was around long before cable TV. The antenna technology used to receive HDTV is NOT different than that used previously for analog TV. The main differences are that the some of the old frequencies are no longer used and the signal level which you can detect with digital is much lower. (Unfortunately, the signal you receive IS much lower.)

 

Regarding the trees, they can be a problem, particularly when they have leaves. If you are BOTH far from the transmitters AND you have trees, you may have difficulty receiving HDTV.

I'd like to hear about the antenna also.

 

We dumped cable about a month ago. We don't miss the nightly veg sessions, but hubby is feeling the loss with football season upon us.

The broadcast picture of football games is typically better than that sent over cables since it is usually not compressed as much. OTOH, you will only be able to watch what is broadcast.
There are many different types of antennas. I would suggest you contact a professional antenna installer who would be able to recommend which type to purchase. Some have "rotators" which amplify a different way than stationary. We live near amongst many trees and rolling hills, and have not had any problems. (We get about 25 stations.) Here are some websites that helped us:

 

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

 

http://www.dtv.gov/

 

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/ - this one is a great link - it shows the signal strength for your ZIP code

 

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/dtvantennas.html

Great links. In addition, I will say my favorite for finding out what stations you can receive and where they are is TV Fool. With our attic antenna and rotor we can receive every station which is shown as being received above -105 dBm at our house.

 

Finally, please note that you can purchase an HDTV DVR for OTA broadcasts. We have one which includes full program guides. It can record up to two programs and we can also watch a third on the television, if desired. Here are a couple of posts I made previously regarding OTA DVRs: 1 and 2. It appears the DTVPal DVR now includes a SlingBox capability and costs a little more. Still, it has no monthly fees. Here is a link to the new box.

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Sparkle

Sparkle

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Dropped cable a couple of years ago - we actually have no TV at all. We get lots of movies from the library, and the shows I want to watch I can usually see on the web. I couldn't stand the thought of paying that much money every month either :tongue_smilie:

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Food4Thought

Food4Thought

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We have never had cable.

 

We have netflix and that meets all our needs.

 

Same here. Once in a while, DH thinks about getting cable. Then we go spend a night in a hotel, flip through channels for 30 minutes and say, "Wow, we're really not missing much!" We watch TV shows a season at a time via Netflix.

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sweetsouthern

sweetsouthern

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i would LOVE to get rid of our satellite! but im not sure how to go about it.... we have att-uverse and it has our phone line, internet and satellite all in one :confused:

 

what do u guys do then for home phone (which i actually could get rid of lol! and just use our cells) and then internet service???

 

:lurk5:

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Jennifer in MI

Jennifer in MI

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We're going to make the break pretty soon. We're waiting for Google TV (or for Apple TV to have internet access that you don't have to pay for!).

 

We're starting to switch over our current Comcast email address to a generic one. We're starting to switch over our phone numbers over to our cell phones. This way we can drop Comcast FOREVER!!!!! (Obviously, we have their triple play package - phone, tv, computer.)

 

We hardly ever watch tv - just sports and a couple reruns at night for me. We've talked about just dropping the tv portion, but it's actually MORE expensive for us to just have the computer/phone option with Comcast. So, it doesn't make sense yet.

 

But, we end up spending an hour/month (at least) trying to get them to correct our bill! :glare: My time is worth something - right?

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flyingiguana

flyingiguana

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We've never had cable and never used Netflix. And our broadcast TV reception kind of stinks since the switchover to digital, so we don't watch much of that either.

 

We can still get way too many DVDs from the library and spend loads more time watching on hulu and other internet sites than is good for our time budget.

 

We've given up watching PBS because they haven't recently shown anything that interested us, or was worth watching. The quality of shows on there has plummeted in recent years, with only an occasional one that's worth watching. Instead, we get the older shows that PBS used to show from the library (or find them online). We keep trying DVDs that were once shown on the history channel and they've been mostly awful, so we're not really all that interested in getting cable for the supposed educational advantages.

 

BTW, our digital reception was just great until the day they made the big switch so analog wasn't available anymore (no, we were not watching analog without realizing it). The reception got awful overnight. I don't think trees grew up in that 24 hour period. I detect a whiff of a conspiracy, but frankly just don't care.

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DarcyB

DarcyB

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Ugh, I would SO love to do this, but DH is the "TV when you first wake up, then TV from 8 p.m. until you fall asleep in bed" kind of guy, which drives me crazy. He would miss Comedy Central and the Food Network a lot, but I'm going to make a pitch toward getting rid of it again this month. If we get rid of cable and landline, we could be saving $100 a month! :banghead:

 

This is us. But for us it's Alton Brown (we can live without the rest of the FN fodder) and SciFi and Discovery. That's about all we seem to watch, but DH isn't willing though I'm chomping at the bit.

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DawnM

DawnM

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I have considered it. I don't mind OTA with a rooftop antenna (we would need one as we don't get any channels with an indoor antenna.)

 

But I still want to get Tivo if we do that. I hate live TV. We currently have Directv and 3 DVRs for our 3 TVs.....one on each floor (basement, main floor, and our bedroom upstairs.)

 

I also really don't like watching TV on a computer screen.

 

Dawn

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kathkath

kathkath

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We are looking into an HDTV antenna. Those of you that have one, do you live in the country with a lot of trees? and do they actually work?

 

they actually work. Reception is crystal clear. Oour friend told my dh about some site that tells what channels you ought to get at exactly the point where you live, and which angle to point your antennae. Ours works great although I think we would get one more channel if we raised it up a certain # of feet--but that is not possible in our attic and our HOA prohibits them on top of the house. I think that has to do with how hilly it is here. We are not in the country but I bet if you could find that site you could figure out if it was worth it. I have no idea what the website is.

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