Scott and I get asked at lot about how we live without cable television. It's easy and we still (unfortunately) watch A LOT of television.
The first thing we did when we went cable free was to purchase a digital antenna, a RCA ANT1650R Flat Digital Amplified Indoor TV Antenna
. The digital antenna is much stronger than the old fashioned rabbit ears (which may not even work now).Along with the antenna, we purchased a Roku HD Streaming Player
so we could stream shows straight to our television.
We also signed up for a Netflix account but I recently cancelled that. We now use our Amazon Prime and the Amazon Instant service to watch movies and shows that are not available on network television (i.e. Homeland or Justified).We have found that we are saving a lot of money a month by watching TV this way. We have also focused our TV habits. Instead of mindlessly flipping through 100 channels, we have to search and select a show to watch.
You can watch a lot of shows and movies a month for WAY less than it costs to have cable. Cable is approximately $75 to $100 a month in my area. Amazon Instant offers an entire season of Homeland for $17.99 which is 13 hours of television. Netflix has a great service of unlimited streaming for $8.99 a month.
Scott and I once spent A TON of cash watching shows one weekend when I was first pregnant with Molly and on modified bed rest. We watched TV all weekend. At the end of the month, I freaked out and asked Scott how many millions of dollars we had spent to watch TV that month. He told me that we had spent $45 which is still a lot less than $100.
And that my friends is how Scott and I watch TV without cable. We do have to wait a day to see some shows and even months to see others (HOMELAND SEASON 2, I'm looking at YOU!) but the money savings makes it all worth it.
We've hemmed and hawed about doing this and always find an excuse not to (it's college football season, oh we'll do it after the Super Bowl, but it's English Premier League season) and still haven't cut the cable cord. The sad thing is that I watch 99% of my t.v. via on demand. We really should cut the cord.
ReplyDeleteI will admit to having hulu plus (to get the office and other things) and one season of doc martin not avail. on amazon, netflix and amazon prime streaming. We went 19 years with absolutely no tv. I still only watch on my ipad. We haven't even explored streaming to the tv that we do have.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, it helps to have a friend who happily shares her xfinity account information... I am so now in the loop...
Kimberley - those kinds of sporting events are best watched in bars! Cancel the cable and get thee to a bar for some sports watching ;)
ReplyDeleteNazila - I watch a lot of stuff on my iPad too. I like to watch shows on the iPad whole working out on the elliptical. It is super nice!
The old rabbit-ears antenna should work---the advantage of digital broadcasting is picking up the signal's supposed to be all-or-nothing (perfect picture or nothing at all). Though the disadvantage would be if the reception *isn't* perfect (pixellated picture), or a more limited (IIRC) viewing area. (My family in my hometown---on a fringe viewing area historically---tried an antenna recently, but couldn't get any reception at all, versus getting the usual TV channels in the analog-broadcasting days...)
ReplyDeleteI have cable (and watch some sports), but also have Netflix, which works nice on my Xbox. I also ripped my DVD collection to watch on my various devices/TV set...
We've discussed it before but the one things that stops us is MLB. We are big baseball fans. You can buy MLB online for the season, but they don't show the home games for your home team. If we could get around that, we would cut the cord today.
ReplyDeletei dumped cable back in 2003, way before the web caught up. but now i watch just as much tv as i ever did before, though much cheaper via Hulu and Netflix.
ReplyDeletethanks for the antenna link. i hadn't thought of getting one.