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How to Live Without Cable

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how to live without paying for cable or dish, many great tips in this post! via @whbsblog

We’ve been living cable free, and cable bill free, since June 2009. When we moved into our home in October 2009, we inherited a huge goofy-looking antenna attached to the house that helps out. A few years ago, it was a crazy notion and people looked at us funny, but now, many people are switching to internet TV.

You might miss loads of sports, actually talk to each other more, and your kids will not be absorbing the goodness that is the Real Housewives of insert region here, but I promise you’ll survive. And you’ll save a ton of money. Here’s how we live without cable or dish.

Get an Antenna.

We have a HDTV (a 40” LCD) we are able to hook up to the antenna. We get about 40 HD channels for free! We get the main channels with bonus channels (11.1, 11.2, etc) attached to them.  If you don’t have an antenna or HDTV, you can get an antenna or converter box for a decent price these days, much cheaper than the cost of cable or dish.

house with an antenna to save money on tv house with an antenna to save money on tv

 

Edited to Add: We have since moved, but are still living cable free. We lived for months without an antenna, but did put one in our attic. We don’t use it much though! After getting used to streaming TV and no commercials, we only really use the antenna for local sports.

 

I do miss certain shows on cable, the movies (oh, the movies!), old sitcoms, a DVR, and on demand. Here’s how we get around that:

Find a Way to Stream Stuff

There are many options out there to do this:

  1. Get an HDMI Cable: We use this to stream sports or for other websites. If you don’t have a Smart TV, Wii, Roku, Apple TV or any of those options, this will be your cheapest option to streaming online content.
  2. Wii or XBOX: We have a Wii that we hooked up to an older TV and use it to watch Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. All you’ll need to do is connect to your WIFI, download free apps onto your Wii, and you’re good to go. We found ours at a garage sale for $20! If you don’t get the newest model, you might be able to find one cheap, maybe ask a friend that has upgraded theirs.
  3. Smart TV: We have two Samsung Smart TVs (one is 46″, another 53″) that we purchased on Black Friday. We use these with a bunch of pre-loaded apps like Netflix, Youtube, etc, and our WIFI connection to watch streaming content without any other boxes or equipment.
  4. Roku, Apple TV, Fire HD Stick, Chromecast: We don’t have any of these, so I really can’t give an opinion other than I know that they exist. Ask around with friends and family or look up reviews online to see which would be best for you, but I personally like the above three options. 🙂

 

Streaming Services: 

HULU:

We catch up on our favorite shows and shows we may have missed from our cable days on Hulu, a site that streams CURRENT TV shows online the day after they air. It’s like our DVR but better.

They have a free option which is good, but we recently upgraded to the Hulu subscription for $6.95 and love it. They have entire seasons of shows instead of the last four, and if you miss an episode, you can watch it that night. With the regular Hulu you may have to wait a week. It’s a nice cure for “there’s nothing on TV tonight.”

To get a two week trial of Hulu Plus (instead of the one week they offer), sign up with our referral link here.

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My kid is FREAKING OUT AT ME with all of these screenshots including Thomas.

Edited to add: If you want to keep up on current shows, Hulu would be a good fit for you. We’ve since been watching more Netflix and YouTube since we aren’t keeping up on any current shows. I have found the commercials on Hulu annoying, especially because we pay for it. I’ve thought about canceling, BUT recently heard that they are adding all seasons of Seinfeld to Hulu. We really like Seinfeld, so we’ll keep it around for now.

 

NETFLIX IS AWESOME-ER

While some people complain about the selection, I think Netflix is great and still cheaper than cable (7.99 a month). Lots of kid movies, shows, movies, and documentaries. Sure it is lacking current movies and hits, but if you can’t find something on Netflix, you need to turn off the TV. 😉 It can be nice to discover movies you may have never heard of or watched.

Edited to add: Netflix used to be kinda meh, but IT IS AWESOME NOW. If you don’t have it, GET IT! (They’re not paying me to tell you that.) Recently they’ve gotten a lot more current movies, and also added a ton of HGTV and Food Network shows. Hello, those were the two big things I missed about cable! It’s rare that we can’t find anything to watch on Netflix these days.

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Save Money and Share subscriptions.

We pay for Hulu Plus, my sister pays for Netflix, we share it with my parents. It works awesome! You can have so many accounts streaming at one time, so you might need to upgrade later down the line if it becomes an issue.

Edited to add: Netflix now lets you have multiple profiles. Sharing accounts used to mess up our queue and recommendations (hello,  foreign films with a strong female lead and Thomas the Tank Engine with a side of goofy dude comedies). We now have profiles for my sister, parents, teen siblings, our kids, and us. Lots of HGTV and goofy comedies on ours. 🙂

 

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Muuahaha! My poor sister.

Rent a Movie

Sometimes, you just want to rent a movie. We use Redbox ($1.25 a day, varies regionally) and vudu.com ($3.99 a day, varies). Both are cheaper than going to the movies and finding a baby sitter.

Redbox is cheaper, but with vudu.com we don’t have to run out to the store and find a movie that’s still available, and then race to get to the store again before 9 pm. Vudu also has movies that may still be in theaters, while with Redbox you have to wait a few days.

Edited to add: we don’t use Vudu very often any more, but instead use Amazon Prime to rent movies now.

 

 

Other Options:

Since writing this post in 2012, things have come a long way and I’m editing this area completely.

We now have a Samsung Smart TV we bought on Black Friday. From there, we’re able to stream Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Vudu, and many other options. There are a TON of things on Netflix now where before there really wasn’t much of a selection. YouTube has just about any show or thing to watch that you could want, although it might be bootleg and you might have to call yourself a pirate.

We still have the streaming options above. I’ve debated canceling Hulu Plus (now just called Hulu), but they’re adding every Seinfeld episode later this month soooo… I probably won’t cancel that. We now also have Amazon Prime since we signed up for the Prime shipping. I don’t use that all too much, we’ll use it to rent movies that aren’t on there and also for Blues Clues. If you like HBO shows or Downton Abbey, those are on there.

We’ve never tried a Roku, Apple TV, or any of the Google or Amazon sticks. But if you’re looking to ditch cable and also need a new television, I highly recommend the Smart TV.

 

Since moving to a different house, we did get a new antenna from Menards, had heard from family members that they carried good ones. However, we’re so used to watching TV commercial free while streaming that we VERY RARELY watch shows using our antenna and TV. We mostly just use this for local sports now.

I’ve also had a lot of questions about sports. Since we have the antenna, we get most local sports. We get all of the local football games. For hockey, basketball, or playoff games, we’ll occasionally look up a game on the computer to see if it’s streaming online, then hook up the TV with an HDMI cable.

 

Or Turn off the TV!

Since getting rid of cable, we watch a LOT less TV. And a lot, lot, lot, lot less sports on TV (fist pump). I love it. We spend that time as a family, play games, tackle projects, talk, have a date night, or just go to bed early. This is a really, really good benefit that is the better of all of the above options. 😉

 

 

Are you paying too much for cable, or have you ditched it? 

Comments

  1. We have been cable free for many years now. We have a great little antenna I pick up off eBay. We also have Netflix and recently added sling that’s shows live regular tv did only $20 this includes the sports channel. We stream those on the roku stick. There are lots of great things out there!

  2. I know this sounds wacky but my hubby is completely losing it because our cable company dropped the Weather Channel! He wants us to cancel the cable/internet/phone bundle and use some of the things you mention but I’ve yet to find any of those solutions that also have any weather channel providers. In addition, the Disney Jr line up is probably critical at our house. Do you know of any service that runs Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sofia and others? It would be okay if they were not current.

    Thanks for a great site! I absolutely love it.

    • Check into sling.com they have a few package options just not sure in the weather channel is one of them

  3. I realize that this is several years old but we’re thinking about making the switch to ditch cable! We also live in Illinois (near Rockford). Are you able to get local news channels on any of your options? I love to catch the news at night and morning. Thanks so much for sharing.
    I found you several years ago with your 40 Bags for Lent and have hopped on board.

    • Yes, we do! I updated this post not long ago, so it is still current. 🙂 You might be able to get more channels than we do from Rockford since you’re near there. If you don’t have one, you’ll need an antenna. We bought ours at Menards, put it in the attic, and have a cable line going to the tv. Maybe look up YouTube videos before starting? If I were you, I might try it before cutting the cord on cable, just in case.

      Glad to hear from you and good luck! Please keep me posted 🙂

  4. You don’t need to miss sports if you turn off cable. Kodi is a free streaming program that runs on Android and Windows (possibly Apple, I dunno). You can hook your laptop or phone up to the TV if you like or buy a computer-on-a-stick wiht kodi preinstalled from amazon, starting from around $40. If you buy a computer on a stick, you can also run netflix, hulu, HBOgo or any other of the steaming platforms on it as well.

    • Yes…we have been enjoying KODI for several months now and NO CABLE cost! Sometimes it is a little annoying when things do not stream…but overall we LOVE saving the money and do not feel deprived without CABLE! I highly recommend giving KODI a try if you want to get rid of cable!

  5. I’m happy to say we’ve never had cable or anything. We don’t even have an actual television. A few years ago when we finally got internet at home we started sharing a Netflix account with a family member.

  6. We have never had cable & have never had a hard time finding something to watch.

    We have the crazy outdoor antenna. We even used to turn it from inside to get certain channels we wanted.

    Now we watch most things online or through ROKU. The only paid channel we use on ROKU Netflix. A tip about sharing – you should be able to set up four seperate members on basic Netflix. We share with our son & daughter-in-law. So when we sign in it asks us which we are, we choose our icon & that keeps our history seperate from theirs.

    We also listen to Pandora a lot through our ROKU. We still use the old antenna that we’ve used for 25 yrs.

  7. Have you looked into Chromecast? It’s a dongle that plugs into the HDMI and a plug for electricity. It’s $35 and you can stream Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Google+, from your phone, tablet, computer. You can also stream your Chrome browser from your computer onto your tv. Unfortunately Amazon Prime is not compatible. My 3 yr old knows how to stream his shows from the table to the tv. Not sure if thats a good thing or bad thing lol.

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  10. Our first 5 years of marriage we lived without cable. We started out with an antenna that I made out of hangers and scrap wood using an online tutorial. Later we switched to Hulu & Netflix. This year my husband signed up for the free trial of cable TV from the same company that (over)charges us for internet. After the trial period was over he called to cancel it. At that point the cable company pitched him an offer he couldn’t refuse… continue paying $74.99/mo for just internet (I told you they overcharge–we have no other good provider option here), or add on basic cable and pay $69.99/mo total for both! Somehow we now have digital cable INCLUDING free on-demand shows and pay less than we were before we had cable. I am seriously considering canceling Hulu & Netflix to save money instead!

    Funny thing is, we are so used to not having cable that we still don’t watch live TV. If we do turn on the cable box, it’s to go straight to on-demand to watch the specific show we sat down to watch. I’m sure we will be using live TV much more though when football season comes back. Even before, my husband would find ways to watch his games live, whether it be going to a sports bar or streaming it from some website in Europe. 😉

  11. We are cable free as well…have been since my oldest was a year, so 4yrs now. We found with kids we didn’t have a lot of time for tv so why pay for it. We borrow movies from the library or family video ($1 for 5 nites on older movies or 2.99/one night new release) and we have netflix through our wii and whatever is on the airwaves, but with our small antenia ammounts to 5local channels and pbs. Netflix is the kids favorite and they mostly watch pbs shows….that and the disney dvds they get from grandparents.

    I miss hgtv but pinterest is filling that void.

    I have picked up a hobby (sewing) and love that over tv watching!

  12. For those of you looking for cheaper internet and have low income. Comcast offers “internet essentials” for anyone who has school age children who qualify for free or reduced lunch at school. If they don’t have the program at your child’s school you can also try to qualify in other ways, but must have school aged children. It is only $9.95 per month with no contract and no catches. That is the total bill. It is a very quick application and they send out a free modem. If you want wifi, you will have to buy your own router from somewhere else. I found a cheap one on clearance at from Staples.com. They also have a program that allows you to get a refurbished, new model, 15″ laptop for $149 total. Our computer has died and I needed a new one for my job search and my son needed one for his high school work. It works great (once you get used to Windows 8). Again, no strings or taxes and it arrived in a couple of days. Comcast is trying to make sure that every student has computer and internet access at home. Good luck.

  13. Also firstrowsports works the same as frontrowsports for any sports NFL, Collage, baseball,bowling,hockey pretty much any sport free just hook your computer to your TV

  14. There’s a site called frontrowsports you can watch all NFL & College games and any other kind of sports free online. That’s how my husband watches the games that we don’t catch on TV got to close some adds on page to watch but once you got the games playing it plays strait through clear pic little slower than reg TV but not much guess it depends on your internet speed..

  15. Thank you for sharing such helpful information. As of today I’m Directv free! I just called and cancelled my service, on the day my new bill was scheduled to go out. So, I won’t even have another bill coming. I was payin $125 and I didn’t even have premium channels. I’m excited about all the money I will be saving. I’m currently researching Hulu Plus, Roku and will purchase a good antenna..

  16. Hi,
    Your offering great tips to replace overpriced cable. But I am wondering what you use for Internet?

  17. 3 years ago we decided to change the way we were tethered to technology due to the ridiculous costs.

    First, we switched our bundle plan to internet only.

    Dropped the land line telephone and picked up Magic Jack. That subsequently changed to MJPlus, but that’s a good thing. That one save a ton. It’s only about $35 a YEAR! There are some differences in service, but none that we miss.

    Then we switched our cells to Pay as You Go plans. Big drop in cost, especially if you have smartphones. I just recently changed my plan for my iPhone to a prepaid data plan. It’s a bit more, but still less than half what it was in the bundle.

    Next I put an antenna on the roof. Clearstream HD multidirectional if I recall. $125. If you’re close to a city, you get more stations. The farther you are, the less over the air stations you get. The bonus is that over the air broadcasts come in better than cable. The HD is much clearer. We get around 25-30 over the air channels. Actually only about 10 will see any use, but it’s still free programming.

    Finally we logged all the networks we watched into the computer and stream the shows from the websites through my laptop into a bigscreen HDTV. We also added Netflix and Hulu Plus for some of the things for the kids and movies.

    We can watch about 80% what we watched before. Sports are still somewhat available, but that was never a big part of our regimen.

    The big win is that we average $211 a month less outlay. That makes me happy.

  18. 3 years ago we decided to change the way we were tethered to technology due to the ridiculous costs. We switched our bundle plan to internet only.

    Dropped the land line telephone and picked up Magic Jack. That subsequently changed to MJPlus, but that’s a good thing. That one save a ton. It’s only about $35 a YEAR! There are some differences in service, but none that we miss.

    Then we switched our cells to Pay as You Go plans. Big drop in cost, especially if you have smartphones. I just recently changed my plan for my iPhone to a prepaid date plan. It’s a bit more, but still less than half what it was in the bundle.

    Next I put an antenna on the roof. Clearstream HD multidirectional if I recall. $125. If you’re close to a city, you get more. The farther you are, the less over the air stations you get. The bonus is that over the air broadcasts come in better than cable. The HD is much clearer. We get around 25-30 over the air channels. Actually only about 10 will see any use, but it’s still free programming.

    Finally we logged all the networks we watched and stream the shows from the websites through my laptop into a bigscreen HDTV. We also added Netflix and Hulu Plus for some of the things for the kids and movies.

    We can watch about 80% what we watched before. Sports are still somewhat available, but that was never a big part of our regimen.

    The big win is that we average $211 a month less outlay. That makes me happy.

  19. We ditched Dish a couple years ago and now have Verizon (only local provider besides Comcast) for tv/internet/phone. We have very basic cable and with our bundle, our price actually stays the same even if we ditch the cable!! It’s so annoying! I’m trying to find another high speed internet so we can save $$, but it seems the companies are onto us. They know people are ditching cable and streaming instead, so they just raise the price for internet. I’ve talked to them over and over in the last year, but I won’t save ANY $$ ditching the cable. We do save by not having a DVR and they discount us the price of renting the cable box so it’s free. We pay $110/month on tv/internet/phone (including long distance). We don’t have cell phones, so have to keep our home phone. And we certainly pay $70-80 LESS than when we had Dish.

  20. Any idea on what to do about losing Disney Junior? Doc McStuffins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sofia the First……my little princess would die if they didnt exist anymore.

    • Hi Shannon! I know those aren’t on Netflix or Hulu plus, but we have watched a handful of episodes on the Disney Jr site or on Grandma’s DVR. 🙂 We’ve rented movies from the library as well. Disney Jr. might have an app to watch episodes too?

      We haven’t gotten into any Disney Jr or Nickelodeon shows so it hasn’t been an issue yet, but my kids do love PBS kids! Maybe try it out and see if she likes a new show? And if not buy a few DVDs? 🙂 Good luck!

  21. Would you believe that we NEVER had cable growing up?? My mom didn’t want us to be “tv junkies,” so we NEVER had cable! Crazy! I NEVER watched tv until I joined my husband’s family, and now I’m addicted, which I am partially bitter about. I used to read a LOT more books…… Logan and I lived without cable for the first 6 1/2 years of our marriage just b/c of money. We only have it now b/c my dad has it! (YAY for the DVR!!) You can totally survive exclusively online. (Our apt in St. Louis had such crazy thick cement walls that antennas didn’t work!)

  23. We have Roku with Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime hooked up to it. We can also stream shows and movies that we have downloaded onto our computers to Roku by using the Plex Media Server. We have cut our cable bill from $200 a month down to $16 a month for the Netflix and Hulu, $80 a year for Amazon Prime (which we also use for the shopping, Kindle books, etc), and we own the Roku so don’t have to pay anything else for it. Best thing we ever did TV wise, and we are absolute TV addicts in my house! The cable company actually offered us free cable to come back to them when we were considering switching our phone and internet to a competing company and even though it’s free we NEVER turn it on. We are Roku fans all the way!

  24. We went the same route recently! We just got rid of our DirecTV which cost us $60+ a month and it kept going up. Now we just use Netflix and Hulu + which cost a combined $16 or something. We are going to get an antenna soon too, so we can watch football.

  25. I cannot imagine paying for cable–it is outrageous!!! We haven’t had it in about 5 years. We have an “antenna” (a really thin wire cable running out of the back of the TV–this is what antennas are like if you don’t have a tube tv). We get quite a few local channels, including football, all through the antenna. We also stream Netflix through the Wii…it works the same way as Roku– I know tons of people have the Roku and I’ve never heard a complaint! It’s also way easier than hooking up the computer and you don’t need to rearrange stuff to watch the streaming shows. We have a HuluPlus account as well, but we rarely use it (I’m thinking about canceling)… Netflix has SO many great documentaries, movies, etc… we have never thought “there is not enough here, perhaps we need even MORE options” haha. In all honesty, even if we were overflowing with cash, I can’t imagine spending it on cable. It seems incredibly redundant and so unnecessary— and we watch a lot of TV in our house so I promise I’m not being anti-TV when I say that!

  26. Have to throw my cents in there, too! I am so proud of you guys for doing this, but I’m not sure we could! Hubs is a casting director, so it’s part of his job to keep up with our shows and watch the lastest, blah blah blah. But at least we get to write off the cable bill!

  27. I have been without cable for 4 years. Everything watched is streaming through internet or local HD OTA with the little flat aerial (29 bucks). If you dig, there are more great shows available than thought of. My son had to convince me to go back. I really am quite content without it. He travels the states for months at a time and wireless internet is far more expensive than cable or he can’t even connect. Installed a mobile sat, but all is charged from the house. Oddly, the price of cable is half what I remember paying, not the promotions, full price, I think it is how we are putting it together. Will be his bill to pay, so guess I’m home free a bit. Will be interesting how things evolve technically for offerings in the future. My internet is through Verizon at the highest speed for 60 a month. This is solo without the package stuff.

  28. Hey AM, this is dealing more with your last post…did you get rid of the toddler beds or did you save them back for your little guy? Where did you find the bunk beds?

    • Hi Lori!

      We saved one of the toddler beds for our little guy and it is in the attic, the other we gave to a neighbor. My husband found the bunk beds at a garage sale a long time ago, before we even met. He used them in his college apartment split into two twin beds.

      We let a family member borrow them until the kids were ready for them, and put them up a few months ago. The kids do really well with them! I never posted because they’re not as cute as the toddler bed setup, but figured if I’m showing my house, I’m showing the real room, even if it’s not as cute. 😉

  29. If you;’re paying for internet you could also get the :”magic jack:” it is very cheap compared to a regular land line

    • How is the sound quality on the Magic Jack? I have wanted to get rid of my home phone, but I am hard of hearing and I my cell phone is not clear enough in the house.

  30. We did this for years! We watched a lot of netflix. Now we have cable again, but I’ve often thought about going back to not having it. The only thing we really use it for is college football season. It’s really not so bad living without it though!

  31. Hey Ann Marie! We totally live the same way, too. In this stage of life, with little ones, t.v. is a luxury and hobby we cannot put into our priority list! We want to spend every (well almost every…) minute we have with our children to teach and train them – and t.v. just doesn’t fit into that!
    Joel LOVES college football and enjoys watching most sports – but we have found the more times we consciously choose our kids or family time over these t.v. activities, the more we desire to choose family time! Don’t get me wrong – this time of year we watch Notre Dame almost every weekend and that is fun…but overall – our lovely lcd t.v. just sits on top of the mantle – off. 🙂
    Miss you! Love getting to read about your life on here 🙂

    • YAY! Hi, Rachel!! Miss you too. Big hug across the internet! 🙂

      I totally agree. I feel like the kids, Doug, me, our family as a whole, we’re all happier when the TV isn’t on. We get stuff done, we have fun, we talk, we play. I feel like I’m good about turning it off sometimes, but other times I have a deadline or work and they watch a movie. I don’t like it and I need to get better about better utilizing my time! 🙂 Your comment was awesome, thanks so much to take the time to leave it!

  32. I sort of wish we could ditch paying for TV (we have DirecTV), but my husband would never go for that. We both follow way too many shows. He also recaps some shows for a website. I’m not sure our DSL could handle the traffic anyhow. Sometimes it’s fine with streaming and other times it’s downright painful to get through a 22 minute show.

    That said, we hardly ever pay for movie rentals because we are heavy users of our local library. I don’t know how it is anywhere else, but our county has a fabulous library system. We get all sorts of DVDs (very recent releases and old stuff) all the time. We put in our requests through their website; it’s like ordering things on Amazon! And then they just show up at the location we select for pickup. Sometimes new releases do take a month or two to show up, but we barely notice because we always have something to watch. Love our library!

    We also have Amazon Prime and you can stream a lot of things for free through them. Mostly older stuff, but they do have whole series of TV shows, which is kind of nice.

    • I’m so glad you commented, I forget about our local library for movies! I’ve only gotten kid movies there, and I believe it was either $1 or free for a whole week. I’ll have to see if we can request through their website. Thanks so much, Erin!

      I did not know about Amazon Prime, I’ll have to look into that if we get sick of Hulu Plus 😉

  33. veetle(dot)com shows without commercials. not a whole lot,but they’re getting there. i also watch our local news livestream.

  34. I was without cable; got it back w/internet and phone…well, ok when all was working. Now, getting ready to turn cable equipment back. My daughter and her family got me the itv; there are only couple of shows I watch on cable, and I can get them (w/o commercials) from itunes or amazon. I switched to more stable internet which is my first priority. I hv the rabbit ears on the tv and another antenna in back room BECAUSE…..this cable goes and I need a backup plan. Does anyone know if there is a wireless antenna that can be place in the attic? I actually found healthier shows without cable. I hv my Long Island Medium whatever I do. (can watch all shows during summer when tv really stinks).

  35. I am a bit jealous of this.
    Yet, I cannot stop watching my Housewives.
    Do they have Housewives on Netflix or Hulu?
    But the thought of just sitting around and enjoying each other’s company?
    Sad but this is sometimes missing in our high tech world.
    Love this post to pieces.

  36. Looks to me that you are watch just as much TV as before? Except you got rid of Sports…do you realize how many time you mentioned Sports? We ditched the TV years ago….on line TV. Yes, we have a computer but NOT for watch TV or Movies? Glad to think you are so clever about beating the system…Try going without TV Cable, Satellite what ever there is now a days…. and get back to us…lets talk when you have the time.

    • I wanted to be thorough and give many options for people thinking of ditching cable. Not to beat the system, just to get rid of another expense. It does sound like we watch a lot of TV if we did all of the options I listed, but there are many days that we do go without watching it at all. However, reducing how much we watch is something I’d like to work on.

      I would love to ditch the TV completely, and maybe one day we will. Thanks for commenting, I’m glad to hear that it is possible! 🙂

  37. Hi Ann Marie!
    Great post!
    We’ve been wanting to get rid of our cable monstrosity also, but I have a small dilemna. We have comcast and have one of those “bundles”, which includes our cable tv, internet and digital home phone.
    If we get rid of our cable TV, the price of the digital home phone and internet go up and I’m not even sure that I can get another high-speed internet provider where I live.
    I really need the high-speed internet because I have a blog and youtube channel to keep up.
    What do you use for internet and do you have to pay more because it’s “stand-alone” service? Is it fast?
    Just curious, because I live in a suburb of Sacramento, a fairly big city and we have very few options.
    Comcast is the biggest provider and I think AT&T covers some areas here for internet, though for some reason last time I checked they weren’t in our exact neighborhood.
    So, that leaves me with Dish or Direct TV, which I’ve heard don’t have good internet.
    Do you have any advice on this?
    Thanks!
    Lisa

    • Lisa,
      Even though your internet price will increase it is usually only half the price of full cable (without having internet) anyway. You will still see huge savings. We did away with home phone when it became cheaper to have 4 cell phones rather than a home phone and 1 cell phone. Never sign a contract though! Go with pay as you go phones so you can modify what you want when you want to. Best of luck!!
      Wendy

    • Lisa, do you guys have Surewest where you’re at? Surewest’s cable is supposed to be better than Comcast’s, as far as upload/download speed and you don’t have to pay for “boosts” like you do with Comcast. And I know that when we were comparing costs, Surewest beat out Comcast by a fairly large margin.

    • Hi Gina,
      Parts of Sacramento do have Surewest, but the last time I tried to get it (I live in a suburb) they said it wasn’t in my neighborhood but that it would be eventually. I am assuming this is because of cabling? I don’t really know, but I should try calling them again, especially if the speeds are better.
      I have been with Comcast for so long and I’m always worried about losing speed, because I do so much blogging and social media.
      Thanks for letting me know the details about Surewest!

    • Hi Lisa! Sigh. I feel your pain. We had a bundle and that’s ultimately what made us decide to drop comcast completely. We went from paying $40 each for internet and cable (so $80 total), to $120 once our deal expired! I refused to pay that much. We went with AT&T for wifi/DSL, and pay $25 a month. I know they have better deals for new customers and faster speeds for higher prices, but this works for my needs. I haven’t noticed a substantial drop in speed and like you, I am on it constantly. 🙂

      I called a few times until they told me our area was available, so maybe just keep calling and see if things change and make the switch when they do? Best of luck! Let me know if you have anymore questions.

    • But don’t you need landline phone service for dsl? See – that where the prices jump, only our local cable services office phone service and I don’t use a home phone because I use Magic Jack. So – I can’t get away from cable completely though I did get it down to $40 per month for the internet option and dropped everything else. Personally I feel that this is still too much for internet but other ISPs charge so much for internet you might as well get a cable bundle.

    • oh and the $25 a month price point for AT&T won’t be an option, it was $35 with no contract and they came down because I called to downgrade my speed and they didn’t want me to do that. 😉

    • my dad has the intro price of $15 and has had it since at least 2006 he just called and complained about them not telling him that it would go up and he did that everytime so now they grandfathered that price for him, so he pays $15 a month for internet for as long as he has it and doesnt upgrade and what not.

    • I wish i can do away with my internet($60/month) but its like my only life line living way out in the country and verizon wireless internet is the only one to work where i live, we get are cable(dish) free my hubbys parents pays for it but i do wish they get rid of it to save the money they spend on it

    • We love having our home phone (plus my husband has had this phone number his ENTIRE life). We ditched the cable and then got a MagicJack Plus. Our phone service now only costs us $30 a YEAR plus $10 a year because we decided to keep the number. You can keep your home phone for only $40 a year plus that includes unlimited long distance and voice mail. We’ve had it for 2 years and love it! You just plug it into an outlet and then use the double ended cord to plug into the Magic Jack and your modem or router (Where ever the phone line hooks into the internet.) It works for all of the phones that are plugged in (or cordless) in your home. I hope this helps. 🙂

  38. My only question is this, my husband loves sports, NFL, College Football, Baseball, etc. How are you able to watch these?

    • That is what is stopping me from ditching the cable. I’ve been trying to find an inexpensive way to watch sports.

    • Hi Mary! I gave a detailed answer to the comment you replied to, just above this one. 🙂 Hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions!

    • The one thing that he is consistent about watching is football on Sundays, and on other nights of the week only if our local team is playing. Otherwise, he listens to sports radio on the way to or from work, and watches scores via the ESPN iPhone app.

      We will watch basketball, hockey, or baseball sparingly (like, a few games a season) if it is aired on local TV channels. If there is a playoff game that is not shown on our channels, my husband will go with family to a bar & grill to watch the game, or to their house. We really don’t follow college football.

      It’s a lot nicer to not have to watch every. single. game. (baseball is a killer!) I say that, haha, I don’t know if he would, but it doesn’t seem like he misses it. I think losing the bill is more than worth it to him.

      I hope that helps. Let me know if I missed something or you have other questions! 🙂

    • If you know anyone that has Sunday ticket on Direct TV you can use their account to watch NFL Red zone every Sunday on a PlayStation 3 . We do that every Sunday and love it!!!

  39. I too have not had cable since Feb 2009! And it is wonderful! The extra money paid off some bills and we do talk to each other more. I also do the Netflix deal but did not know about Hulu Plus. We have found that there is nothing on T.V. that is so important that we would go back to paying and I believe the wave of the future is going to be internet T.V. Bravo to all of you who take the leap and “Just do it!” Life will not end it will have just begun when you disconnect the cable! 😉

    • I agree with you 100%! There is nothing on TV that is worth paying $80 a month for. Maybe if TV was cooking and cleaning for me, but it actually does the opposite. 😉 Life will not end, it will be better! Thanks so much for the comment, Marlene.

  40. I have a Roku and LOVE it! We watch the hulu plus and Amazon channel pretty regularly. It’s definitely worth the investment, at least for us.

    • I’ve been wanting to try a Roku! Good to hear that you had a good experience. The computer we have hooked up has a broken screen, so we don’t miss it, but I can imagine life being a pain if it was always tied to the computer. Thanks so much for commenting! I’ll have to look into that.

  41. I just did a related post last month. We haven’t had “cable” for over a decade and don’t really miss it. We do have tivo, which we love, and pay for hulu plus. I also get free cable at the gym so when I work out, I can catch up on some of those cable shows that I can’t see at home. I don’t really miss it, and love that we don’t have a $100 a month cable bill.

  42. ALSO, Get a ROKU and play on. Play On is a one time $60 software charge that lasts forever, and the Roku runs on about 1kw an hr (way better than a PS3 or other gaming system). Check it out!

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  • Day 2 of drywall taping in the dining room, mudroom/laundry room! The first time we walked into this (former) kitchen, the seller’s realtor laughed and said “everyone walks through here with wide eyes and big plans, but Chip and Joanna Gaines aren’t going to bust in the door to help out!!” Unfortunately he was right and they haven’t busted in. 😏 We knew there was potential in this “tear down” property. We knew we could transform things, and yet I had no idea how or if we would get to see it happen. If you’re living in construction mess or dreaming of the after, take heart. You’re not alone! We will get there!

About Ann Marie

Ann Marie Heasley

Hello! My goal is to help you seek beauty in your everyday life. Here I’ll share my experiences and offer tips on how to simplify, seek beauty, create a home you enjoy, or declutter through my annual #40bagsin40days challenge.

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