Posted on 06/25/2014 6:07:06 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Stop paying the electric bill and they’ll turn off the lights. Cable TV, however, is no longer quite so essential. It’s now possible to stop paying the cable bill and enjoy much, if not all of your favorite programming — at great savings.
But is cutting the cord right for you? To help answer that question we’ve created a new interactive cord-cutting calculator .
Here’s how it works: Answer a few questions about your TV watching needs, including your favorite shows and sports leagues, and the tool will crunch the numbers and give you several options to best approximate your cable TV experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
I dropped UVerse and cut my entire AT&T bill in half. Now I pay only for Netflix and Hulu at $8 per month each. I’m saving quite a bit.
“It’s now possible to stop paying the cable bill and enjoy much, if not all of your favorite programming — at great savings.”
Longmire? Yes.
Game of Thrones? No.
I suppose reading the books (and be like many of us and frustrated with how long we've waited for the next book) would be the cheapest option (used books are VERY cheap...) Next would be just buying the season on BluRay when it comes out each year and suffering through the spoilers that appear on Facebook. (Or save more time and money and don't use Facebook.)
Well, I read the books years ago already. I read the original novel in 2000 - about 4 years after it came out.
I did buy the first season on DVD. I hated having to wait months and months just to get the DVDs for shows that aired on channels I did not have.
I don’t do Facebook so there would be no spoilers that way (and I already read the books so...).
My main problem with cable is the fact that I pay for hundreds of channels I don’t watch because its the only way to get the dozen I do watch.
Until there is a FreeRepublic Channel, there is zero need for a television set, let alone cable/satellite programming.
/johnny
There are 3 or 4, the rest could go away and I doubt I would care.
I’ve got like 6 different PBS channels now. Not to mention some 30 odd music channels.
I only get the channels I want.
Besides, at this point in my life, watching Frozen for the eleventy-seventh time is more important than television.
The joys of being an active grandparent...
/johnny
There is non-monetary savings. I’ve been without television for going on three years. If I want to watch tv, I have lots of DVDs or internet sources.
Getting away from the commercials, from the biased news, from the constant liberal messaging and the 95%+ crap programming is better for one’s mental, spiritual and even physical health. Now I control the content, timing and cost. And I’ve discovered the world of internet radio and yes, rediscovered these things called books. One of the best things I’ve ever done, even though people look at me like I’m a space alien when I tell them I don’t have cable tv.
Using the $100/mo. figure, my initial savings were $1,200/year.
We subscribe to Hulu (getting ready to drop that, too many "commercials") Netflix and Amazon Prime (mostly for shipping, but the TV&Movies included in Prime is really quite good.
We spend $8/mo. for Hulu, $8/mo. for Netflix and Amazon Prime is $6.67/mo. ($79 / 12.) So I'm really saving about $78/mo. factoring in the Hulu, Netflix & Amazon Prime subscriptions. That's still $936/year.
I didn't need to upgrade my Comcast internet service ($39/mo. for 25mb down/6mb up) so that remained the same.
I figure $936/yr. saved to watch the idiot box isn't bad! I have maybe two shows I watch/week (BlackList & 24 Live Another Day) which I get with my OTA antenna. If it weren't for my two teenage sons, I'd be perfectly happy dropping Hulu and Netflix altogether. I buy so much on Amazon I'd keep the AmazonPrime service.
BTW, we dropped DirecTV 2 years ago this August. Got a few Roku devices for the TV's and never thought about going back to DirecTV. I think devices like Roku which let you subscribe to the content you want vs. having to buy large bundled packages from Cable/Satellite providers is absolutely the future.
I've got a set of twin 14 year old step grandkids that ask to come to visit because there is a)always something interesting going on b)no television.
/johnny
I dropped DirecTV February 17 2013 (final episode of Downton Abbey). Haven’t had cable or satellite TV since and haven’t missed it for a second.
I was paying $96 monthly (except for football season, when the NFL Sunday Ticket boosted the bill to something like $170 or so). So, I guess I’ve saved about $1800 or $1900 so far.
DTV sends me junkmail regularly, wanting me to sign back up. I just throw it in the trash.
You can watch a show a year after it's off the air, i.e. available on Netflix, without having to worry about hearing any spoilers.
The other thing is that so many people are watching shows delayed via DVR that even those people that watch the same shows are reluctant to talk about the plots in public for fear of revealing a spoiler to someone who hasn't gotten a chance to view it off their DVR yet.
I watched entire seasons of Dexter two years after they were out without knowing a single plot twist.
Hmmm I must be doing it wrong then I watched all ten episodes and I don't have cable or Sat or even an antenna.
I'm still not happy with AT&T. My house can't take 6Meg so I get 3Meg at least on paper. Many times I've measured the speed at 0.25Meg. When I watch Netflix I rarely get a crystal clear picture. I'm almost always getting a lower rez.
I'm thinking of signing up for Time-Warner business internet only. It's $100/month but I understand the speed and support are much superior to what Time-Warner provides to their non-business customers.
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