No Cable and surviving - anyone else make a drastic change?

[mrsr2ro]

Just had a random thought tonight that we've been cable free for 4 months now. In an effort to simplify our life, we decided to give up cable and see how it went. Well, it's been four months and we don't even miss it!! We have netflix for DVD rentals and have a blueray player that streams the netflix instant selections through our TV. So it's not like we gave up "watching" entirely. But we do watch a lot less than we used to.

Has anyone else make drastic changes like this? Sometimes I feel like we are weirdos (and probably many of you will think so too) but really, it's had a positive impact on our family. The previous post about Disney Junior is what got me thinking about it as I had no idea what it was all about.

Just wondering if anyone else out there is like us with this or another big decision like this.

 

[pixiedustmomma]

We haven't made that change but I did grow up without Cable. It wasn't till I was 19 that my parents got cable. I was the only one of my friends that didn't have cable growing up and a survived. But I did have an in-ground pool. that was the trade off my parents made.

We have cable now and I am sure we could live without it we needed too. We also have netflix and it has some of the cable shows we watch on there except for new seasons. I find that I use the netflix during the day more then cable. Of course with the new Disney Junior I might watch a little more then I do now.

 

[mrsr2ro]

We haven't made that change but I did grow up without Cable. It wasn't till I was 19 that my parents got cable. I was the only one of my friends that didn't have cable growing up and a survived. But I did have an in-ground pool. that was the trade off my parents made.

We have cable now and I am sure we could live without it we needed too. We also have netflix and it has some of the cable shows we watch on there except for new seasons. I find that I use the netflix during the day more then cable. Of course with the new Disney Junior I might watch a little more then I do now.

Yep - growing up we didn't have cable until I was around 14 or 15... and I felt like I was the only one of my friends without it.

And please people - I am in no way trying to be superior or the perfect parent - my kids watch plenty of DVDs/netflix/PBS. It's actually my DH and I who's TV time has reduced the most. Although my DIS time has increased

 

[-Hope-]

We've been satellite free for over two years now and we don't miss it either. We also have Netflix and instant streaming which helped ease the transition.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

Haven't had cable in 6 years! Watching the same DVDs got a little boring, until I discovered Netflix! It IS my BEST friend! Some friends bought us the box to use for streaming from computer to TV...AWESOME!!

 

[threeblessings]

love not having cable. For me, and our family, it is really freeing. The only tough part is football season as DH is a big college fb fan.

And I do miss Disney and Nick Jr. I really wish you could pay for the channels you want

We would get
Disney
Nick Jr
ESPN
HGTV
History

that should do it! Just 5 channels.

Now I would love TiVo, I hear that is really addicting.

 

[smb6]

I have not had cable in years and years. I'm not really a TV person. I have netflix also and the kids enjoy that.....

 

[~Kristina~]

We've been cable free for 2 1/2 years and love it. Thanks to Netflix and Hulu, we can still watch our shows without the cost of cable.

 

[rotlex]

We are two weeks into a free trial of Netflix, and let me say, I was thinking about dumping cable for a long time, now, it's pretty much a no brainer. Between Netflix streaming content, and iTunes\ATV, there is pretty much nothing that cable give me over it, except a $100 per month bill, LOL.

I get all my news and weather off the web anyway, so I figure with the roughly $90 per month I'll save, I'll have more savings toward our Disney trips.

 

[Robmom]

When I had Dish, I had a technical problem, and was without service for a little over a month, because that was the earliest a technician could fix it. Needless to say, I cancelled the service. So, during that time, we watched DVD's and it wasn't that bad. Since that time, I did get Verizon, but I don't watch as much tv as I used to. I actually like the silence sometimes.

 

[Mom of 3 Princesses]

Just had a random thought tonight that we've been cable free for 4 months now. In an effort to simplify our life, we decided to give up cable and see how it went. Well, it's been four months and we don't even miss it!! We have netflix for DVD rentals and have a blueray player that streams the netflix instant selections through our TV. So it's not like we gave up "watching" entirely. But we do watch a lot less than we used to.

Has anyone else make drastic changes like this? Sometimes I feel like we are weirdos (and probably many of you will think so too) but really, it's had a positive impact on our family. The previous post about Disney Junior is what got me thinking about it as I had no idea what it was all about.

Just wondering if anyone else out there is like us with this or another big decision like this.

YEAH for you!!!!

We have been cable free for 5 years now!!

When we travel, we love having the opportunity to watch cable. My husband always points out that watching cable when we are staying at a hotel just proves that there is nothing worth watching on Cable TV.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some fuddy duddy that thinks cable television is evil and we should be disconnected from the world but I really, on an everyday basis.. don't miss it.

My kids sometimes complain. But they watch TV on the computer a lot. We also love Red Box. But honestly, we have learned that out family life does not revolve around an electronic box.

Its refreshing! (Besides the fact that it saves us A LOT of money each month that we could be using for other things. I.e. saving for kids college.. Disney.

 

[mrsr2ro]

Yay - now I don't feel so wierd. Thanks all of you for sharing your stories.

I think the thing I like best is that when we would sit to watch tv, DH would drive me nuts channel surfing. He'd "watch" three shows at once constantly flipping back and forth. Or I'd sit down and run through the whole list of channels and not find one thing interesting on.... and just keep surfing or watching something mildly interesting just since there was nothing else on.

Now - we sit down together to watch either a movie or tv show on Netflix, commercial free. We keep our queue full so there is always something of interest waiting for us. It's just more enjoyable than watching it the "old way".

He's watched a few of the "food" type documentaries and has suggested another big change for our family - going vegetarian.... I'm not quite ready for that change yet!

 

[4HppyCamprs]

love not having cable. For me, and our family, it is really freeing. The only tough part is football season as DH is a big college fb fan.

And I do miss Disney and Nick Jr. I really wish you could pay for the channels you want

We would get
Disney
Nick Jr
ESPN
HGTV
History

that should do it! Just 5 channels.

Now I would love TiVo, I hear that is really addicting.

We canceled cable back in December I just couldnt see paying 70.00 for 5 or 6 channels anymore. We were pleasantly surprised to find that most of the channels we watch we get free anyways. I have said for a few years now that I would love to be able to pay a per channel charge for the channels we really want rather than paying a "package" price for channels we do not watch...

 

[TeaForTulips]

I think its so great to be cable free! We are kind of the opposite in we were cable free for 3-4 years and just recently got cable when we moved. I sadly am addicted to DVR. We do spend much less on movies than we used to as we used to keep our DVD collection up to date.

I am starting to consider going cable free again. The only thing it does is keep me up late at night when I catch up on shows I recorded. We spend our weekends out about in Orlando and Disney so as I type this I am wondering why I pay $120 a month... hmm!

 

[koolaidmoms]

We dropped our satellite TV three weeks ago and it was the best thing we have done. We never had cable until DD was 5. In 5 short years she got addicted.

The night the cable went out she cried for over an hour. I told her if she was this upset over not having television then we really did need to get rid of it.

This past week she came and told me that she was okay with it now. She said she is playing the piano more and reading more.

We did this as a one year experiment but I LOVE it!

 

[Huff]

Haven't had cable in 3 years. Had it free for awhile but that changed and I could not justify the cost. We now have an antenna for local channels as well as Netflix for streaming movies or DVD's. Works perfect for us and saves a ton of $'s for our Disney trips!

 

[Suellen]

Funny I started a similar post and got pretty negative feedback.

Anyway ~ yup cable free couldn't miss it less!

 

[-Hope-]

I think its so great to be cable free! We are kind of the opposite in we were cable free for 3-4 years and just recently got cable when we moved. I sadly am addicted to DVR. We do spend much less on movies than we used to as we used to keep our DVD collection up to date.

I am starting to consider going cable free again. The only thing it does is keep me up late at night when I catch up on shows I recorded. We spend our weekends out about in Orlando and Disney so as I type this I am wondering why I pay $120 a month... hmm!

I have a dvr w/o cable. I got a refurbed Tivo from their website, we have it hooked up to our regualr antenna and pay $10 a month for the service. I consider it an investment in savings since we rarely watch commercials so we don't want as much stuff. Between Tivo and Netflix I spend less than $20/ month on our tv and I used to spend about $70 for basic channels, local channels, and tivo.

We also plan to get a cable to connect our laptop to our tv and then we can watch hulu without huddling around a little screen.

 

[scrapbookingmanda]

What kind of internet do you have without cable? Maybe this is a dumb question, but it's what's kept us holding on to our cable. W gave up our landline phone so we don't know how we would get internet if we dropped cable. If we could keep cable for internet only we would drop the cable tv in a heartbeat.

 

[mrsr2ro]

What kind of internet do you have without cable? Maybe this is a dumb question, but it's what's kept us holding on to our cable. W gave up our landline phone so we don't know how we would get internet if we dropped cable. If we could keep cable for internet only we would drop the cable tv in a heartbeat.

Where we live they are billed individually from the cable provider. Many years ago they were linked - if you wanted cable modem you had to pay for at least basic cable. But then a law was passed that made that illegal so then they allowed it separate. They come and put filters of some kind that allow the modem access but not the tv. Call your service provider and check how it is for your area.