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Save Money: Cancel Your Cable
Vanessa and I haven’t had cable in over two years.
image: Solid State by Alexandre Normand, CC-BY
Often our friends will forget this and it’s almost entertaining to see the look of surprise on their faces when they realize they’re – yet again – asking us if we saw such and such the other night, when they know we don’t watch broadcast TV. To be clear, we don’t even have an antenna hooked up.
For some, the thought of being without TV is terrifying. “Where will I get my news and information? What about my favorite programs?” Well, the sensational marketing fluff piece that is whatever mainstream media outlet you prefer has a website where they are shoveling all the same dirt and drama. As for your favorite programs, do you still care about what happened in Survivor Season 2? What about Real World 3? Even so, we all have our favorite shows (even me), so here’s some ideas on how to save money and take control of your entertainment.
1. Call your cable company. Cancel your digital cable double DVR service. All of it. Cancel the basic cable too. Use your TV for entertainment only – not mindless pacification and time wasting. You’ll save some money here. Maybe closer to $100 a month.
2. If you also get your high speed internet through your cable company, use some of the money you used to spend on cable TV to get the fastest internet connection they offer. You’ll still be saving money every month.
3. While we’re at it, cancel your landline phone too. Every wireless carrier on the block offers an unlimited voice and data plan. Would you believe I’ve only had TWO solicitor calls on my wireless phone since 1995 (consequently, the last time I had a land line for anything other than dial up internet)?
Now what?
Go to Netflix.com and sign up for at least the 2 movies a month plan. It’s less than $20/month. Go through their catalog online and fill up your queue with all the movies you haven’t had a chance to see yet or loved when you saw them years ago. Here in Phoenix, if I put a movie in the mail to Netflix on a Monday morning, I get an email from them Tuesday morning saying they got it and another email Tuesday afternoon telling me what movie they’re sending me next. It’s waiting for me on Wednesday.
BONUS: With Netflix, you can watch UNLIMITED movies streaming online. If you were paying $1200/year on digital cable, you could easily spend a couple hundred bucks on equipment to connect your TV to the internet so you could watch any movie you wanted right in your living room.
Your high speed connection will make streaming movies a piece of cake, but there’s more. Hulu has all the latest network programs and they still have commercials, but you can slowly wean yourself off the primetime mediocrity. Meanwhile, you can order previous seasons of shows you never got to watch when you had cable from Netflix. Get the Sopranos, or Dexter, or (one of our personal favorites) Californication delivered right to your door.
Beyond that, did you know that the BBC is a public broadcast network and that pretty much ALL of their programs are available for download via torrent from websites like EZTV.it? That Top Gear episode that’s going to air on BBC America on the 25th of January? The original program aired almost a year ago and was a full hour long with zero commercial interruptions, yet the show “premiering” here in the States later this month will somehow fit 20-30 minutes of commercials into that same hour.
Push comes to shove, there’s probably a Redbox machine in your area (or will be very soon) for those last minute, I need a movie right now situations. DVD rentals at the local gas station for $1 a night. It’s the perfect supplement to a Netflix account.
Think of what you’re missing, living your life based on some network’s schedule or marketing contracts that butcher your favorite shows in the interest of revenue generation. That’s why the news runs when it does, you know. Not because that’s the most convenient time for them to bring you up to speed on what’s happening, but so they can flash a bunch of sensationalist blame-placing and gratuitous sex scandal in your face to get you to tune in so they can show you more commercials.
You deserve better. Welcome to the 21st century. You have access to all the entertainment in the world right at your fingertips ON DEMAND. The shows you want to watch, WHEN you want to watch them. Real news from people genuinely concerned with the issue and with the fortitude to stick with the stories for as long as needed.
Give it a try. The cable company will be thrilled to have you back if you want to go back (but I doubt you will). Save money, be entertained on your schedule, and be better informed through real news reporting. You can do it.
In the glovebox: