Cutting the cable TV cord
Jun 6th, 2012 by admin
The cable TV guy arrived at our house Tuesday, taking away the DVR and our cable TV access.
It’s a move I’ve contemplated for months, and have written about as a personal finance writer. It can save a lot of money, and avoids the headache of flipping around on the remote control and still finding nothing worth watching.
We have a Roku, and subscribe to MLB.TV and Netflix. When the new TV season arrives in the fall, I expect we’ll add Hulu Plus. And we can always rent movies or buy TV shows on Amazon to watch through the Roku.
I also bought an indoor antenna, though so far it’s not working as well as I had hoped: It gets two channels that go in and out, so I’d say it’s a bust and likely to be returned to Radio Shack.
I expect we’ll easily get through the summer without cable TV, but the fall may be more difficult. We’ve cut our cable bill by about $50 a month by getting rid of cable TV, but buying a few shows here and there may make up some of the savings. I’ll keep the blog updated this summer with how this experiment is progressing, and if it’s going to be as difficult as I think it will. We might be going to the library a lot more than we already do.
Have you cut the cable TV cord? Do you have a Roku or other device to get some TV shows? Tell me in the comments section below.
UPDATE, JUNE 21: I wrote about the non-financial benefits of cutting cable TV for WiseBread, a personal finance website I write for. Read that story.
Second update: July 9: I wrote a follow-up story for WiseBread on how to watch live sporting events without cable TV.
