There was one good thing about the recession; it made a lot of people think about where they’re spending their money and how they can be smarter about where they’re spending it. Top on that list? Cable television bills. When I was younger, our cable bill was in the neighborhood of $20 a month.
It seemed expensive to me at the time but somehow, over the course of fifteen years, it suddenly seemed reasonable that cable should cost $80 to $100 dollars a month after fees and taxes!?
There’s a better way and many people are discovering alternatives to paying for cable television service.
Keep a television log of how much television you watch and which shows you watch. This will give you an idea of how much you’re spending per show and whether or not you can find those shows for free online. In keeping a television log, I learned that I almost never watched a show live and most of the shows were available online for free (and with fewer, shorter commercials). With a log, you know for sure how much you actually watch, which can be a good or a bad thing!
Considering buying an antenna and pulling television out of thin air. You can use AntennaWeb to find out which stations you will be able to receive along with the type of antenna you’d need to receive it. Antennas aren’t cheap but they’re cheaper than a $100 monthly cable bill with a two year commitment!
Watch television shows online. Almost every network puts their most popular shows online at Hulu.com or their own site. In some cases the shows are available the next day but oftentimes they are on delay and then only available for a limited. For example, Fox won’t put shows online for eight days and then only the last five episodes are available.
Netflix Instant Streaming FTW. The library of television shows available on Instant Streaming through Netflix is staggering. For their cheapest Instant Streaming plan, $8.99, you can watch a virtual buffet of television shows. Anything you could imagine is available from Nip/Tuck to Friday Night Lights, from Penn & Teller’s Bullsh*t to the lone season of Firefly (and it’s big screen sister Serenity). Find a hookup to your regular television, perhaps by way of an XBox360, and you can even watch it on your TV.
There are plenty of options for people who want to cut their cable, those were just a few of the ways you can replace that monthly bill to the cable company. Take those extra savings and help boost the economy! (or you could be boring and put it into a savings account)
Do you have any tips for someone looking to cancel their cable service?
Jim writes about personal finance at Bargaineering.com.
More From Consumerist
-
Sen. McCain Back In Anti-Bundling Saddle With New Bill Pushing A La Carte Cable TV
-
Broadcasters Suddenly Notice That Cord-Cutters Exist, Freak Out
-
Repair Company Can’t Fix TV Without Parts, Warranty Won’t Replace Repairable TV
-
Bright House Customer Now Has His Football In Glorious HD
-
A La Carte Cable Channel Pricing Is Coming… To Canada
For us, well, it’s either Cable TV, or lose all the shows we give a hoot about.
History, Discovery, SciFi, Animal Planet, Food Network, Gameshow Network, National Geographic Channel, Nickelodeon …
*shrug*
$100/month is painful, yeah. But the alternative (go stark raving mad with boredom) is worse.
Everytime I move somewhere, I plug in a coaxial cable and I’m good to go with basic cable.
Comcast is a POS and we have had so many issues with them with internet. So I don’t feel guilty at all.
If you hook up a computer to your TV, you can get some combination of: MythTV/XBMC/Freevo, Netflix, Boxee, hulu Desktop, Windows Media Center, Zinc, Kylo, plus Steam games and Google Earth.
If you’ve got a current-generation console, Netflix has you covered, and you can ‘purchase’ shows (DRM-laden, non-transferrable, no backups) on the PS3 and XBox360.
The Boxee box and Android-based Google TV may be coming out within a year (we’ll see), but the Roku is a good option now, as is Apple TV and TVs that have built-in support for some internet content like YouTube.
This seems to be a common question: How do I hook up Hulu to my TV?
You’ll need to find a way to connect your computer to your monitor or TV. Most of the time, LCD TV’s have VGA, DVI, or HDMI Inputs, and you can literally just swap the cable. Most of the time. DVI to HDMI adapters are available…don’t buy Monster cables and don’t buy them from best buy.
If you have an older TV that has component video, S-video or Coaxial input, you’ll need an adapter box. Remember the RF-switch that came with your old Nintendo? Yeah, you’ll need something similar.
From experience, its not worth it to send video to an old-style TV.
How about just not watching TV?
Twice in my life I’ve been without a TV for a year or longer…and one stretch with a TV that didnt get channels but I kept around to watch DVDs. It is amazing what you believe you dont have time getting done when you dont watch TV.
My free cable channels disappeared a few weeks ago after telling Comcast for five years I was getting them as unpaid. It’s been a favor to me, really.
this is what i have done, and it’s totally worth it. plus, you can then just watch all the shows you want in one gloriously lazy night!
Once again, I’d gladly cut the cable if half the content that were captioned on TV were available in that form online. It’s not nearly as enjoyable when I have to keep rewinding and rewinding and rewinding just to make out what a particularly mealy-mouthed character has been saying.
At least Hulu’s made some strides there, but iTunes and Netflix streaming are still leaving me out in the cold.
Hook a Mac Mini up to your TV. It comes with a remote control, and is dead simple to use. Then use Hulu, Plex, Boxee or Clickr to tune in your programming, including Netflix streaming. Of course, if you use cable internet, you won’t be able to cut the cord entirely. RemoteBuddy is a huge help in getting the whole 10′ experience tied together.