Ditching Cable TV

My friend, Cindy, recently ditched her cable tv. She got a coupon for the new tv converter box and she had her cable turned off. I was surprised at the quality of the picture that she has, as well as surprised by how many channels she is pulling in without any cable. I have been talking to my husband the last couple of days about getting rid of our cable or at least doing away with several of the channels to save money. We used to spend about $35 month for cable and our internet is costing us around $45 month. If you don't have cable, they will charge you probably double just to have internet. When I found out about the "All in one" service where you can get the home phone, a bigger cable package and the internet for only $99, I finally jumped in and ordered it. We hardly ever use the phone since we all have cell phones. I'll do a discussion on cell phones later. We also need to save money where those are concerned.

I have thought about ditching cable all together and seeing what I can get internet for someplace else and cheaper. We have our 'handful' of shows that we watch daily. Since we mostly watch CSI Miami and 24, certain cartoons, along with a handful of shows, I have found where we can watch them for free on the internet. My son is already watching many of them on his computer free of charge. My son can hook my laptop to the tv and we can watch them.

I recently came across this article on ditching cable.

If you're looking to reduce monthly expenses, try cutting out cable TV. It may seem extreme, particularly if you do like watching TV, but hear me out.

I used to pay over $60/month for cable TV. I'd watch a couple of shows at night after dinner, and then maybe a few shows over the weekend, but I always felt like I was paying a lot for the amount of TV I watched. Then I discovered Hulu.com.

Hulu is a website backed by NBC Universal and News Corp. According to Hulu.com, they have over 900 current primetime TV hits on the site. You can watch any of the shows for free. They still have commercials, but fewer than if you watched the shows on regular television. And you can get new shows at the same time they air on regular TV, so you don’t have to wait to see them.

Hulu has a really good variety of shows, from The Office and 30 Rock to Heroes and Lipstick Jungle (all favorites of mine). They also have shows that air on cable networks, like The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report. And you can also watch old movies on Hulu (e.g., Men in Black, Ghostbusters, etc.).

I figured that cutting out cable would save me over $700/year. That's a lot of money back in my pocket. Sure, I have to give up some of my favorite shows that they don't carry, but I catch them at friends' houses. My boyfriend is into sports, so he could never cut out cable altogether, but he has cable at his apartment so he can still watch the games there.

All in all, I think it's a pretty nice service. I still have my Internet access, obviously, so I can watch shows on Hulu, but it is nice to know I'm saving a lot of money by cutting out cable TV. And it's also nice that I can still watch new episodes of my favorite shows when I'm traveling or if I'm out to dinner and miss them when they air on regular TV, as I'm not tied down to a schedule and don't have to pay for a DVR service.

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