I’ve written in the past about luxury in moderation and have always considered Cable to be a moderate one. I’ve written about how we saved $700 by simply visiting the cable store and asking to pay less. Today I took it a step further. Cable has now become more than a moderate luxury for us. Living on a tight budget facing heaps of continues medical bills is going to require some sacrifices. Cable is the first. We finally cut the cord.
Actually, in our case I removed the outdated cable cards and disconnected the the Tuning adapter (TIVO fans know what I’m talking about). Those hundreds of savings we made repackaging our cable the last time, have pretty much evaporated by increased rates and newly added fees. We were back up to almost $170 per month for cable and internet. What did we get for it? Well in our case, two shows on Comedy Central, SyFy and The Walking Dead.
I’ve lost my appetite for TWD now that our kid has Type 1 Diabetes. It no longer offers an escape but instead a bleak realization. We religiously watch Larry Wilmore and the Daily Show but never watch it live. Everything is Tivod and watched one or two days later. Guess what: I can do that on the internet.
Before I disconnected the Cablecards I did install a new Antenna. One that does better than the Mohu Leaf (we tried it) and replaced it with an outdoor antenna for only $38. I wanted to make sure we at least still get some of the channels.
Mohu Leaf 50 TV Antenna, Indoor, Amplified, 50 Mile Range
Amplified HD Digital Outdoor HDTV Antenna with Motorized 360 Degree Rotation, UHF/VHF/FM Radio with Infrared Remote Control
(yes I’m an amazon affiliate)
We still get the major networks in High Def and beyond that, some 45 more channels, that seem to offer as little as cable itself. I was pleasantly surprised to see that our re-organized TIVO Season pass to-do-list still had some 30 entries left on it. This means that 30 of the shows we regularly watch are still available via Antenna. It helps Mrs MI10 is a masterpiece mystery fanatic.
For the remainder of the shows that we really need, we will use our Apple TV to stream these directly from the internet. If you don’t like Apple there are many other options.
If all went well we should save some $100 per month by dropping cable. That is unless we get unpleasantly surprised with addition fees we didn’t ask for.
I’ll keep you posted on those. I will write about some alternatives in a future post, should you consider to cut the cord and don’t know where to get your fix next.
Good luck reaching your financial goals
Looking forward to hearing more. I’ve been a big fan of OTT delivery for years and getting away away from cable TV and traditional broadcasting. In fact, for along time I was a Beta tester for Roku – starting back when it was the Netflix player and that was the only channel – and have done Beta testing for other platforms and services. As of now though, we still subscribe to cable service as there are some shows the wife enjoys and the cost doesn’t impact us. Again, looking forward to hearing more about your ‘cut the cord’ experience. Be well, my friend.