What if you could eliminate your gas bill and still drive 95% of the places you currently go? Or stop paying for heating by keeping your thermostat two degrees cooler? These aren’t possible, but you can stop paying for TV and still watch most of your favorite shows.
Budgets are tight. But most people are still reluctant to give up cable. Even when it may be financially crazy to keep it. Paying $95/month for cable? That’s over $1100 a year. Or enough to buy a 50″ HD Plasma TV each year.
Save the money or put it towards that new big screen TV. Then use free digital broadcast TV and avoid paying monthly cable tv fees. Save the money and earn interest on it. With a 6% rate of return…
- After 3 years you will have saved $3747
- After 5 years you will have saved $6648
- After 10 years you will have saved $15,621
- After 20 years you will have saved $44,083
Congratulations! You have now turned a major expense into an investment.
What are you missing? Not much. We did it and still watch all our favorite shows. Most were broadcast (Lost, 24, etc.) . Using a $16 digital antenna our picture quality is actually better than our old digital cable. Most of our favorite cable shows (Daily Show, Colbert Report) are available for free on the Internet. Our kids watch videos on Disney.com and Nick.com and we get current movies and HBO shows with a Netflix subscription.
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Ten Years ago I noticed the quality of Television Programming was heading south. As the years went by I saw more and more quality Drama and Comedy Shows get taken off the air and replaced with Shoddy “Reality”, Game, and News Shows. If that wasn’t bad enough I also noticed the number of Commercials aired during each show increase.
On January 2, 2007 I stopped watching Cable TV. I took all of the Equipment that belonged to the Cable TV Company and dropped it off at one of their Customer Service Centers and Cancelled my Subscription. The money I used to spend (About $65.00/Month) is now used to Purchase DVDs of my favorite Shows and Movies. By keeping my eyes on the Bargain Bins I purchase 3-5 DVD Box Sets each month. 18 Months later I have amassed almost 7,000 Hours of TV Shows and Movies on DVDs. I actually ENJOY my evenings in front of the TV Again. All my Programs are shown uncut, with no Interruptions, and no Logos, Pop-Ups, Scrolls and Banners blotting out the Screen. I get my news from the Morning Paper and the Internet, and if there is a Sports Event that I want to see there are two Sports Bars within walking distance of my House. I do not miss Cable TV at all! I invite anyone who reads this to join me. You will not regret it!
I recently bought a netflix Roku box for my tv for $99.00. Now for $8.99 a month I can watch as much as I want of a wide selection of movies, TV shows and documentarys. I use my computer to build my netflix que then using my high speed internet connection, my 802.11G wireless box and the Roku box hooked to my 58″ TV I can get great movies and TV shows in a quality that is at most all times very very close to DVD. Some older movies have poorer quality but thats due to the source material not the netflix system.
Its cheap, its easy to setup, easy to use and and great quality.
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