Self-employment is definitely on my mind, and I want to be as prepared as possible for self-employment as I can be. I have been analyzing our budget a lot (our budget will be posted soon), and I have been looking for any categories in which we can lower or eliminate our spending altogether. Cable has definitely been on my mind because of this.
There are also other reasons why we have thought about possibly eliminating cable. We spend a lot of time in front of the TV, and we constantly wonder if it is worth it.
There are some shows that we feel that we NEED to watch (Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, Walking Dead, and the list goes on forever), but the rest are mainly just shows that we watch to procrastinate with things that we should actually be doing.
Also, another reason is that there are many people out there who watch all of these same shows and save tons of money. Some don’t spend anything, or they spend a very small amount each month, such as $10.
If I can possible save money, then why not? Who wants to spend more money than they have to?
Surprisingly, I have received some flack on the blog lately for wanting to save money. With self-employment, income is not stable, and I would like our budget to be low if we can help it. We still want to enjoy our lives (there are plenty of free and frugal activities out there) of course, but if we can save money and still receive the same value in return, then why not?
What amount do we pay for cable right now?
We are currently paying $57 (this amount includes all fees and taxes) for nearly every single channel imaginable and also for channels such as HBO.
It would be higher but around every 6 months I call the cable company and ask them for a discount, and they always easily say yes. This must be because so many customers are cutting the cord lately.
Would we be more productive without all of these extra channels if we determined cable isn’t worth it?
$60 is probably not an amount that could break us, but I wonder that if we paid for less channels if we would be more productive and maybe even happier in our lives.
With the amount of channels that we have, there is almost always something on TV for us to watch. We pay $60 a month for only 3 shows each YEAR pretty much.
With less channels, I do feel as though I will be more productive. And this is a big reason for why I might want to get rid of cable. Sitting in front of the TV when I should be working during the day just sounds too tempting! If I get hooked on a show, it’s really hard for me not to watch a marathon of it for the rest of the day. I am guilty to say that almost every single Saturday I work on my side hustles while watching a Boy Meets World marathon.
If we were paying $10 a month for what we watch, then we would be saving $50 a month. That $50 could go towards something else that has meaning instead of all of the mind-numbing shows that I currently watch (ahem… Teen Mom and everything else on MTV that I seem to be addicted to).
Related: 16 Alternatives To Cable TV That WILL Save You Money
We do love watching TV.
Don’t get me wrong, we both do love watching TV. I always love a good movie and a new TV show (I’m loving Under the Dome right now) too.
The price we pay isn’t too high, and I believe we pay much less than what others pay. I have heard of some cases where some families pay over $100 a month for less channels than we receive. I have even heard that the average cable bill is around $125 a month, which blows my mind because I would never pay that much. Would you ever pay that much for TV?
There are many ways to save on cable, of which we have done in order to lower our cable cost to as low as we have it. It’s always best to sign up under some sort of “New customer” discount.
Also, always make sure to ask for additional discounts. You can ask for the receiver for free, any insurance on the satellite, free HD channels, free premium channels such as HBO and so on. Also, do what we do and call your cable company every 6 months or so and ask for a discount. This has ALWAYS worked for us and usually takes less than 5 minutes.
What other TV options are there?
Netflix – Less than $10 a month
Netflix is around $10, and with it you can stream shows straight to your TV. Or you can get DVDs straight to your home.
At one point, my sister bought Netflix (I’m not even sure if we still have it, I’ll blame my laziness for not knowing the answer to that), and we would stream it from our PS3 straight to our TV. However, I never really saw too many shows or movies that interested me. I’m not sure if I just had bad timing, but I also only gave Netflix one or two chances.
Hulu Plus – Also less than $10 a month
Hulu Plus is $7.99 per month. I have heard that Hulu Plus is great if you want fewer ads (as compared to the free Hulu service) and because you can stream a lot of recent shows that may not be on Netflix.
Antenna – Free
I hope everyone knows what this is. Find those rabbit ears and put them on your TV. You can get basic channels for free. If you don’t already have an antenna, they can of course be bought at stores for what I’m thinking would be a relatively low price.
EDIT: I now use an antenna so that I can get my favorite local channels. You can [easyazon_link keywords=”go to this website” locale=”US” tag=”maksenofcen0b-20″ link_id=”3628″ id=”52224″]go to this website[/easyazon_link] and find many great antennas – this is an affiliate link, but I didn’t find out I could be an affiliate until after I was already using their antenna. I truly enjoy their product and recommend it!
Amazon Prime – $79 a year, but there are often discounts
There are many benefits of Amazon Prime, such as free shipping, but the main point of including it in this post is that they offer unlimited streaming as well in their service.
I logged in to see what the exact price would be, and it says it is normally $79. However, when I logged in, Amazon said that I qualify for a 50% discount, which would make my price only $39 a year. That seems like a deal! I have heard that there are many different discounts out there, such as for being a student, so please research this. I’m sure most people don’t pay the full $79 price.
Library – Free
The library is also another option, and all it costs is whatever it takes in gas to drive there. The library often has movies and you can rent what you want to watch for free.
Do you have cable? Is is cable worth it to you? How much do you spend each month on cable?
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I’m a TV addict and can’t justify the cost of cable. I have access to Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and HBO Go (which I never use). I don’t pay for all of those, because of the ability to share accounts. I invested in a Roku almost a year ago and seriously love the thing. I am never home to watch shows in prime time so I’m always viewing them a day late anyway. With your love of some HBO shows though, cutting cable may be a bit tough. You have to be a cable subscriber to use HBO Go (unless you snag someone’s login). What’s the price difference between the cable/internet bundle and just internet? If your $57 is paying for internet too and it would only reduce by $20 to cut cable then obviously that probably wouldn’t be worth it to you.
The $57 does not cover internet, as the bundle price was actually higher if I bundled everything.
Cable definitely wasn’t worth it for us! We were paying about $130 per month. We got rid of it about two years ago and got a subscription to netflix and hulu and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it. I recently wrote a post about our roku box (I’m so in love with it!). Ever since cancelling cable I don’t watch television as much and when I do it’s usually with purpose. The main shows I watch anyway come on regular television during the fall/winter/spring months and if it doesn’t I easily watch it online. Trust me, you will not miss it one bit! You will appreciate that extra money in the bank a whole lot more:)
$130 is way too much! 🙂
The one and only reason we have cable is for football. If we could have cable August through January, that would be awesome. Otherwise, we watch Netflix, and the news. I want to get rid of our satellite.
Luckily, we don’t watch sports!
We have a discounted bundled package from verizon fios. The cost of our cable is $75 and includes the cost of 4 dvr boxes, hbo and showtime. We are locked in a contract until next year. I will consider looking at other options after our contract is up but I’m with you on asking for discounts. Requesting discounts has also worked for us in the past and I will definitely call to request one after our discounted package has expired.
$75 isn’t too bad. Tat’s pretty close to what we pay. Surprisingly, we don’t have a contract with our cable provider. I recently asked them if we did, and they said us accepting their discounts didn’t mean that we were in a contract. Weird! But good to know that we can canel at any time.
We do Hulu and it’s plenty for us, but we’re not big on sports or anything like that.
We’re not big on sports either. We might have to look further into Hulu.
I just got my digital antenna in the mail today, plugged it in my TV, and it gets 25 digital channels for free! I don’t need anything but the local channels. The price was $39.99 on Amazon and the unit was recommended by my boss. I hate to advertise, but it’s called the Leaf. It’s a 10×8 flat antenna that you use provided thumb tacks (or velcro) to secure to the wall. Because the TV was set up for cable, I had to restore factory settings, but that was easy too. I was skeptical but it works! The only downside to not having cable is that I miss football games on ESPN. There are always options though. 🙂
Thank you so much! I was hoping that someone would recommend something like this.
I’m a Netflixer for sure. Although, years ago when I did have cable I think I was paying around $100 a month (including internet).
I think TV will follow Netflix’s lead, and we’ll be able to buy more channels piecemeal. Which is great. I do wish I had AMC, ESPN, and a news channel. That’s it. And that’s why I don’t have cable.
Yes I wish I could buy just the channels that I wanted!
I don’t know what cable costs (bf pays the bill) and I probably don’t want to know. If it was up to me I’d probably do netflix or something like that, but I do admit I rather like some bad cable shows (as you said teen mom) and a few others. Bf’s really good about making good use of the local library (he walks so we don’t even have gas costs).
Haha yes, Teen Mom is addicting.
I haven’t ever paid for cable (came with my apartment in college, hasn’t been a priority since) but the BF and I do spring $16.62/month for Netflix Instant and one physical DVD. It allows us to stay mostly up-to-date on shows we like (Hulu covers a lot of others) and then move back through movies that are less-popular (I’m pretty bummed my copy of Spike Lee’s “School Daze” showed up cracked though!) It’s worked for us (we still get to cuddle up and enjoy things together, while he can watch Breaking Bad and I can rock out to Once Upon a Time), it’s WAY cheaper than cable, and it’s pretty conducive to productivity and getting school work done!
*Side note: our TV is 10+ years old. The BF won during his senior all-night party in high school – complete with a super-fancy (at the time) built-in DVD player! It’s big, it’s boxy, but it gets the job done!
Haha that is a funny story about your TV! Love it.
I use Amazon Prime and I am satisfied with it. Not only I have free shipping on almost everything I buy, but the streaming video library is very good and almost everything I like to watch is free. When we travel it is a great deal for us.
That is a great positive!
Living in the US certainly has its advantages. I tried to sign up for Amazon Prime because I love House Hunters and HH International, but unfortunately that show and most of everything else there is only available in the US. Same goes for Netflix and Hulu so our options are kind of limited. Fortunately, our monthly bill for cable is $10 (without HBO) so it’s not really a huge expense. We don’t have House Hunters though, which really saddens me 🙂
Aww that stinks 🙂
Haven’t had cable in over 5 years, and probably won’t ever have it again because it is such a time-suck. A lot of shows I like air episodes for free on their websites, I also watch free on Hulu. In addition, we have Netflix and tried out Amazon Prime for a year…not sure if we’ll be renewing or not, there’s only one show that I watch regularly on Prime but I do love the savings/shipping deals with Prime.
Sounds like you have it good. I am so addicted to shows!
I haven’t had cable for over a year now and I’m pretty happy about that! Not that I think there is anything wrong with watching tv because I don’t. Now my kids play and use their imagination instead of being glued to Dora or Spongebob and I am less distracted. I still have family members record me the shows I really want to watch though and I just catch up there.
That is awesome Alexa! Good job.
It’s funny you mentioned this! Just this past week, my husband cancelled our cable and installed an antennae. It’s working great! HD quality and lots of channels. I’m having him work on a “how to” post since it’s saving us $60 a month, but it did require a little know-how to install it.
That is awesome! Yes, definitely make a how to post.
How much do you pay right now?