We finally eliminated cable earlier this year. Cutting the cable cord wasn’t hard due to the fact that we have a digital antenna.
And, guess what?
We haven’t missed it one bit.
According to NPD Group (a market research company), the average monthly cable bill in 2015 is expected to be $123. By the year 2020, the average cable bill is expected to be around $200 a month.
That’s A LOT of money!
In fact, that’s $1,476 for 2015 alone. By 2020, the average annual cable bill would then be $2,400.
Who wants to spend that much money on TV?
I know I don’t!
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I know there are some out there who prefer to have cable because they watch sports, but I doubt that is the norm. I believe many have cable just because it’s an expense that most people have and are “used to.”
However, that money could be used for something else. Perhaps a vacation, retiring a little bit earlier, paying off debt, and so on.
One of the main ways I recommend cutting the cable cord (and making it a bit easier) is by purchasing a digital antenna.
Related money saving tip: You can also ditch cable and get Hulu instead. It’s as low as $5.99 and a great way to save loads of money each month on cable.
Cutting the cable cord is easy with a digital antenna.
When you think of TV antennas, you probably think of the classic rabbit ears that are big and ugly. You probably also think about how the picture is never perfect and how channels can get blurry and almost completely fade away.
Well, these days antennas are no longer like that and this makes cutting the cable cord much easier. Digital antennas are sleek looking and allow you to watch your favorite TV shows with no problem at all.
Digital antennas are also cheap. They start at around $29.99 on the Antennas Direct website and go up from there. There is no monthly cost to use a digital antenna, so you can still receive many of your favorite local TV channels (that’s all I ever watched anyways!) and never have to pay money again.
Just think about it – around $30 for a digital antenna and be set for a really long time, or spend thousands of dollars on cable that you probably don’t get full use out of?
Seems like a clear winner to me!
Related: 16 Alternatives To Cable TV That WILL Save You Money
Our digital antenna.
We recently got a digital antenna (you can go to this website and find many great digital antennas – this is an affiliate link, but I didn’t find out I could be an affiliate until after I was already using their digital antenna. I truly enjoy this product and recommend it!) and it has been working well for us.
We have the ClearStream™ Micron Indoor Multi-Directional Digital TV Antenna.
It’s an indoor one that sits behind our TV, there is no ugliness that goes along with it, and you can’t even see it.
The digital antenna gives us around 14 channels and they are all of great quality. I’ve even heard of others getting 50 or 60 channels. The antenna we bought was around $60 and it will allow us to save hundreds of dollars a year for years to come, so it was a great deal.
Do you have cable? Why or why not?
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I have cable but don’t feel like it’s worth what we pay.
No, I don’t t care to watch much of the shows that our on cable or pay the price.
Sure hope this works. Comcast is a monopoly and have no other choices.
No cable; we did years ago, but can’t afford it anymore.
I don’t have cable, but we do have Roku. Between our parents, friends, and us, we all have: ESPN, Sling TV, HBO Go, and Amazon Prime. We each pay for one of these services, and then anyone can use it as they see fit. Sometimes someone is watching TV when you want to (Sling in particular is annoying, as it only lets one person on one device watch something), but generally it works out just fine!
And yes, may not be entirely legal, but until they kick us off… I would never pay for cable, ever, so this is our workaround. If we got kicked off, I just wouldn’t watch TV. It’s not a big deal to me 🙂
I don’t have cable anymore. A few months ago i realized that we hadn’t been using it because we were always on Hulu or Netflix so we were wasting money.
We have cable because it was cheaper to bundle with our phone and internet.
Hey,
That’s great advice and a great way to cut some costs! I don’t actually watch any tv and my girlfriend pays for Netflix so that’s ok.
i typically like to stream the shows I want to watch so it’s pretty much free for me 🙂
Not sure if that’s legal in the states
No cable here! Love it! Books Books Books Books!
No we have never had cable television.It’s too expensive and we really don’t watch enough to justify the cost.
We had satellite tv, but it was always going out (we live in one of the rainiest areas in the US). The last time it went out, and didn’t come back when the weather cleared, they said it would be a week until they could send someone to look at it. Finally pissed DH off enough to cancel it – we were paying $100/month to watch a black screen.
Right now, we get one channel, and have netflix. I admit, I miss football. But not enough to deal with cable/satellite again.
I do not have cable anymore. I cancelled it when my cable bill reached $170.00 per month!! Now I get movies (for free) from the library & listen to radio.
I do. My favorite shows are on cable.
I pay for cable right now because my roommate requires it but I don’t even use it. I watch everything online. 🙂
No cable. I have a Roku and pay for Hulu Plus, but miss local channels, so this would be perfect!