Kris and I pulled the plug on our television last week. We canceled cable, gave our DVD player to her sister, and moved the television to the workshop until we can find a buyer. We’re now officially TV-free.
Sort of.
We haven’t given up TV shows and DVDs entirely — we’re just consuming this entertainment via other methods. Namely, we use:
- iTunes subscriptions for Glee, The Office, 30 Rock, The Biggest Loser, and The Amazing Race. Plus, we occasionally rent movies via the iTunes Store.
- A Netflix subscription. We get three discs at a time (and I’m lobbying to drop to one disc at a time), which also allows us to access the site’s streaming content.
- Hulu for classic TV programs like Adam-12 and The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Netflix subscription costs Kris $20 a month, and our iTunes subscriptions cost about $215 per year. So, we’re still paying $455/year for home entertainment, but that’s less than half what we were paying five years ago.
No, I’m not able to watch sports on TV. But most of the time, I don’t miss it. For big games, I can always go to a sports bar or a friend’s house. I’m not sure what I’ll do for the Olympics and the World Cup, both of which I enjoy. I’ll worry about it when the time comes.
This latest move is the culmination of a years-long transition. We’ve been gradually weaning ourselves from TV. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that neither of us had actually turned on the television since before we left for Italy in September. That’s right: For five months, I paid for a cable package we didn’t use. That seemed like a clear indication that it was time to finally cut the cord.
Conscious Spending
It may seem strange to some of you that Kris and I are willing to spend thousands of dollars on trips to Europe and Africa, but we’re unwilling to pay $15 a month for basic cable. Actually, that’s the point.
The heart of frugality is choosing to spend on the things that are important to you while cutting back ruthlessly on the things that aren’t. Ramit Sethi calls this conscious spending, which is a fantastic way to describe it. Conscious spending implies that you’re actively choosing to spend on some things and not on others.
Contrast this with how most people spend. (And, in truth, how even financially-savvy folks spend a lot of their money.) We tend to spend on reflex. We buy things because we’re expected to, because everyone else does. We spend to have what others have. We sign up for gym memberships that we never use, subscribe to magazines we never read, and pay for golf clubs that get buried in the garage. We make impulse purchases at the grocery store — or even on large items, like computers and cars. Most of the time, people spend without thinking.
But with conscious spending, you evaluate every purchase. You vote with your dollars.
I’m saying, for instance, that I’m willing to spend several thousand dollars for three weeks in Africa because this is an experience I value. In exchange, I accept that I’m giving up television, and that I’ve delayed replacing my car. (I’m in no hurry to upgrade my Mini, which is a good thing. I opted to drain my car-replacement fund so that I could afford this vacation.)
Conscious Spending in Action
To put conscious spending in action, I’ve learned to ask myself questions before I buy:
- Will I use this? I’m often tempted by neat gadgets and pretty toys. But as fun and nostalgic as a pocketwatch might seem, is it something I’ll actually use? (Answer: No. Unfortunately, this is an instance where I didn’t exercise conscious spending. Now I have a pocketwatch I barely wear.)
- Can I get this cheaper — or free — elsewhere? Can I borrow it from a friend? Can I find it used at a thrift store? If it’s something I have to buy new, will someplace else have it for a lower price?
- Can I wait to buy this? Why do I need to buy it today? I’ve found that I can do a lot to control impulse spending by using the 30-day rule: If I want something, I write it down; if I still want it 30 days later, I consider buying it. By waiting, I give myself a chance to cool off.
- Why am I buying this? Does it fill a need? Or is it just something I want?
- Is there something else I’d rather spend the money on? This last question has been a powerful motivator for me in recent years. First, I wanted to use my money to get out of debt. Then, I saved for my Mini Cooper. Now, I usually want to save my money for travel. By reminding myself of my priorities, I’m able to avoid a lot of stupid spending.
Again, not all of my spending has been conscious over the past couple of years. I still make plenty of impulse buys. (The pocketwatch I mentioned above is a good example.) But whenever possible, I aim to analyze all of my purchases.
Conscious spending isn’t restrictive; it’s liberating. It can help you recognize when your spending is aligned with your values, and when it’s just being made out of habit.
Now I’m looking for ways to reduce my cell-phone bill. I’m paying $80 a month for my iPhone plan. When my contract expires in a couple of months, I want to move to something cheaper. Doing this could free $20 or $40 or $60 a month. That’s money that I can use for more important priorities — like exploring South America in 2012!
This weekend, we hired a friend’s 12-year-old to help with yardwork. As we cut blackberry canes and pruned arborvitae hedges, Ian explained that he’s saving his money. He wants to buy a remote-control car, but his dad persuaded him to hold on to his cash until he’s sixteen, at which time he can buy a motorcycle.
Ian really wants the R/C car, but he wants the motorcycle more, so he’s being patient. He’s willing to wait four years to save for his goal. That, my friends, is conscious spending in action.
Later in the day, I talked to another boy who wants an iPod — but he’s not willing to save for it. He’d rather spend his money today on videogames and bubblegum. When I tried to talk to him about it, he didn’t see any connection between the fifty cents he spent on a pizza-parlor videogame and the iPod he wants so badly.
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Shouldn’t the expense of going to sports bars for big games be included in the cost of watching TV?
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I’m a little confused, because you say you wouldn’t watch free over the air channels but the shows you watch are all over the air free network tv shows.
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We get only broadcast TV, too, and always have, so I’m always surprised to see people saying they’re unplugging the TV because they don’t have cable. There is a lot of broadcast TV out there and then the high-quality cable ones usually show up on DVD eventually.
I love the idea of the windows media box as DVR, I keep thinking we should set one up. But then I hit the due date of another movie from the library without having had time to watch it, and think maybe not.
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I don’t own a TV, nor does my boyfriend. We watch all our ‘TV’ (which is only currently one show) online. I watched the entire World Cup online last year. You just have to know where to look to find the feeds for it.
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@Chad #44 – you just have to check what’s in your area. We have wireless internet, and it’s fine for reading blogs or for both of us working via VPN, but not so good for streaming video. Which I just cope with, since it’s also only $12/mo, but last time we had a houseguest she was pretty upset by not being able to watch TV on the internet.
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Congrats JD!! We haven’t had cable in years either. I do the hulu bit as well and use slacker.com for music. No subscriptions at all.
I think for many people TV is something to feed empty hours of boredom. Let’s face it, there is some really great entertainment out there (although I’m always amazed when I’m at my Mom’s and flip through 100+ channels and can’t find anything to watch!!!). It’s just hard for me to imagine filling so many hours watching others live life. For us, we’d rather live/do it than watch it! ; )
Squirrel saver@5 – great post – great point on being frugal in a practical way!
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Soon you will realize that you’ll never actually want to tell people that you don’t have a TV, because they’ll assume it must be because you are too poor to afford one, and they’ll keep offering to give you their old ones. This used to happen to me pretty regularly. Even my manager at work did it, and he knows my exact salary!
Besides that, I think your pocket watch example is a poor one to illustrate impulse spending vs. conscious spending. This is because you say that you didn’t exercise conscious spending and justify that conclusion because you don’t *use* the watch. Whether or not you actually use the watch is a separate issue from whether you bought it consciously or not. I buy stuff speculating on whether or not I’ll actually use it fairly often, but not without a lot of thought going into the purchase. I recently bought a Kindle from Amazon, for instance, fulling realizing that it may turn out I don’t use it as much as I hoped, and with a contingency plan in place to sell it and get most of my money back if that’s the case. Whether or not the purchase turns out to have been worthwhile, I thought a lot about it before I did it.
Another example could be your boy and his motorcycle. What if he does save for four years, buys the motorcycle, and then crashes it, gets scared, and stops riding it? He will have a motorcycle he barely uses, but not for a lack of conscious spending.
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We’re essentially the same. Our basic cable is $12 though, and by “bundling” our cable internet with it, we save $10 off the internet, so it’s like paying $2 for cable. Basically we’re paying $2 for a clearer picture on our local channels should we want to watch something live.
Would you get a similar deal by bundling? Maybe $5 cable?
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@cdf What media center box do you use? I have a homemande MythTV system right now, but it can’t play netflix. If I could get it to play Netflix streaming, I would be in heaven.
I have my MythTV box record all my over the air shows and then transcode them to a video file so I can take it with me on my phone or laptop. Way cheaper in the long run then paying iTunes for those episodes. Also, they are free from DRM so I can play them on almost any device, or even burn them to a DVD to watch later.
JD – I would think this idea would appeal to you greatly. It is a bit of an expenditure up front, but over time you save a lot of money not buying those shows over iTunes. I still buy some shows that I can’t get over the air and I’m not willing to wait for Netflix to get. (ie Eureka)
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Ditching the TV is a mistake.
THis year, snow storms have battered NYC. During the last one, I went to check the mta website to see the status of the trains, the MTA website was down, 311, the city information hotline is backed up for hours, and i wondered how will I find out what trains are running?
Of course!! the TV! The morning news broadcasts gives information like traffic, weather and transit delays!
You need a TV and a radio when the internet and cell service becomes congested. It’s broadcast and TV and radio will never be congested and will always operate when emergency broadcasting is in effect giving you valuable information.
Also, how do you entertain occasional gusts? Like if you and some guests are going to attend an event soon and need a couple of hours to kill?
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Congrats JD! I’m also cable free although we do have a TV – it’s used as a big computer screen and for watching movies.
Not sure if you know this, but the shows that you subscribe to via iTunes can be (legally) steamed right from the network’s websites. Of course, in that version you have to watch ads and sometimes there might be speed issues, but it’s free. That’s what I do although I admit I wish I could get myself to cut it out as I spend WAY too much time watching TV on the internet.
Glad to hear that you’ve made a move that makes you happy!
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Related post at Simple Mom today. How to watch tv on the cheap: http://tinyurl.com/48zuhob
That post lists Roku for streaming video onto your TV. Looks intersting. ttp://www.roku.com/
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We utilize the 1 disc at a time Netflix (we mostly use the streaming content) and the channels that are available over the air (my husband built his own antenna). Netflix via the Xbox has a newer feature where ESPN broadcasts some games live – so we didn’t have to miss out on the BCS championship this year! Our tv/entertainment spending has dropped considerably since we made these changes – $8 a month for Netflix and the yearly X-box Live subscription (which is also used for my husband’s gaming).
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I don’t think this post is well written.
It starts off with the theme of “We’re cutting cable and putting the tv away never to be seen again, aren’t we the most frugal things you ever saw! We’re TV free!”
And immediately you say actually the tv is sticking around so we can watch DVDs on it and play Wii etc and your wife is watching a Yoga DVD and you’re going to watch tv on your computer screens which is akin to a tv screen anyway.
Um…just say you’re cutting cable in the OP then, JD. That’s what you say in your comments, that it is stupid to pay for cable when you don’t watch it. D’uh. This is not a novel idea. Hardly worth a post even.
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JD says:
“Now I’m looking for ways to reduce my cell-phone bill. I’m paying $80 a month for my iPhone plan. When my contract expires in a couple of months, I want to move to something cheaper. Doing this could free $20 or $40 or $60 a month. That’s money that I can use for more important priorities — like exploring South America in 2012!”
If you don’t use the cel phone often, I suggest getting the Tmobile pay as you go service. You can buy refill minutes in 10 30 50 and 100 dollar increments. The $100 refill comes out to $.10 a minute (includes 1000 minutes) and expires in a year. The cheaper the refill minutes, the more you pay per minute. Ther cheaper refills are also only valid for 90 days.
I only use around 150 minutes a month, so I only end up spending $15 a month to use my cel phone.
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@cole
A Refurbed Gateway Windows 7(64 bit) Media Center PC – It hasn’t crashed on me since W7 came out. Great for TV, Music for Kids, Showing photos on the big Screen , Internet Radio and much more
I was interested in transcoding DVR’d espisodes for use on phone but not bad enough to follow through.
Tried Mythbuntu but too much managment – W7 interface doesn’t intimidate many people
So many stares trying to figure out what able provider I have when I pull up the on screen display
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@Eric:
Call your cable provider. The internet packages they offer with their bundles may not be the cheapest ones available, and they often won’t tell you about the cheapest ones unless you call and are persistent.
About two years ago, I unbundled my cable package, dropping the basic television and downgrading to a cheaper internet plan. I may have lost my bundling discount, but I still cut my bill roughly in half. That was with Cox in Phoenix.
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JD- that makes sense, I realized after I hit submit that was probably what you were talking about.
I cut way back on my cable, I have internet through Comcast so it’s actually $3/mth cheaper for me to have the cheapst cable option + internet. I only get the broadcast channels and the shopping networks and stuff but it works.
I have a blu ray player with wifi(xmas present last year) and I use that for Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, etc.
Although I’m serously thinkign about getting a cheap used computer and hooking it up to my tv so I can watch free hulu stuff and things on the network or cable channel’s websites rather than watching them on my computer.
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@JD:
OK, I get why you prefer iTunes vs. Hulu, and if watching TV on a flight (as opposed to, say, a DVD) is worth $215/yr to you, then by all means get it. However, with a little schedule tweaking and prioritizing, most people can watch most network TV on Hulu, and yes you can just buy the shows you miss individually.
For sports, you can get ESPN3 via a lot of ISPs. It’s really great– the quality is not quite there yet but you can watch live and replayed games in a wide range of sports. For me it’s only soccer, and the ability to watch games from La Liga, the Premiere League and the Bundesliga on demand is a wonderful treat.
If you watch the World Cup (it’s just one month every 4 years), you can watch OTA on Univision– I do and understand every word of it, but even if you don’t, you can enjoy the games (my wife does– of course I translate a little). They show every game no matter what. I bought a TV antenna just for this purpose last year– it was $30. Then again, if you must have it narrated in English, you could get a short-term cable subscription
Aren’t the olympic games on NBC though?
ps- some time after the World Cup I switched from antenna to basic cable– it’s free with my internet connection because the ISP charges a “non-bundled” surcharge of $15– and basic cable costs $13, so I added the service to avoid paying $15 for nothing. I negotiated a cheap installation ($15 for 2 outlets) and rent no boxes, so it was a good deal. I turn it on rarely but it’s there when I need it (PBS, sports).
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I’m running Mythbuntu and like it quite a bit. I’ve been thinking of going to Windows 7, just for the Netflix streaming but I really hate to pay for another Windows license just to get Netflix. I bought an $80 Bluray player that streams netflix, but it defeats my goal of “one box”. Also, the automatic commercial skipping in MythTV is fantastic. I can’t go back to manually skipping commercials now.
You should definately look into transcoding stuff for your phone (or tablet, or laptop). It is one of those features you can’t live without once you have it.
Thanks!
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I agree with Elizabeth at 33 that doing everything via computer is sometimes cost-shifting (we are not, for example, upgrading our older computers to larger screens) rather than cost-conscious…
But this discussion is interesting because it does underline the TV or not TV gap which is apparently still active, that is the TV users haven’t quite been cowed into silence yet! I sometimes feel much more lonely as as a “I seem to live OK without a smart phone” person — it does seem like everyone I know feels they must have a phone on their person (and turned on!) at all times. And yet, well, it does seem to work for us. And it’s a big saving (enough to cover the cable bill!)
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FYI, for $8 a month, you can get Hulu Plus, which has all of the shows you’re paying for on iTunes except for the Amazing Race. You could save another few hundred bucks a year that way, and the only downside is that you watch about 3 minutes of commercials per episode.
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Everyone else has pretty much said what I’d say, except one thing:
@60 – how do you entertain occasional guests? You talk. You play board games. You cook together. It makes me crazy when I visit people and the TV HAS to be on. I just don’t get that, and never will.
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@AndrewL:
“Ditching the TV is a mistake.
THis year, snow storms have battered NYC… It’s broadcast and TV and radio will never be congested and will always operate when emergency broadcasting is in effect giving you valuable information.”
For one, J.D. lives in Portland. It doesn’t get snowed in too often. Secondly, I have yet to ever see any of those emergency broadcast system things actually hand out any useful information, even in the wake of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, when we were without power for three days. We tuned in on the radio — they told us the power was out. Gee, that was helpful. My dad was even a ham radio operator with all battery powered-equipment who could talk to people all over the world. It didn’t help us at all. Third, like I just said, in lots of real emergencies, the power is out anyway, so what good is a TV? Fourth, the radio in the car works just fine, even when the power’s out.
“Also, how do you entertain occasional gusts? Like if you and some guests are going to attend an event soon and need a couple of hours to kill?”
Usually we have guests over because we want to spend time with guests. We entertain them with food and wine and conversation. How boring would it be to go over to visit friends just to sit around and watch TV? You could have stayed home, or come a couple hours later if you’re planning on going to a specific event.
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Looks like a lot of people are giving up cable. There may be changes coming with the cable companies to compete with the other options that we have.
My daughter is giving up her cable too. I pay $16 a month for my cable connection and $10 for Netflix. I love Netflix!
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Another aspect of “conscious spending” is spending at merchants you want to see stick around. I still rent DVDs at our local video store instead of Netflix or Redbox because I want to keep it there on my way home from work. It should not always be about can I get it cheaper somewhere else.
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I know these comments have focused entirely on alternatives to cable, but I think that’s indicative of how fed up we all are with it. I was just talking with my BF yesterday about how the pricing model for cable has really not kept up with the way people are consuming content. Why haven’t they switched to a true cafeteria plan so people can just pick and choose a channel here and there? Instead of making $0 on customers that don’t want a bunch of channels they will never watch, they could be making some $ on people who will pay $5 a month for a certain channel. I don’t understand their model at all.
@Kevin (#19): Being in Canada, I wonder if your health care costs are less than in the U.S. Maybe cheaper health care is a fair trade off for free TV through Hulu.
Like Ali (#68), it’s a few dollars cheaper for me each month to pay Comcast for bottom of the barrel basic channels than to just pay for internet service. (And DSL has been really unreliable in my area, so that only leaves cable for internet.) Recently Comcast started scrambling *all* of their channels (they say it’s better quality digital…right…) and said I’d need a digital converter box. I just ignored that since I continue to get HD channels through my TV. I’m missing out on the shopping channels and other crap they provided for my low end package, but I still get my basic broadcast channels in HD just fine.
Whenever I want to watch a movie or show from Netflix or Hulu on a big screen, I just plug my laptop into my TV with an HDMI cable. The quality is great this way and the only out of pocket costs I had were the cost of an HDMI cable (I think that was around $20) and a converter for my MacBook’s output port.
My BF got rid of his cable entirely recently and is using an Apple TV box for streaming Netflix and iTunes content. (Yes, he could have tried Roku, but he’s an Apple geek.) He loves it.
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Last year we gave up cable for 6 or 7 months and didn’t miss it with netflix hooked up to our tv through a netflix compatible blue ray player. Then Football season came around and I got suckered back in. Next month we’re giving it up again, hopefully this time for good.
I really like the concept of conscious spending. Its something to keep in mind before every purchase. The other thing you’ll notice when you get rid of tv is that you’ll experience conscious entertainment. You will actively be selecting shows you like rather than sitting around aimlessly watching whatever is on.
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We are practicing conscious spending this year with our dining out budget. When I looked at the 2010 expenditures and saw how much we had spent on dining out, I realized that I couldn’t remember most of the meals we had since most of them were just because we felt like it (mind you, we didn’t go out to eat much at ALL – maybe 3 times a month, and most of those were inexpensive meals). My spouse & I talked; I want our dining out budget to be more conscious…and I think that will make it more fun. If we plan on dining out instead of it just being spur of the moment, then it will be something we can look forward to as well which, in my mind, is part of the experience of dining out. To help encourage us to more consciously spend on dining out, I also slashed our budget for 2011; since there’s less money to spend (and this is also the first year I am separating it from the grocery budget), I hope that we will be more conscious of how we spend the money.
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@Tyler Karaszewski
What about the unlikely event of a mass evacuation? How will you find out where to go and when? Say a huge storm is incoming,and your local government’s website is down due to congestion from everyone trying to get information at once, Broadcast TV or Radio will provide the information. If Radio doesn’t work, you have TV, if TV dosn’t work you have Radio.
I disagree with you about going to friends house to watch TV. you’ll go see a movie with friends, watching TV with friends is similar.
I’m just saying, even if you don’t watch tv at all, you should still keep one around. Just as you would think it weird if someone told you they don’t have indoor plumbing, people would think you’re weird for not having a TV.
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I think another aspect of conscious spending is making sure you don’t go with the status quo. Amazon is generally cheaper on downloads than either iTunes or Netflix.
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I’m in the same boat as a few others – when I called to cancel my cable a few months back, they told me that the cost to keep the internet by itself was only $10 less per month than what I was currently paying for the whole package!
The only thing that might tempt me to cancel it all is if I ever get one of those fancy cell phones that creates its own wifi hotspot. Then we’ll see.
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@Brenton – I echo the use of ESPN3 (I’m not sure that all ISPs are affiliated, but I could be wrong). I watched the Sugar Bowl this year and, last year, caught several of the World Cup games that were not broadcast over the air. I’ll bet that NBC (or whoever has the next Olympics) will have online options as well.
I’m actually able to watch more of the sports teams that I want than I ever was before (though I’ve been without cable for a long time). It’s better than going to a sports bar and negotiating to find the game on the right channel (especially if it’s not a high demand event in your area).
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Great post. I have been encouraging some of my monetarily challenged clients to cut the cable. But I just can’t seem to convince them that they are wasting money that they do not have. (It is not a value judgment, because they do not have money to pay their rent/mortgage.)
I completely agree that everyone needs to make a choice as to how they spend their money.
My tag line and mantra is “Conscious Money Choices”.
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Conscious spending sounds a lot like what we are doing. It sounds much better than being cheap and that’s what I’ll call our plan from now on.
We get DVD from the library and it is working pretty well. It takes a while to get the movie/show we want, but the queue is revolving so we always have something to watch. We don’t have much time to watch anyway.
Can’t you see all the itune shows on the internet?
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@AndrewL – “people would think you’re weird for not having a TV” – and that’s exactly the wrong reason to have one. Who cares what other people think? If you want a TV, have a TV. If not, not.
It is not at all in the same class of household appliance as indoor plumbing.
And frankly, if there’s a mass evacuation, it’s because a city is functionally destroyed. Nothing would be broadcasting, even if the power were still on, which it wouldn’t be. (I don’t know if you realize just how fragile infrastructure is.) The best anyone would be able to do is use a smart phone to get information, which would be coming from well outside the area.
J.D.’s post may be a little (uncharacteristically) disjointed, but it only fails to make sense if you don’t *want* it to make sense.
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Ouch – _encouraging_ a 16-year old boy towards a motorcycle…
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#@80 AndrewL
you write “people would think you’re weird for not having a TV.”
So who cares what “people” think? Truly. Isn’t part of “getting rich slowly” about NOT keeping up with the Joneses and what they think? To be socially controlled at that level must be hell. “I don’t watch TV, but I put a dead TV in my living room so people won’t think I’m weird for not having one”.
I have lived without a TV most of my adult life. I only have one because a plasma makes a GREAT computer monitor. Before that, I did watch tV and movies– via a TV tuner card or movies on a computer or just going out to the movies.
I’m not an anti-TV zealot,I watch a lot of things I like, but believe me when I tell you I don’t need “people who think I’m weird for not having a TV” visiting me at home. For one thing, I don’t think we’d have anything to talk about, and then we’d be uncomfortable without a TV to distract from the awkward silence. So we usually don’t hang out with that crowd.
I vote for “no TV with friends”. Music, food, drink: yes. TV: no. Getting together for a movie is ok, but since it’s a group thing it doesn’t have to be one’s non-existing TV. However–visiting people who have the TV on all the time is incredibly annoying.
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Congrats on the move! I can see my husband and I doing something similar, as I am sometimes horrified at the amount of television we watch. There are certain shows we get really into, but then it’s hard to turn the tv off once you have it on.
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I think this is a great post and I’ve copied down your list of questions you ask yourself before making a purchase. I’m going to make my own list and keep it in my notebook.
One of the questions I’ll add is “Will this solve a problem or annoyance in my life?” I find that it’s easy for me to buy a new pair of shoes or a handbag that I don’t really need, but then I put off buying a $5 cell phone charger to keep at the office, even though the stupid cell phone charger would be a major convenience. This year, I want to turn that around by spending more money on things that make my day-to-day life a little easier, and less on items that mostly just add clutter.
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When Netflix streaming came out, I cut my cable back to just the basic (about 20 channels). I actually find that I hardly ever watch TV but I live in an urban area where an antenna just won’t work. It costs me about $25/mo. Still, I consider cutting even that once in a while.
My next big change, though, is selling my car and going car-free! I will be zip-car-ing, busing and el-ing it around Chicago.
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@AndrewL
“What about the unlikely event of a mass evacuation?”
You mean like Katrina, where every single media outlet in every format in the whole country was talking about the evacuations? Without a TV I still think it would be difficult to fail to notice at least one of:
All your friends talking about it.
All your neighbors talking about it.
Your family calling to ask if you are OK.
Your facebook friends discussing it.
The newspaper talking about it.
National news organizations websites running articles about it.
The radio talking about it.
etc.
Do you honestly think there were a lot of people in New Orleans who *only* knew it was being evacuated because they saw it on TV?
Besides, I wouldn’t even bother to try to look and see if my areas was being evacuated unless I already *knew* there was a storm coming, right? If I have that information, I’ll find the other information somewhere, even if I have to call someone else with a TV and ask them what it’s saying. If every possible media outlet has become inaccessible to me, then I’ll probably scared enough to leave on my own.
I feel that you’re fabricating a risk that doesn’t actually exist here. Even if you *had* a TV, you’d have to know that there was some important reason to turn it on, and if you already knew that, you’ve basically already got the information you need.
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You can watch Glee, The Office, 30 Rock, The Biggest Loser on Hulu for free I guess. And CBS airs The Amazing Race.
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I also came to this realization when I was paying $30/month and watching maybe an hour a month. We canceled a while ago.
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I couldn’t agree more, JD. Gave up TV myself when I was a student. If some show is really important, I can probably watch it online a day later or so.
We watched Germany’s games at last year’s world cup (football, or as you Americans might call it, “soccer”) over at our friends’. And we surely had a great time with them.
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THe thing about Hulu is they only keep episodes on for a limited time. For example they may only have the last 5 shows and it’s mid season and you want to watch the first 8.
So I can understand wanting to get iTunes. I almost did that one time, but then I realized I’d be paying the same thing for the dvd set, which I’d been planning on getting anyway and I didn’t want to pay $44 (or whatever it was)and then turn around and spend that again.
@Linda in Chicago – Comcast tried to pull that “you need a convertor box” crap on me too. I could never get the damn box to work – because I didn’t need it, just plugged the cable right into my tv. Well, into my surge protecter and that into the tv.
Comcast had the gall to tell me my tv was “too old”. It was brand new, I replaced it after a power surge came through the cable and fried the tv and the dvr I had at the time. Then Comcast tried to tell me there was no way the surge came from the cable. I kept having connection issues and finally they came out and after 2 hours of mucking about inside the guy went outside. To find the outside connections were damaged from a power surge.
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It’s all about sports with me (and the fact I run a fairly popular sports blog and need to stay in the loop), which means I cannot cut the cable. Trust me, I’m not going to a sports bar to watch 162 baseball games.
All due respect to those who say to use ESPN3, Justin.tv, atdhe.net or buying an online package like MLB.TV for your sports, you aren’t getting the whole story.
Not all ISP’s have access to ESPN3. Mine does (Comcast), and it works great (you can also watch it via your Xbox 360 if you have a Gold acct), but it’s only good for watching ESPN sanctioned/owned broadcasts. If you are a fan of a local MLB, NHL or NBA team, you are out of luck, unless they are playing a nationally televised game, which for most teams, is only a few times a season. Otherwise, regional sports networks hold the rights, and you need cable to get them.
MLB.TV, NBA.TV and the like are great…if your favorite team is in a different city than the one you live in. For example, I’m a fan of the Detroit Tigers, and I live in Metro Detroit. MLB.TV blacks out Tigers games, forcing you to watch on your regional FOX sports channel, which is only available on cable. You want to see all the games of your favorite MLB, NBA or NHL team, you pretty much have to have cable.
As for Justin.tv and atdhe.net (and there are plenty of others, starting with MyP2P.eu), be aware those are pirated feeds with variable, often lousy, quality. They are watchable on a monitor, but on my 42″ plasma, it’s not so hot. I only use them as a last resort. Such as to watch blacked out Lions games…and I’ve seen the stream die mid-game due to the rights holder making a copyright claim or technical issues with the person running the stream. You are totally at the whim of the person pirating the broadcast and staying under the radar of the rights holders. It’s OK when it works…but it doesn’t always work.
So I’m stuck. I don’t watch much in the way of reality or scripted TV, but I watch quite a bit of sports. And if you are a big time sports fan, as much as I’d like to, it’s damn hard, if almost impossible, to cut the cable. Going to a sports bar can get expensive and to be honest, be a PITA.
So cable TV will remain a constant in my life, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon, thanks to the billions of dollars involved between the leagues and broadcasters.
At least the NFL remains available OTA.
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“But I like my main point! Conscious spending is important, and it’s why Kris and I are able to travel right now. ”
Fair point! Conscious spending is very important, and worth a dozen posts or more here on how to best assess the reader’s best happiness-per-dollar-spent budget. Keep up with that and thanks for the response.
Personally, I get a lot of value on spending money on fitness/grooming/appearance, as well as books, and of course, the ubiquitous travel–a single 34 year old man. While I enjoy a good meal and good wine, I’m not a foody or a wine-y(wine afficianado?) so spending tons of money on restaurants and bottles of vintage wine isn’t important.
Would love to see more posts on good ways to prioritize conscious spending, because it is a great topic!
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RE: squirrel saver
+1
That is exactly what I did when I got rid of my iPhone. I went with TMobile because it was the only pay as you go phone that would let me port my number (though, I had to fight through several store reps who didn’t know what they were talking about to do it.)
I figure 95% of the time I am at home or work, where I can use a regular phone to talk to people, and a wireless internet connection. The pay as you go plus a MagicJack at home cost $120 a year, which is what 2 months of the iPhone was costing me.
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Are all of you screen-centric folks?
Just because I never see the version of this discussion that includes radio – I’m a free broadcast person for radio, too, just like the TV, but things like weather/evacuations/news I really rely on a mix of radio and Facebook (seriously, I have friends who are farmers. They pay more attention to the weather than I do. It’s saved me traveling in at least one big snowstorm.) But I know some people pay for satellite radio – is it just less common than cable, and that’s why these discussions never come up?
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