A few months ago, we finally got rid of cable. Since cutting cable out of our lives, we haven’t missed it one bit. We are still watching all of our favorite shows, we can still watch the news, and we don’t feel like we’re missing out on anything at all. There has only been one…
A few months ago, we finally got rid of cable. Since cutting cable out of our lives, we haven’t missed it one bit.
We are still watching all of our favorite shows, we can still watch the news, and we don’t feel like we’re missing out on anything at all.
There has only been one time when I wished we still had cable and that was so that I could watch the newest season of Walking Dead. That will eventually come out on Netflix though, so I can wait for that – no problem at all.
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.
That’s $1,476 for 2015 alone. By 2020, the average annual cable bill would then be $2,400.
I know of many people who spend much more than this as well, such as someone who recently told me that they spend over $300 a MONTH on their cable bill. While that may seem crazy to you, I have heard of many people who pay this much money and sometimes even more for cable.
By learning how to cut cable, you could save thousands of dollars over your lifetime. That money could be better spent on retirement, traveling, family, and more.
Below are different areas that some of you have wondered about when it comes to cutting cable. Continue reading to learn how to cut cable today.
Cutting cable is easy with a digital antenna.
When you think about antennas, you probably think about 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 cable much easier. They are sleek looking and allow you to watch your favorite TV shows with no problem at all. There is no monthly cost, just a small upfront cost to buy the antenna. You just pay for the antenna once and you can watch local channels as much as you want.
We recently bought an antenna (you can go to this website 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 this product and recommend it!) and it has been working well for us. 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 antenna gives us around 14 channels and they are all of great quality. The antenna 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.
If you get an antenna, I’ve heard of others getting many more channels, sometimes even 50 or 60. If you are interested in learning how to cut cable and looking for alternatives to cable TV, I highly recommend getting an antenna.
We spend $8.99 a month on Netflix.
The only thing we spend money on monthly after cutting cable is Netflix. I can watch everything I want to because of Netflix and it’s nice because I don’t have to watch commercials or wait to see what happens after a cliffhanger.
The only bad thing about this is that we are watching a little too much Netflix. We’ve watched whole series of shows already but luckily we are getting a little better with controlling ourselves.
There are also many other options when it comes to still being able to watch your favorite TV shows after cutting cable. You could get Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, pay for the episodes you want to watch individually, and more. There are TONS of options out there.
We don’t watch sports so cutting cable was an easy decision.
Many people have asked “Oh, but what are you doing so that you can watch sports?”
Figuring out how to cut cable and whether it would work for us was easy since we don’t watch any sports on TV.
It’s really that simple.
How much money are we saving?
We aren’t saving a ton of money, I will be honest and say that. However, it was money we were just wasting though, as it was very rare whenever we did watch a TV show that wasn’t on a local channel or on Netflix. This is the main reason why we decided to get rid of cable, as it was useless and just another bill that we didn’t need in life.
We are saving around $41 each month and around $492 each year, after you subtract Netflix expenses.
We are also saving time. I used to have to talk to our cable company once every six months so that I could negotiate our cable bill down. Our cable company seemed to have a $10 or $20 increase a few times a year, and that is just insane. If we would have never negotiated, I’m sure our monthly cable bill would have been in the $100 or $200 range.
Are you planning on cutting cable? Are you interested in learning how to cut cable? How much is your monthly cable bill?