Getting rid of cable. Help me cut the cord.

[stephm0188]

We can save 1400 a year if we ditch cable. We're ready to do it, I think, but I need someone to hold my hand and tell me it'll be okay.

Tell me about my options.
Netflix? Pros, cons?
Hulu vs Hulu Plus? What's the difference? What do they offer?

What about Roku and AppleTV? Our Wii and our BluRay player both offer streaming. Are there any benefits to using Roku over just the Wii?

The toughies for us are going to be giving up HBO and sports. I think my husband would still want to spend $100 to get his favorite baseball games, and I'm okay with that. We don't really have any other form of entertainment.

[makingithappen]

I think sports is the hardest to give up. Other than that and HBO, do you really watch non-network tv much? My favorite weeknight shows are on the local channels and we just bought a decent <$40 antenna to get 16 channels. There's not much on the weekends until the evening, but it just makes me be more productive around the house or get out and do something.

From what I've seen, the Roku gets several free channels that you don't get with the Wii although they both stream paid channels. I'd see how you get buy without anything before buying more equipment.

We previously had Netflix but it seemed to not stream alot. We'd lay down to watch a movie and it would process forever then show some message about not working for the time being. We finally just cancelled, but I'm wondering if it's any better now or maybe was something with our connection.

ETA: oh, we also do Redbox if we don't have weekend plans. you can get free codes online or sign up for their emails for 50 cent off codes

[flygirl22]

We have Hulu and are able to get most of the TV shows we watch. You can still get some of the local channels without cable, which do show local sporting events. ESPN360 has some as well.

We end up getting basic cable plus sport package add on ($5) during football season. Going to the bars to watch the games is more expensive than paying for cable during that limited amount of time.

[ellipses84]

Do it! We did a couple months ago and I don't regret it at all. DH misses sports, so it has been a little rough on him. We got Netflix a couple weeks ago and now I'm watching too much again, but probably better programming than I was watching on cable.

The only issue we had was on New Years. We had people over and wanted to watch the ball drop, but on the West Coast, they re-play NY at midnight here and show the West Coast cities. All my Internet options failed me because the live feeds were over. Right after midnight, I found a video online we could watch. I bought an antenna that day to try to get local channels but I still can't get it to work.

[MrsDarcy]

Do it! We don't miss ours at all, but granted, we're not non-local sports watchers. We do Netflix and redbox, and I watch my shows on the network websites on my iPad if I don't catch them live.

[sweetnsour]

I don't have cable. We have an antennae hooked up to the TV to get the regular channels (NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX). We have netflix for entertainment. When there is a sports game that we can't watch, we go out. We use the WII and blu ray player on different tvs for netflix.

[chessie]

Depends what kind of sports your H watches, if its all kinds of sports, range from local to global, you will need to keep a sports package. Hulu is fine, we use it from time to time, and netflix is good for movies/series mostly. But we didn't cancel cable since DH needed his sports.. these games are not online and there is a game pretty much daily apparently, so I just left it. Yes probably save money, but worth the fight.

[Deleted]

We did it 2yrs ago and it's been fine. The only thing we miss is ESPN. We pay for the 13 basic channel package for $7 and internet through our cable company. We have one 'smart TV' and use 2 Roku boxes (townhouse with 3 floors, so 3 tvs) for streaming via Netflix and Amazon, as well as things like Pandora, Exercise TV and Hulu. We typically use Netflix the most, catching up on shows like Burn Notice, Warehouse 13, etc; my one gripe with Amazon Prime is they don't have closed captioning and don't plan to introduce it any time soon. For new/current shows with conflicts, we can record them on our laptop and then show via the TV (if we remember); or use the channel's website most of the time. I miss the convenience of cable, but we're still watching far too much tv than is good for us

[marie427]

We could have given up cable ages ago but H and I are huge sports fans and there are no good cable-less options for us. Even packages like NHL Center Ice and NFL Sunday Ticket have blackout rules for the local teams, so even that wouldn't solve our conundrum. I would imagine the same goes for the MLB package. Though if your H isn't a fan of your local team, you might be in luck with the option of cutting cable but buying the MLB package.

[pacificrules]

We have the Roku and subscribe to both Hulu and Netflix. It's been great! I don't even miss the TV, honestly. Sports is the hardest thing for sure, but I'm ok with my H paying $100-something to watch NHL or whatever. It's still less than if we were paying for cable every month.

Also....We did end up keeping an $18/mo package from our cable company (Comcast). It gives us the local channels, but more than that, it gives us online access to ESPN.

[bunnysmom]

Since we got married not only we don't have cable but we don't even own a tv in our home. We did it to save on cable and also because we felt that the tv was taking a lot of time that could be spent in more productive activities.
It's going to be ok, you get used to it and you will be amazed at how much free time you gain. This also doesn't mean that you don't watch a minute of tv, you can just watch what you really want at sites like hulu or the channel website. Everything is on the internet and with a quick search you'll find what you want.

[stingsharkruns]

We have the very most basic cable package, which was $20/mth.. We get the main channels, ABC, CBS, NBC, CW... we aren't sports people at all. We also have netflix & hulu. I sometimes wish we got TLC and a few other channels, but for the most part we don't miss it at all.

[liveintheville]

We have cable. But I'd second everyone on Hulu and Netflix. And for HBO
www.hbogo.com/#home/

[thegooser]

I don't really miss it, but i allow myself to buy seasons of the shows I truly miss. I still save a ton of money!

[savannah11]

Jan 7, 2013 16:57:11 GMT -5 pacificrules said:

We have the Roku and subscribe to both Hulu and Netflix. It's been great! I don't even miss the TV, honestly. Sports is the hardest thing for sure, but I'm ok with my H paying $100-something to watch NHL or whatever. It's still less than if we were paying for cable every month.

Also....We did end up keeping an $18/mo package from our cable company (Comcast). It gives us the local channels, but more than that, it gives us online access to ESPN.

Really? We have been cable free for 5 years now but DH still really misses ESPN.

[niq]

Jan 7, 2013 15:50:13 GMT -5 flygirl22 said:

We have Hulu and are able to get most of the TV shows we watch. You can still get some of the local channels without cable, which do show local sporting events. ESPN360 has some as well.

Do you DVR anything that's broadcast over the air? If so what do you use? (Tivo, etc.)

[karinothing]

Jan 7, 2013 18:12:18 GMT -5 liveintheville said:

We have cable. But I'd second everyone on Hulu and Netflix. And for HBO
www.hbogo.com/#home/

I thought you could only use HBO go if you already had an HBO subscription through cable?

I Think you can buy HBO shows individually off itunes though.

[greekypie]

We have a Roku, and no cable. We've had this setup for less than a month, and I'm watching more quality stuff and less crap (WAY fewer commercials) because my viewing is intentional, if that makes sense.

I'm in love with Roku and will sing its praises. :-P

[niq]

We have a Roku, Netflix, and Hulu. Sadly we gave the Roku 1 and some of the newer stuff like Spotify only works on roku 2 or the new roku stick. The roku is great because it's quieter than the xbox or a Tivo.

Make sure your internet connection is at least 8mbps download (you can test this by going to speedtest.net), and if you can, use a wired internet connection for the roku or whatever gadget streams Netflix.

We've kept our blu ray subscription to Netflix because the streaming stuff doesn't have everything and the quality on blu ray discs is so much better. We don't use it much and might switch to Red Box.

unlike PP we don't watch less tv, instead we watch several seasons of an old show in a few weeks, and more trashy TV & movies. It might be worth it to find things to do that will replace TV watching: knitting, reading books (but not on the ipad!), whatever. There's not much we feel like we're missing out on right now, and there will be even less once NBC destroys its comedy lineup.

Via mobile doohickey

[macmars45]

I love Netflix! They have lots of good stuff IMO.
H and I watch all our favorite weekly shows on the interwebz (on nbc.com, abc.com etc etc).
We have an antenna for H to watch his Seahawks on. Other than that we rarely watch TV on the TV. H just got a special cable that hooks his computer to the TV so now we can watch Netflix as well as our weekly shows on TV through the interwebz. I married a computer nerd and that comes in handy sometimes. ;D

I don't have Hulu Plus. I've heard good things about it though.

[arterr0]

We thought we didn't have cable for a few months, after we cancelled DirecTV. It really wasn't that hard of an adjustment. DH paid for some ESPN package through his XBOX that allowed us to stream many of the games. Anyway, as I said, we thought we didn't have cable. Turns out, our premium internet (through Comcast) includes basic cable. We pay $68 for internet/cable combined. We get all the networks that we care about (mainly ESPN, AMC, and FX).

[aurora]

We've never had cable, but Netflix and Hulu have most everything we want to watch these days. If we wanted to splurge we could spring for Hulu Plus, but we haven't even bothered yet.

[pbutter]

I was a total TV junkie. We have been cable free for a year and half. I have no regrets! We stream Netflix, use Redbox on occasion, and have an antenna for local channels. We easily survive with those. I find by not watching cable you don't know what you're missing out on. I will say that I sometimes miss HGtV!

[hlke]

Another Roku/Netflix/Hulu Plus vote here. We have Amazon Prime and also buy/rent some things through Amazon Video. We also have rabbit ears for PBS and used it for the Olympics in the summer. We don't miss cable at all. The biggest drawback is having to wait for Showtime shows to be released, but we didn't have Showtime when we had cable either.

[gettingfitt]

Jan 7, 2013 22:11:33 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

I love Netflix! They have lots of good stuff IMO.
H and I watch all our favorite weekly shows on the interwebz (on nbc.com, abc.com etc etc).
We have an antenna for H to watch his Seahawks on. Other than that we rarely watch TV on the TV. H just got a special cable that hooks his computer to the TV so now we can watch Netflix as well as our weekly shows on TV through the interwebz. I married a computer nerd and that comes in handy sometimes. ;D

I don't have Hulu Plus. I've heard good things about it though.

We are looking into hooking a computer to our big screen to stream play on (app for roku). Do you/him have the specs for a computer and about how much would one cost??

Thanks!!!