Lexi watching Saved by the Bell through Netflix on my phone
One year ago we decided within days to get rid of both cable and our traditional home phone. A few people have asked me how it’s going so I thought it’d be good to share a review one year later.
So, here’s all the ins and outs of life without traditional phone or cable.
No Home Phone
Because of the hours I spend on conference calls, I used the phone so much for this purpose that I have an Analytic Call Tracking, we’ve been using a Google voice line in combination with an OBi box as well as our cell phones, of course.
I have had connection issues on my meetings a handful of times but compared to the number of hours I’ve used it–probably 1,000 hours–it’s been inconsequential. In those moments, I’ve switched over to my cell.
The savings of about $500 this year make it worth it. The fact that we’ve had no telemarketers calling confirms we have no plans to go back.
No Traditional Cable
There’s multiple aspects to how we’ve felt about surviving without cable so I thought I’d review from a few different perspectives.
From the Family
The Kids
The kids had a hard time in the beginning when they couldn’t just switch on the TV and stream their favorite shows one after another.
Since then, Netflix has become the staple. Please don’t make the mistake thinking the kids don’t watch TV without cable. They log plenty of hours (maybe more) watching marathons of a particular series. Sometimes they’ll cycle through all the Good Luck, Charlie episodes while other days they’re cycling through Saved by the Bell.
They’d tell you they want DirecTV back but it’s certainly enough to keep them satisfied.
The Husband
Scott was a news and documentary TV watcher. He misses Fox News and can’t get enough of it when we stay at a hotel.
We bought an XM radio base for him to listen to Fox News channel but over the year, even time on that has decreased.
Netflix has enough Discovery Channel type shows like Shark Week to handle his sciencey preferences.
Scott agrees it’d be nice to have back but it’s not worth the money.
Me
In the past, you could have easily called me a TV addict but I do not miss cable in the least. In fact, my TV time has decreased over the last year to almost no screen time unless I’m watching something with the kids.
Last fall, I kept up with the last few shows I was watching (Revenge, Once Upon a Time, Parenthood, Arrow) through Hulu but all of them fizzled for me mid-season.
I watched a few of the season finales in the spring just to see how they ended. This summer I couldn’t even tell you what was on TV—except The Bachelorette which I do kind of miss on finale nights like last night!
Every once in awhile I’ll watch a few Mad Men episodes, finally watching Gilmore Girls is on my to-do list and I’ll watch Sherlock Holmes and Downton Abbey when they come back out. Maybe I’ll stay up to date with Parenthood or Arrow this fall but all in all, TV is just way down the priority list these days.
Anything I do want to watch will be later through Hulu or Netflix.
My inner fan girl is shedding a few tears but honestly, I feel more free than ever before. I have plenty of time to read and I’m not constantly hounded by a list of shows I’m behind on. I don’t feel like I’m wasting time while I watch and it’s just right for me in this season.
The Devices
Roku
We have a PS3 in the living room and use our subscriptions on that device but we bought the Roku device for our bedroom. The Roku itself works perfectly but we bought the wifi version and our connection in our bedroom is horrible so we often get frustrated and give up. I would have skipped the Roku or at the very least, gotten the hard-wired one.
Digital Antennae
We rarely–RARELY–watch live TV. It’s been great to pick up live national events like the Christmas parade or Super Bowl but other than that, we don’t use it.
I’d guess for those that watch Sports, this would be a must if you got rid of DirecTV but for us, it’s a good thing this was only a one-time cost or it certainly wouldn’t have been worth it.
XM Radio Base
As I mentioned above, we bought an XM radio base for Scott to listen to FOX News. His time on that steadily decreased but it has been nice to have the music on in the background. While I doubt I’d buy it again, it is a nice-to-have.
The Subscriptions
Netflix
We had Netflix before leaving cable and it’s an absolute must without cable.
Hulu Plus
We bought this subscription thinking we’d keep up with our shows on Hulu on our Roku but that hasn’t been the case. Even when I was watching my shows, I found I watched them on my computer and given our issues with Roku, I’d cancel Hulu Plus if it were not for the kids who love of Minute to Win It and Wipe Out.
Amazon Prime
I already had Amazon Prime for the shipping but a few times we have picked up some movies and streamed them through our PS3. I certainly wouldn’t buy Amazon Prime just for the streaming but it’s been nice as a package deal.
All that to say we could do just fine with a regular Hulu account, a Netflix subscription and our PS3 and computer. We’ve saved at minimum $600 this year with no plans to change a thing.
Lots of questions for you—if you have cable, are you thinking of making the switch, what would you miss the most, what shows am I missing?! If you’ve cut the cords, what other tips and tricks have you learned?
One thing I’ve really liked about this set up in our house is that the kids have been watching a lot of documentary/educational type shows without realizing it.
There are a lot of nature / science / biography type shows that we have utilized for homeschooling. It’s been good for our family.
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Yes, they love to watch those with Scott. Would love to hear if you have any good recommendations.
What type of service do you use as your Internet provider with your current set-up?
Good question. We only have one option here in town which also provides phone and local cable. We kept our Internet service with them.
We cut the cord about 6 weeks ago in anticipation of my husband’s furlough days. We have Rokus and digital antennae and subscribe to Netflix and Hulu Plus in addition to our Amazon Prime membership. I love it, the kids like it, and hubby is the only one who ever complains that he can’t find something to watch, which isn’t that often. (I do expect those complaints to increase once football season starts.) Our only real complaint is that we live in the flight path and the planes cause interference with the digital channels. We save at least $50 a month with this system, so it’s worth that inconvenience.
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What Rokus do you have? Wired? Wifi? Do you have any issues with them?
So interesting the planes cause interference! We also are below a flight path and we honestly haven’t used it enough to know whether it affects us or not.
Since Scott doesn’t watch sports, it makes it a lot easier for us. Hope it goes well for you!
Our Rokus are wireless. We haven’t had any issues with the connections, but our house is a small one-story, and our wireless works well throughout the house. We live about 1-1/2 miles from the runway, so the planes are usually flying pretty low, so that is probably why they cause interference.
Laura Phillips recently posted…Here we go again
We have a very similar TV set-up to yours (no cable, but yes to Hulu, Netflix & Amazon). The main thing we miss is sports! You can watch the big games on over-the-air network TV, but we have to get really creative to watch most of our beloved MU Tigers football games at home.
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Yes, I always tells anyone that loves sports that it will be super challenging to drop cable. Impressed you guys make it work!
Some help with the sports….It may be hard to find every game to watch through out the season but for the big games you can normally pick up the game on the parent company’s website. For example NBC will show the football games on it’s website. Also, with a little digging and help from google you can find websites that stream games.
Also, for sports, my hubby downloaded the MLB app (we have a Roku.) There is a daily free game.
Stacy recently posted…5 Things You Don’t Say to a Tired Mama
We cancelled our cable and home phone about two years ago and I have loved living without the extra money being thrown out the window. I really love that I can better control what our daughter watches since Netflix has the Just For Kids section. After four hundred episodes of Good Luck Charlie and Dragon tales it can get a little mundane but the price keeps me hooked.
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Ha! Yes, we have watched four hundred episodes of Good Luck Charlie too but I totally agree…love being able to see a history of what they watch.
It is totally worth the savings not to have cable! Let me know how you like Gilmore Girls. I recently borrowed some from the library and I’m enjoying watching them again!
Ack, I just saw that Gilmore Girls is not streaming on Netflix like I thought. Brilliant idea to get them from the library–I always forget about that!
We are not sports fanatics in our house, except for my son who feels the need to watch every NASCAR related anything on TV. We have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, so I think we would be okay if we cut cable…my son would NOT be happy. We usually just end up flipping through endless channels anyway!
I don’t think we’d be able to get rid of our land line though. We do actually use it a lot, my husband for work.
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You really should look into the OBi box. I use it for hours a day for work.
I have been wondering about all of this so I am glad to read this post. We got rid of cable a few years ago and bought a $80 grand-daddy antenna that Jeremy put in our attic. In addition to that, we have Netflix, which we stream through a blue ray player (although we also have a Wii). Because the antenna enables us to watch local channels, which includes sports, and we do watch some live TV, the one time cost of the antenna was worth it for us. It has definitely paid for itself. We don’t have Hulu Plus or Amazon Prime. Do you feel like those two subscriptions offer very many shows/movies that aren’t on Netflix? I have been curious about them. Another hint, in addition to checking shows out from the library, is that there are a lot of shows and movies on YouTube, which we can stream through the Blue Ray player. My favorite exercise workouts are on YouTube, and the kids had fun watching Three Stooges streamed on You Tube the other night.
If you don’t already have Prime or Hulu plus I wouldn’t get it. There are a few things I think but not worth it.