PSA: Cable TV is a money pit

[KingGheedora]

I cancelled cable last week. Cable alone (+DVR, +HD, 1 cable box, SHO & HBO) was about $130 a month, not even counting internet.

That's $1560 a year. I only really cared to watch shows like Californication, TrueBlood, Hung, Weeds, Rome, etc. Consider cost of buying one season of such shows to be ~$45. 1560 would buy a single season for 34.7 different shows.

Better alternatives:
--- Netflix $8.95 (18.50 for me since i get two discs at a time ATM, and pay extra for blu ray, but will cut down to one disc soon)
--- Watch Colbert Report and South Park online -- the only other shows i really cared to watch
-- Have plenty of money left to pay for the one or two shows that I'd be willing to shell out money for at $45 a season (or $2/download)
-- Still tons of cash saved

I wish I could make all 29 of HBO's subscribers understand this, so they'd cancel cable and stick it to HBO. Can't beleive I was stupid enough to waste so much $ on cable the past few years. I'd have around $6,000 saved if I had not subscribe the psat five years. Not even counting interest i could have earned.

To me at least, HBO and showtime cost 120/mo, since none of the other stuff on cable is worth paying for. Discover used to be good but hasn't been for several years.

 

[duragezic]

Yeah TV has been pretty much fail for me for like 10 years. A few shows come along that are good like 24 and The Unit which could be watched online. And just sitting watching garbage on TV or channel surfing is more of a waste of time than ATOT even!

Only have cable internet. In college we usually had basic cable because it was about the same price per month with or without.

 

[luv2liv]

i dont understand how people even have time to even watch tv.
seriously. makes me wonder what people do whenever i pass by houses with 2 to four sat dishes on top of the roof.

this is coming from a dude who used to watch 40 hrs of tv a week. and then 0 after i went into college.

 

[zerocool84]

FYI you can't watch HBO stuff on Netflix. Sports??? Yea fail without cable.

 

[KingGheedora]

To each his own. For some months I actually paid more tha 130 because I got NBA league pass. But i grew out of caring about sports. One thing I will miss is being able to see boxing matches but I can go to bars or find alternative ways of watching those.

True you can't see HBO on netflix, but see my original post-- with the money saved from 1 year of cancelling cable you can buy the DVD/BluRay for up to 35 different shows.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Show me how to get all the ESPN's without cable/satellite/other, and I'm interested.

 

[Eli]

Yep. Hence why we have basic cable.. which sucks, but whatever. I'm not willing to pay that much for TV.

It's bad enough that we pay 150$/mo for our phones(Verizon, family plan + data). I've contemplated canceling cable and using my phone for internet, but it would kinda suck to lose the email address I've had for the last 10 years, though I suppose I use my google email more these days.. hmm. Would save about 800$/year... That's a lot for an email address.. lol.

 

[Kanalua]

To me, Cable is worth it (two TVs on HD Oceanic Time-Warner). My wife gets a discount through her employer, as well. Once sports goes online in HD, online HD streaming becomes a realistic alternative, and bandwidth opens up to support multiple HD streams to my home, it will have to be Cable for me.

 

[lxskllr]

Would save about 800$/year... That's a lot for an email address.. lol.

When I dropped Earthlink, I was able to keep my email for $4 per month. It came with super limited dialup service, but it was worth it until I got fully transitioned to Comcast. Maybe Verizon has something similar. You could downgrade to their lowest dialup just to keep your email.

 

[lothar]

I pay about $120/month($150 after all boxes/taxes/fees) for cable TV, phone, and internet...FiOS triple package FTW...

 

[Fear No Evil]

i dont understand how people even have time to even watch tv.
seriously. makes me wonder what people do whenever i pass by houses with 2 to four sat dishes on top of the roof.

this is coming from a dude who used to watch 40 hrs of tv a week. and then 0 after i went into college.

Smoked a lot of a pot in college?

 

[Miramonti]

I take joy in the fact I'm not feeding my cash to tv providers.

 

[Mike Gayner]

LOL @ people who pay for TV.

 

[zerocool84]

LOL @ people who pay for TV.

Well yea when you have no televisions in NZ you don't have to worry about that.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Well yea when you have no televisions in NZ you don't have to worry about that.

LOL OK if that makes you feel better about pouring money into such a wasteful thing as television, go for it. American's are huge TV watchers so it makes it all the more LOL's when I get comments like that.

 

[Schfifty Five]

I pay ~$80 for cable TV + cable internet.

My internet is standard 8-10mpbs/512k up. I do not have any premium channels nor a DVR (sometimes I think it'd be nice to have one, but I am not getting one anytime soon).

$80 for what those provide is worth it in my opinion.

 

[tokie]

The only thing I miss about cable is OLN and TSN (sports network).

Some hockey games are broadcasted on CBC, but not all. Since I can get CBC HD OTA as well as a few other channels, I'm fine with that.

 

[duragezic]

You know what's also a money pit: boats.

My father bought a decent 27' sailboat like 10 years ago and he had to do so much with it. It was in good condition and whatnot just it takes so much work to repaint the hull every so often, winterize it, etc. There were so many costs, like a trailer made for it, dock fees, all kinds of accessories like GPS, new sail, etc.

As he said it: "a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into". lulz

 

[duragezic]

dp

 

[Mike Gayner]

You know what's also a money pit: boats.

My father bought a decent 27' sailboat like 10 years ago and he had to do so much with it. It was in good condition and whatnot just it takes so much work to repaint the hull every so often, winterize it, etc. There were so many costs, like a trailer made for it, dock fees, all kinds of accessories like GPS, new sail, etc.

As he said it: "a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into". lulz

 

[edro]

We have basic cable ($15/mo, 20 channels), OTA Local HD and Netflix Wii ($9/mo).
That combo is working nicely for us.

 

[rcpratt]

I don't like it either, but as others have said...until sports are available elsewhere, I'll be paying for it.

 

[Vette73]

Agreed not worth it.

<-- Over the air digital TV

 

[dfuze]

money pit is a good description.

only reason I picked it back up was for sports too, but I only have basic.

 

[rudeguy]

I love cable!