I gave up cable over a year ago, and I haven’t looked back

cutting the cord

I broke up with cable over a year ago. To date, it is the easiest breakup I’ve ever been through.

 

I spent many hours of my life yelling at the FiOS people. Many, sad, frustrating, why-is-this-what-I’m-doing-with-my-life hours. Mysterious charges of several hundred dollars would appear, and no one I talked to would have any explanation. Some promised it was a mistake that would get taken off, some told me it was legitimate and I had to pay it — yet nobody knew what the charge was. It took months and finally bitching on Twitter before I was able to get some answers. But by that time I was done. Why was I paying $150 a month for the privilege of spending hours of my life talking to clueless and/or rude customer service agents who cared not one whit about customer service, AKA two-thirds of their job title?

Why was I paying $150 a month for the privilege of spending hours of my life talking to clueless and/or rude customer service agents who cared not one whit about customer service, AKA two-thirds of their job title?

Around this time, I bought an Apple TV. Now I had an easy way to watch Netflix on my television, instead of my laptop or iPad. Then Apple finally released the Hulu Plus app, and I came to a realization: 100% of everything I watch is on DVR anyway, so at the very earliest, I’m watching it a day after — sometimes a week after. Plus, Hulu Plus had the majority of the shows that I watched available the next day. And it was cheap! And I didn’t have to spend hours yelling at people! So after a few months of hemming and hawing, I cut the cord and ditched cable.

Immediately, I started saving about $100/month. My cable and internet bill was around $150. For just internet, I started paying around $35. Hulu Plus is $7.99/month. I already had my Netflix subscription, but I was paying about $15/month for that. Plus I had the one-time $90 cost of the Apple TV.

After that, I was watching Community, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy … just about every network show I watched I could easily get. Plus, I was able to discover more. I became a die-hard Scandal fan after catching up with Season 1 on Netflix right before Season 2 started airing on Hulu.

I became a die-hard Scandal fan after catching up with Season 1 on Netflix right before Season 2 started airing on Hulu.
Granted, I also used my connections to fill in some gaps. I kept up with Sons of Anarchy via screeners, and I caught up on Happy Endings via On Demand whenever I was at my sister’s house. Plus, since I was saving so much money, it was easy to justify some “important” purchases via the iTunes store. When Mad Men airs, for instance, I need to get right on that. So I buy that from iTunes. Considering that I already owned the first three seasons on Blu-ray, it wasn’t so much an additional cost as it was just pushing up an inevitable purchase. As we speak, I’m currently downloading my season pass for Breaking Bad‘s final season.

I’m certainly not alone in my frustration. I come across more and more people every day who have made the same switch, and contrary to popular belief, we’re not downloading shows illegally.

I come across more and more people every day who have made the same switch, and contrary to popular belief, we’re not downloading shows illegally.
I am more than happy to pay $22.99 for Breaking Bad because I get it delivered to me and can watch it on any of my devices with very little effort. I spend more time on the elliptical at the gym because I can catch up with last night’s episode on my iPad. I can lie in bed and watch my favorite shows. I can keep up while I’m out of town. There’s a convenience factor that cable doesn’t offer, not to mention the freedom of only paying for what I want to watch.

Of course, not all shows are available, and there are some I’m definitely missing out on. Walking Dead, for instance, has been sacrificed due to its lack of a presence on Hulu, and the fact that only the first two seasons are on Netflix. Same thing with How I Met Your Mother. I stopped at season 7, as that’s the last set of episodes Netflix has. However, I’ve also started watching shows that I didn’t watch when I had cable. In addition to the aforementioned Scandal, I just binge-watched the first two seasons of Revenge. I watched the first two seasons of Downton Abbey, and was able to watch the third via the PBS app that allowed me to stream the show from my iPad to my TV.

This isn’t even getting into the fact that Netflix is making its own high-quality shows that stand up to anything currently on TV.
This isn’t even getting into the fact that Netflix is making its own high-quality shows that stand up to anything currently on TV. I fell in love with House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and of course, immediately devoured Season 4 of Arrested Development.

Last week, I injured my knee and went over to my sister’s house for a few days, as she has fewer stairs that I would have to navigate. She also has cable. I was briefly excited, thinking of everything I could catch up on that I missed during my self-imposed cable hiatus. I turned on the TV, flipped through the On Demand menu, and … nothing. There wasn’t a single show that I wanted to watch. Nothing that I missed that I desperately needed to catch up on, just nothing. In the end, I did end up watching Showtime and catching up on the first few episodes of Dexter. I’ll catch up on a few more next time I’m over there. And I still have absolutely no desire to re-subscribe to a cable service.

Have any of you made the switch away from cable? Is there anything you miss?

 

Photo Credit: cakesquared via Flickr

4 Comments on “I gave up cable over a year ago, and I haven’t looked back

  1. We gave it up earlier this year when we realized we never turned the TV on unless there was a “weather emergency” because, even with over 700 channels THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING GOOD. We have Netflix and Amazon Prime and don’t need much else. There are fewer commercials and I love binge watching on rainy days.

  2. I’ve been trying to cancel our cable subscription for almost two years, but I live with roommates and I’ve never been able to convince them to do it. It’s not a huge deal since the cost is split among us but I would still like to try it out at some point.

    Does your ISP have a monthly data cap and do you ever run into any issues with that? I know that we would blow through the cap of our current internet package if all of us started streaming things so that is another reason I’ve been hesitant.

  3. We cut the cable a couple of months ago to save (a lot) of money/month. We now subscribe to Aereo, which is here in Boston, for anything live we want … AND it has DVR! It’s fucking great. Anything else we can watch later either via the network itself or purchase on iTunes, etc., and STILL we save money. We worked it out that even if we bought every show we watch for $1.99 each episode, we’d save money.

  4. I always chuckle when I read these kinds of anti-cable posts. Not because it’s not a valid argument, but rather the opposite — does anyone ever make a passionate case FOR cable?

    I’m 25 and have never lived with cable TV, so maybe I don’t actually know what I’m missing. Growing up, my mom discouraged TV-watching, and frankly we just never had the money for cable. Then, when I was living on my own, I started watching everything online, and I’ve never really had any problems with that method. To this day, the only thing I ever kind/sorta/maybe feel like I miss out on is awards shows. But I probably wouldn’t watch those if given the chance. And I can watch all the notable clips on YouTube the next day.
    Between Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, iTunes, YouTube, Crackle, and the content networks make available to stream on their websites, I honestly don’t see a reason for cable. Unless people are so lazy they don’t even want to click a mouse…

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