Wide Open Wallet
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Is Paying for TV Cable Plans Worth it?
Author: Ashley19 Mar
Hello everyone! I’m enjoying a nice time with my mom who is visiting from out of town. I have a guest post for you today from Craig, the marketing guy behind www.budgetpulse.com? If you enjoy this post make sure you visit his site and have a look around. There are some great budgeting tools on there.
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Is Paying for TV Cable Plans Worth it?
Cable TV is a luxury item that seems to be a standard in households these days. Families can spend a lot of money on cable plans for entertainment value, but is it worth it? That is debatable for who you ask and how much you get out of it. As technology increases, there are actually ways to watch your favorite shows through other methods which could actually lead one to cutting cable costs all together.
Movies:
One of the cheapest ways is to check movies out of the library. You can also loan/borrow movies amongst family and friends. Netflix is a great way to rent movies in an inexpensive manner and you do not have to worry about late fees. They have a few different pricing plans set up and offer free delivery. A great service that is hard to beat. They also have a lot of movies that you can stream for free online, an easy way to watch a movie while you are waiting for the next one to come.
Streaming TV:
You can also stream shows of your computer. There are several sites one can use. First, of course, there are the TV Chanel websites, which offer scenes of the show. Megavideo is a service where you need to pay / subscribe, but it will also let you watch up to 72 minutes of video free each day. After that, you have to wait at least 54 minutes to watch another 72 minutes. Miro is useful for downloading the network news programs. This is a good client for watching all sorts of video sources, including Youtube video and many other sites. It is especially good for various video programs involving technology. One more similar tool is Hulu. You can legally watch full episodes of your favorite shows here in very good quality.
As streaming TV becomes more popular and the quality improves even more, cutting cable may be a good choice to save money. If you don’t watch a lot of TV or diverse programming, this may be something to at least consider in the future. Nobody likes commercials or paying high prices for cable.
Ashley here: I personally don’t see us voluntarily cutting cable any time soon. I don’t even watch that much TV and I want to keep it. It’s just that when I want to “veg out” nothing really beats getting cozy on the couch and watching some random junk on TV. I’ve watched a few shows on the computer but it’s not for me. I would need a much nicer set up to make it work.
Are you willing to cut your cable bills completely for online video?
pic by: Aaron Escobar
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14 Responses for "Is Paying for TV Cable Plans Worth it?"
I don’t watch much TV and haven’t paid for cable since I was in college and had roomates to split it with. There are a few shows I’d like to see on cable, but I don’t really have the time. We’re happy with our rabbit ears, but don’t take away our internet. We’d die if that happened!
There no online FREE videos for Playhouse Disney…which my daughter loves!
My computer sputters and chokes on streaming video, so absolutely my cable bill is worth it. I don’t spend a lot on entertainment elsewhere though.
@Miss M I hear from talking with some people who enjoy watching a few shows but don’t want cable, is they just buy the shows off itunes. They figure the 2-3 shows they do watch will overall be less expensive to buy then a whole monthly expensive cable plan. That may be something you could look into.
@Mommy Disney doesn’t have the free type of videos now, I’m curious to know if they will in the future because kids love them so much, and kids grow up using the computer and internet. Maybe in the future they will.
@Jennifer I have wireless internet and every now and then it has issues, or could be slow, so i agree it’s very difficult to give up cable completely, I couldn’t personally do it. If you have excellent internet connection, it’s very easy to hook up a computer to a TV, the streaming looks great.
@Ashley I want to thank you for the opportunity to allow me to guest post on your great blog and to interact with all of your readers.
Full Disclosure: Like Ashley mentioned, I am the marketing guy behind BudgetPulse, if anyone has any questions about that, please feel free to email me at craig@budgetpulse.com, or if you would just like to say hello.
In this day and age there is no need to even have cable or rent DVDs because you can just go online to watch a movie and you don’t have to go through any hassle.
We give up cable periodically and are just getting ready to give it up for the next six months. Last year we gave it up for six months in order to donate the money to a non-profit we work with as part of a fundraising campaign. This year we’ve decided to take the time we would have been watching TV and be more intentional about the time we spend as a family. We have plenty of pre-recorded movies and educational TV that we can watch together and as the weather gets warmer we’ll be outside more anyway. But, there are many roads to Oz and everyone has to decide what works for them.
@movies meter Agree having cable may not be as in demand as it once was, but giving it up completely is tough, and still a little bit more of a hassle to set up TV through comp. Anyways, a lot more is streaming online, especially movies, but not everything and in good quality. As more recent movies become available to stream and in good quality, I would agree. I have Netflix and love it and get my money’s worth for it.
@Stephanie That’s very nice of you to give up cable and donate the money to charity. There is a lot on the internet to watch, and if more family programming becomes available on the internet I could see more families cutting the costs.
We’ve been planning on doing this for ages now. I just have to get the fiance to actually call and cancel it (it’s in his name). We’ve had a computer hooked up to the tv for ages, and combined with netflix, we just don’t use the cable. Sure, there’s some occasional channel flipping going on, but nothing we would actually miss if it wasn’t sitting right there. One of the things stopping us for a while is that we still don’t have an HD tv, so it’s hard to navigate the internet on it. Well, we just vnc into the living room computer with a laptop or iPod touch and do it all from there. Bonus - no keeping track of the wireless mouse or getting up to grab the keyboard. (Disclaimer: Fiance and I are total computer nerds.)
I’m putting on an OTA antennae (over the air). We”re supposed to get 30 or so stations with adequate signal - even a few HD signals.
I don’t pay for cable and haven’t for years. Occasionally I wish had had ESPN but that is about the only thing I really miss. I just get over the air HD which is fine. I have started using Hulu a few months ago and have actually been pleased.
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