Can Dropping Cable Change Your Life

[Carp614]

About a month ago I cancelled the cable, mainly to save about $1500 bucks a year.

We had already been pairing down the electronics time for the kids, but this forced us all to stop.
I was in the habit of watching a lot of TV, especially news. I swear I started going through withdrawal. I just had to have my Fox News in the morning.

Since I stopped watching, I have done a lot more reading. Instead of sitting and watching the news with my morning coffee, I'm reading online newspaper articles on my phone.

I don't know if it is connected, but I feel sharper. Like my mind is working better without the time spent everyday zoning out. It's a little weird, but I like it!

Anybody else experience this?

[rice paddy daddy]

You bet!
Cable does not reach out here past the end of the pavement, but we have always had satellite.
Over 3 years ago we dumped it, got tired of paying so much for so little.
We were able to get one local, independent, channel from the city. We just watched the local news/weather for a half hour a day.

Within months, my stress levels had gone way down. Fox News, CNN, all that garbage must have really gotten to me over the years. I wish now I had done it sooner. Yeah, I missed NATGEO, and Animal Planet, and A&E, but I got over it. Real quick.

After a couple years without NASCAR or the World Series, I bought a deep fringe RCA antenna, put it 20 feet in the air, and bought a signal booster. We can get all the over-the-air broadcast channels from the city.
Now, I can get half the NASCAR season (the rest is cable/satellite only), was able to watch the World Series, and STILL only watch the local news/weather. Although, a couple days a week I'll watch the CBS Evening News - they are not as slanted as ABC or NBC.

Life is good when one is not chained to the TV, an electronic slave.

[Camel923]

My Dad called it the idiot box and the boob tube for good reason. This was in the 60's

[sideKahr]

I've thought about stopping cable, there's very little on I want to see. I even bought a digital receiver to get over the air broadcasts, but I never hooked it up. I would really miss baseball, which I love.

[bigwheel]

About a month ago I cancelled the cable, mainly to save about $1500 bucks a year.

We had already been pairing down the electronics time for the kids, but this forced us all to stop.
I was in the habit of watching a lot of TV, especially news. I swear I started going through withdrawal. I just had to have my Fox News in the morning.

Since I stopped watching, I have done a lot more reading. Instead of sitting and watching the news with my morning coffee, I'm reading online newspaper articles on my phone.

I don't know if it is connected, but I feel sharper. Like my mind is working better without the time spent everyday zoning out. It's a little weird, but I like it!

Anybody else experience this?

Haven't experienced it but makes sense. TV is a vast wasteland of nutty liberal propaganda. It drives me crazy. Thats why I mostly play compooter. The Warden likes all the soppy old movies and the Ameican Idol crap. Makes me sick.

[Prepared One]

My hats off to both of you. I keep thinking I want to do the same thing. Usually every month when I pay the bill. I only watch so many channels and am paying for channels I never will watch. Half, I bet are Spanish. Rarely watch network tv except football and the local news, maybe a couple of shows. My brother says Netflix is the way to go and it's much cheaper. May look into it but then I will have to battle the wife on the rest of it.

[Seneca]

I said bye-bye to broadcast/cable TV five to six months ago and I don't miss it. Thought I might, yet that didn't happen. Can't say as I feel any sharper. I may be though, because the 80.00 bucks a month I was spending on basic cable now stays in my pocket.

I also went to a basic cell phone and saved another 40.00 bucks, oddly enough I don't miss the smart phone either. In a nut shell the 120.00 bucks that use to go to them now stays with me. Still have the internet and phone service. So I guess it boils down to what one can live with or without. .

[rice paddy daddy]

I use a flip phone. An AT&T Go Phone. All it does is transmit and receive voice transmissions. How quaint! I pay $25 every three months to buy air time. What I haven't used rolls over.
When the big city newspaper doubled their price to $2 per day and $3 on Sunday, I gave them the boot, too. I just get Sunday now.

All of the crap (and that is what it is) that goes on here and abroad has no influence on my life for the most part. And there's nothing I can personally do about it any way.
I stay behind our locked gates on a country dirt road in the pine trees, unless absolutely necessary.

[Quietsurvivalist]

I dropped DTV, and all TV channels a year ago

Bought a Roku and a Gbox

Never been happier with what I have, and after you buy the boxes its all free

Just pay for internet like I would anyway

[rice paddy daddy]

When I was going thru TV withdrawl, my wife gifted me with the most inexpensive Roku. I think it was $49, or something like that. It is about the size of a hockey puck and sits on top of the TV.
I only stream the free stuff - old cowboy movies and old 1950's TV shows, mostly.
Still, I watch less than an hour or two a month.