[Carp614]

Can Dropping Cable Change Your Life???

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.

 

[hawgrider]

8 years dish free. Don't miss 155 channels and theres nothing on.

 

[NotTooProudToHide]

I pretty much just use Genesis off Kodi anymore, I got over paying 100 bucks for 4 channels pretty damn quick and now I watch TV on my schedule. I get my local news/weather at 4 and use the internet for national news.

 

[Carp614]

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.

In case you need any additional motivation, all those channels of liberal garbage, like CNN, MSNBC, Al Jesira (going out of business I hear), and the like only exist because of Cable revenue from packages you can't control. The icing on the cake for me was that they wouldn't be getting any more of my money.

 

[Carp614]

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.

I have young 'uns that have loved that Roku thing. It would have been a lot more painful without it.

It's crazy. My honey do list is shrinking, all kinds of projects I have been putting off for years are getting done. I have even lost some weight because I'm moving around a lot more. I miss it some, but I like what losing it has done for me.

 

[Maine-Marine]

We have a digital antenna that gets 3 channels... all Public Broadcasting stations

we have internet and netflixs and the wife just got a trial of amazon prime

I pay 9.99 a month for kindle unlimited

we have not had cable or satellite for years....

if there is a game i really want to see, I visit a friend

 

[Gunner's Mate]

Yep ditto dropped the Cable and home phone bought a roku and netflix subscription, no freaking more commericals, housewives, Kardashians, msnbc, cnn ect. Cable was a ripofff my blood pressure went down lost 30lbs so far, I feel a helluva lot better and saved about 1800.00 yr on cable only. Definitley Dump your Cable and Sat get a Roku, about 100.00 streams off the internet to any TV with an HDMI port. Its about the size of an Iphone.And no more cable wires all over the house inside and out

 

[Slippy]

When I read the title of your thread I immediately thought, "Yes, when I drop/lay some cable I usually feel better, but it doesn't really change my life, its just something I do everyday, usually in the morning but I'm kinda regular like that".

But then I realized that wasn't what you were asking.

Good for you on getting rid of the TV Cable.

 

[txmarine6531]

I haven't had cable or satellite since 2010, only internet. I watch Netflix and You Tube. Most of what's on tv is complete garbage. I've been considering getting rid of my iPhone, joining the resistance and getting a flip phone. The internet and camera are nice, but all I need it for is text and phone calls. $85 a month is too much, and if I hit my 200MB data limit it's another $15 automatically.

 

[Farva]

Dumped cable three years ago. I only watch NFL and NASCAR. Basic cable where I'm at didn't even have the games in HD. After a nice sunday raging at the ghosting flickering and other shit that broadcasting an HD signal in crap signal will do, I went into the garage, found the last antenna I used, yanked the cable box. Ohhhhhhh Ahhhhhhh, HD in the clear. Wife turned it off on Monday.

Didn't get MNF and TNF and half of the nascar season. Watched what I missed on my work phone. Good to go. Look like the NFL sold TNF to NBC and CBS. Good. Comcast can rot in hell.

Haven't missed TV or POP culture for over ten years. It just got boring and I guess I'm getting old.

 

[Quietsurvivalist]

What Netflix costs in a year will buy you a Gbox

And it makes Netflix look like the trailer park theater

I watch movies the day they are released, in my living room