Cable TV: Readers Think It's Not Worth the Cost

I was surprised by the number of Free Money Finance readers who commented to my post Money Saving Tip: Cancel Your Cable TV and agreed with me. Usually, I get all the "how could we live without cable" people commenting, but this group was decidedly in favor of not having cable. Some of their thoughts:

Or better yet, give up TV completely. You'll be less tempted to buy crap you don't need and will have more time for quality-of-life things like reading, exercise and boardgames with the kids.

True. TV does entertain, but it's also a huge time sucker and does create the "I need that" ideas that often lead to over-spending. So giving it up completely isn't a totally wacky idea.

The same could be said for local phone service. Most people have home phone service (land lines) plus they carry a cell phone. Why not just use the cell phone? Or.. switch to a VoIP telephone service. We switched to one that is $199/year for unlimited local and long distance service... we've saved over $500 on just local service alone.. no telling how much in long distance we're saving, plus we're calling home, and talking to relatives a lot more now too. Bringing the family closer. Just my two cents. :-)

Good idea. I'm always open to something that could save me $500 a year or more. ;-)

I am not a big television watcher. I watch it from time-to-time, but I could live my life without a TV in the house.

My wife, on the other hand, has her favorite programs, and doesn't like to miss them. I'm the one who pays the cable bill, though, and it's $65 a month. $65 a month! (We have a digital hi-def package.)

It's been about a year since the last time I tried to convince her to give up cable. I wonder if she'd consider it now. I could offer to take on the Netflix bill (which would still save me $40/month) and to buy any of her must-see programs from the iTunes Music Store.

$65 a month! That's $780 a year. Oh my goodness...

Yep, it certainly adds up.

We were not going to get cable, but when cox came to set up our cable internet they said they would throw in 25 channels of cable TV for free. Might be something to look into if you are in a cox area.

Could be worth it -- unless the cable internet cost is way too high.

Another no-tv vote here. It draws away too much time, which can be better spent... um, commenting on web sites. :)

Seriously though, I hold out hope that broadcasters get hip to direct to consumer sales of programming via the Internet. This way I can get my Tour de France fix in July without the yearly debate about the merits of cable TV.

I get lots of information I used to get from TV from the web. It's one reason the TV is less relevant to me.

This has been a subject of interest in my household of late. My wife and I have talked about and looked into getting cable. We both agree it cost too much and the money saved is better socked away. However I am missing out on most of the current NBA playoffs. But I will not budge. I think.

Hold on!!!!!!! :-)

I just wrote a post on this yesterday. In my opinion, cable tv is just one of those unnecessary services that you're supposed to have. If you don't have cable it's like a stigma against you.

I'm saving myself $50 a month by canceling my cable TV (kept the internet though because I don't think I can live without it :))

It does add up. $500 a year for 10, 15, 20 years or more is some big money. Yet some think it's worth the cost.

Unfortunately, I could never live without my TV and cable. I would go get a second job before giving them up. I know that isn't good, but that is how it is.

Yikes! A second job? For TV?

One last thought:

A friend of mine cancelled his cable when he did the math. He just buys his "Must watch" TV shows on DVD when they come out- it may cost 50 bucks for the season, but it's far less than the cable over a year and he gets to watch them minus commercials! If she watches the more popular shows, it may be worth a look.

I have only had cable twice in my life: In the college dorm, where it came with the room, and at one apartment complex I lived in that came with "free" cable. While I enjoyed it, I cannot imagine spending 500-800 dollars a YEAR on it.

My husband and I gave up TV for a year once. That actually worked out pretty well. We would have kept going, except we got a roommate, and he watched TV, and it just kind of kept going...we should give it up again. Hmmm.

As I said, I was surprised at all the positive thoughts around the idea of giving up cable TV. What do you think? Do you have anything else to add?

Comments

[Dus10]

I am not sure I could completely give up TV. I hardly ever watch it, but I use the DVR to record shows that I want to watch, and I then watch them at my leisure. I only watch Fox News, the History Channel, CSPAN, and the Discovery Channel beyond some of the local news (which is all available online). I wish I could just pick exactly which channels that I wanted and only pay for those.

Plus, we do the pay-per-view movies, which is great. They cost as much as going to the video store, but we get no late fees, and we record them on the DVR, too. And late fees are a big one... because we probably turned in video late 50% of the time.

[Bronco]

But how are we going to watch the History Channel (which is pretty much the only worthwhile channel)?

[Kim]

Have considered this sooo many times! We go to the movies only 1-2 times per year, don't drink, smoke or take vacations...dull huh? Cable seems to be our only form of intertainmet. I love it late at night the most. A real time waster but have not gone forward with this idea of cancellation.

[Tricia]

For our family, we will keep our cable. It's the only way we can get any channels where we live and we like watching semi-local news from time to time. For just our basic plan, it only costs $15.45/month - so that's not too bad.

[Linda]

I am almost 56 and never had cable until a month ago. My hand was forced when Katie Couric got Bob Schieffer's gig on CBS and the local CBS affiliate was the only station I could get without cable. I got basic which is $10.28 a month which lets me get local PBS, NBC and ABC. It even lets me get fuzzy reception of the History Channel and the Home and Garden Channel. After years of fuzzy over-the-air reception, this is no big deal. While it would be nice to get some other stations and a crisper image on the History Channel, I prefer to pocket the extra $35 or so a month.

[kendrick]

My wife and I don't currently have cable and can't seem to justify it. We don't want to be slaves to a weekly broadcasting schedule, so we watch all of our TV via Netflix. This way we can watch things on our time, without commercials, and can watch several episodes back-to-back if we want to.

The only pain I have without cable is not being able to watch much college football... the rabbit ears only pick up about 4 stations. I figure if I've made it this far into the season, I can make it the rest of the way.

I just hope I feel the same way when college basketball rolls around, as there's an even smaller percentage on broadcast.

[Ciji]

I am trying to kick the TV habit because I really only have 3 or 4 shoes I watch. It's a big time vampire for me since I work at home. But it's so hard to cut it off! I need that white noise in the background.

I honestly would rather pay for the few shows I watch (like when I buy a whole season via iTunes) and have the option to burn them to DVD or view tham via my computer or iPod, than pay for cable every month. 40 bucks each for 4 shows is about $160 per year, as opposed to a $75 monthly cable bill.

[mel]

My husband and I canceled our dish network 3 years ago. We don't watch t.v. and for that matter we hardly ever watch videos (once in 6 months). Here is how it goes, we don't watch t.v., we don't see previews for movies so we don't feel like we are missing out on anything. It has been great for our family. We spend time together doing other family things, reading etc. Our girls watch a few videos maybe 2 a week. They have imaginations and rarely sport the common adhd behaviors that are so pervasive nowdays which I suspect may have something to do with constant t.v. watching. We save lots of money not having to pay monthly fees, movie costs etc. Plus we get lots of family time that is hard to come by and can't ever be replaced.