Got rid of cable (mostly)

I had been paying $278 a month to Comcast for cable TV with the premium HBO, Starz, Showtime etc...., internet, and phone. I am the only one that really watches most of the channels, while the kids were using their Play Station and Wii for what they wanted to watch even though we had 4 cable boxes. I received a Royku for Christmas and decided it was time to drop all the extras. Doing the math, I realized that I had paid close to $13,000 for 4 years of cable.
I dropped the extra channels and kept 1 box that will give me basic cable 28 channels. I'm keeping the phone for a couple of months longer until I let everyone know that we are dropping the line.
High speed internet I think is still expensive at $78/month. Phone, internet and cable now $120 per month. It adds up quick!

I am about to cancel my cable , I am sick of paying for shit channels I have absolutely no interest in watching it's nearly 2015 we should be able to specify the channels we want .

Only have cell phones and high speed internet.
Can't get the current shows but there is plenty of other stuff to watch on Netflix, youtube, etc.

As I have gotten older, I've watched too much TV to begin with. When my son was home from college for the summer he several times asked why we paid so much when we could do away with most of the services. Now that he is home for Christmas break it seemed like a good time to do it.

TheQuig wrote:

I had been paying $278 a month to Comcast for cable TV with the premium HBO, Starz, Showtime etc...., internet, and phone. I am the only one that really watches most of the channels, while the kids were using their Play Station and Wii for what they wanted to watch even though we had 4 cable boxes. I received a Royku for Christmas and decided it was time to drop all the extras. Doing the math, I realized that I had paid close to $13,000 for 4 years of cable.
I dropped the extra channels and kept 1 box that will give me basic cable 28 channels. I'm keeping the phone for a couple of months longer until I let everyone know that we are dropping the line.
High speed internet I think is still expensive at $78/month. Phone, internet and cable now $120 per month. It adds up quick!

It adds up fast. And there's inflation- we have Dish and "America's Top 120" package which was $39.99/month when we originally signed up. Price has kept climbing and effective this month will go to $59.99/month ... that's nuts. My wages certainly haven't climbed like that. And there's all the goobermint taxes on the land line phone, internet, and Dish- we have a bundled package, too ... $170 month of which almost $18 are taxes ... somebody has to pay for those Obamaphones. Going to scale back here, too but have to wait a couple months or so - turns out they had us on auto renew when I tried to cut back when I was laid up- then they hit you with HUGE cancellation fees if you terminate before the contact is up. They did agree to cut the bill by $5/ month as a "goodwill" gesture in the meantime.

I think about it often, but would miss some key channels and football !

Bambam wrote:

I think about it often, but would miss some key channels and football !

Likewise. I'm paying $203 per month for four services (home phone, cell phone, Internet and cable). My cable itself is $65 and could easily drop that for Netflix. But some key shows that I like would be missed, including my racing. Would like to lose the home phone too, but the wife is technologically challenged and has a hard enough time using the house phone. She can't even figure out how to turn on my cell (and I like that). For now, I'll just continue to buy lottery tickets.

ggbaird wrote:

Bambam wrote:

I think about it often, but would miss some key channels and football !

Likewise. I'm paying $203 per month for four services (home phone, cell phone, Internet and cable). My cable itself is $65 and could easily drop that for Netflix. But some key shows that I like would be missed, including my racing. Would like to lose the home phone too, but the wife is technologically challenged and has a hard enough time using the house phone. She can't even figure out how to turn on my cell (and I like that). For now, I'll just continue to buy lottery tickets.

My wife will not give up the landline either, we have cell phones, I guess we keep the land line for the tele-marketers !

The cell bill is the next I need to cut down. All 5 of us have both a smart phone and a tablet. That bill with Verizon is around $350 a month and we don't go past our data usage.

TheQuig wrote:

The cell bill is the next I need to cut down. All 5 of us have both a smart phone and a tablet. That bill with Verizon is around $350 a month and we don't go past our data usage.

Ouch! Just upgraded our 2 lines (on my line I didn't even have texting) and phones .... went from $75 to $92/month. Much more than that and I wouldn't have even considered an up grade. My first smartphone (Nokia Lumia 635) ... still trying to figure it all out- a big change from my $21 Wally World flip phone. Like it so far. 1 gig of data for each line and they roll the unused into the next month .. sufficient for our purposes so far.

Cell phone plans have gotten crazy complicated. I deal with them all day and it only gets more and more confusing each month. Ignorance is bliss!