Married to the Empire

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Dumping Cable--An Update



Four months ago I wrote about dumping cable and using Netflix and an HD antenna for our TV watching. We shaved $40 off our monthly Verizon bill. It would have been even more, except that Steven had them upgrade our Internet. He needs it for work, and I'm certainly not going to complain about having even better Internet access!

But how are we doing in terms of TV, seeing as cable seems to be considered a necessity by most people?

Netflix, where have you been all my life?

We're honestly enjoying Netflix so much more than we ever did cable. Shows on our own time without having to remember to program the DVR. Tons of movies and documentaries, many of which I never ran across on cable or at the library. And more than $30 less per month.

Netflix even sweetened the deal by making it available through the Wii. Just order the free disc and voila! Netflix in another room! Steven hooked up the Wii, which we really hadn't been using, as he prefers the games available on X-Box, and I'm just not a gamer, in our bedroom. Now I can watch shows while I fold clothes or iron. We can even watch different shows on Netflix at the same time in different rooms. And when Steven has some of the youth group boys over to play some boring zombie game that they love, I can hole up in the bedroom and catch up on episodes of Roswell. (I loved this series when it was on originally, but I never saw the final season. I'm now going through the whole thing again, and I'm loving it as much now as I did then.)

Steven noted that we're not buying DVDs anymore. He's right. When we want to watch movies or TV shows that aren't available instantly, we just put it in our queue, and it comes to us via mail.

I realize I sound like a huge ad for Netflix. I'm just really excited about it. Huge money saver for us and way better than cable, IMO. Dumping cable has definitely worked for us.

4 comments:

AnneK said...

We have never had cable ever, and we have never really thought much about it. Thanks for the reminder that we are not missing anything! Big savings too, huh?

Rhonda said...

We don't have a Wii but do have a ROKU box that we can watch Netflix instantly - I agree that it is a very good substitute for cable
and so much cheaper

Amy Warden said...

We <3 Netflix too!! :)

Beth said...

We just signed up last weekend for Netflix. We still have cable, but knowing it was availble for the Wii sold us. Instead of reruns all summer, we can watch movies. I'm so excited! Since we got the Wii disc and our first movie Tuesday we've watched 3 movies plus my youngest has watched several cartoons. Worth $8.99 a month!