But, I love cable, I NEED cable!

(Or you can insert Satellite there too)

Do you *really* need it though? I don't doubt you love it. Heck, I still love it even though we've been cable free for several months now! Do I miss it? Not especially. Sometimes, when we visit my husbands grandmas house and I can watch as much TLC or HgTV as I want...oh yes, I miss it then. For the most part however, I really don't miss it! Here's the real shocker, even my husband, the "I-won't-live-without-cable guy"admitted to me a few months ago that he didn't really miss cable. Prior to canceling our cable, my husband was a die hard cable guy. We had to have it....it wasn't going no where. No way, no how. I finally convinced him that we just simply couldn't afford it anymore. With our cable and internet, our bill was over $120 a month. And we didn't even have the super fancy cable! We didn't have HBO or Starz or any of that fancy stuff.

I did a little bit of research into this and found out that since 1996, cable prices have risen...are you ready for this?...77%. I found that stat, along with this quote, in a New York Times article:

        "Cable customers, who typically pay at least $60 a month, watch only a fraction of what they pay for — on average, a mere 13 percent of the 118 channels available to them. And the number of subscribers keeps growing."

My question is why? Why are we so willing to pay these prices? How many times have you flipped through the channels and said, exasperated, "There is nothing on television!"? I remember doing it on a daily basis when I was at home on bedrest while I was pregnant with my daughter. I ended up watching DVDs. I got through most of the TV show Charmed on dvd actually. 

In this day and age, there are so many more options to paying $60+ a month for cable. Many networks are putting their shows online so you an watch them directly on their websites. NBC, ABC, even Lifetime has shows on TV! And then there is HULU a completely free website that offers many popular TV shows for you to watch from your computer. My husband stays caught up on his favorite TV shows thanks to HULU. We even hook up our laptop directly to our TV so we can watch them on our TV instead of on the computer. 

There is also Netflix and Blockbuster. Both of them offer mailorder DVD rentals. I looked into both of them and for our family, Netflix is the better deal because they have FREE movies and TV shows you can instantly watch now. Blockbuster however, has a deal where you can rent a certain amount of movies each month from their retail locations. It all depends on what you're looking for as to what is the best fit for you. Both places start at about $8.99 a month for one movie at a time. You can get as many movies as you want and the time between mailing out a moving and getting a new one is generally about 3 days, in my experience. 

So, let's do some calculations here. We used to pay around $125-$130ish each month for cable and internet. Since we moved, we were able to get internet through a different provider so we now pay $30 a month. 

Old monthly bill=$125

New monthly bills: $30 (internet)

                                $9 (Netflix)

                                Total=$39

Total savings=$86 a MONTH

                        $1,032 a YEAR

What could you do with $86 a month? I'll tell you what I did. I quit my job to be a stay at home mama. Now, obviously, I had to do more then cut out cable but my point is that it's these little things you can cut out to help you save every month. Those things you think you can't live without? Well, maybe there are other options. Certainly, there are things that you will label as must haves. For us, that is cell phones. Do I realize what a rip off they are? Yup, without a doubt. But with my husbands work schedule, along with a few other factors that I'll share with you all eventually ;-) they are must haves for us. But cable? Nah, that got knocked off the "must have" list for us. It just doesn't make sense with all of the options there are. We still get the basic channels. We have up through channel 23 which most of the good TV shows are on anyways! You can watch your Idol, or your Vampire Diaries or your Dancing with the Stars. You still have those channels! Anything else, you can probably find it on Hulu! 

So let me know, what is your feelings on cable or satellite? Have it? Love it? Hate it?