Living Without Cable: One Year Later

The Intentional Mom Planning System is where you need to start with our incredible collection of product options. It will help you establish the basics for your life & home so you’ll finally have a plan, save yourself time, and go to bed feeling like you accomplished something every day (because you did). Save up to 60% HERE!

Did you read my post entitled How We Gave Up Cable, and How You Can, Too? If not, this might be a great time to click on that link and read about how we did it. Then, come back to read the update.

September 1st marked the one year anniversary of when we ditched the dish. We’ve had cable and we’ve had a dish over the years, depending on what gave us a better deal at the time, but except for a period of about a year early in our days as parents we have always had some sort of cable.

I would have been ready to give it up long before we did, but my husband was a bit more reluctant. I asked him to commit to a year of going without, and finally he agreed. This was an excellent time to try it since he is so busy between work and school that he has minimal time to kick back and do anything at all. Knowing we could figure something else out at the end of a year was what sealed the deal for him in the end.

Here we are on September 15, and he hasn’t even made mention of that one year expiration date. I’m guessing that’s because….drumroll….we don’t even miss it! I thought I would have a bit of a hard time since I did enjoy watching the national news in the evening while I was working so I could kind of pay attention to what was going on, but I don’t even miss it, and I never did.

With a commitment to living a frugal lifestyle, we wouldn’t have every chosen to afford both some sort of cable and a streaming service. If it were in our budget, maybe, but since it’s not, we never had experienced the convenience of a streaming service prior to giving up our dish.

So, what are the advantages from where I sit?

I think it may be this streaming thing that I enjoy the most since we can watch only what interests us

I should probably say that the tv is only on in our house for maybe a couple of hours a week so our experience may be a bit different in that way. However, we love that when it is going to be on, we have so many options.

Much like I have experienced during a spending freeze, what we thought we needed was only a want in reality. I wanted to watch the news

My husband wanted to have the choice of watching something, which he rarely did anyway.

There has been less fighting about what would be watched since watching occurs even more infrequently now than it did before

Since we have access to so many things, we can always find something that everyone can agree on.

I am amazed to learn how often I think the tv was turned on just because we had it

Again it wasn’t a lot, but I think it was turned on “just because” at times. For this reason, we’ve got even more of our time to ourselves.

In general, I think the idea of being without it was much scarier than actually being without it

I think knowing that most people have some sort of cable or dish plan and we would not was also part of it. Of course we soon realized that this doesn’t really matter anyway. I can honestly say I have never been talking with anyone when they asked me about my cable plan or lack thereof.

Of course the savings are amazing, even though we only had a minimal plan the costs really did add up over time

Over the past year, I figure we’ve saved close to $500. When I think of how long it would take me to save $500 in coupons, it really puts those savings into perspective.

I think the part I enjoy even more, is not having to pay attention to when promotional rates expire

In an effort to be frugal, I played this game like a pro, and I am so thrilled to be off that crazy train. No more watching my calendar for these dates, taking the time to call in about it, and no more having to argue my case about why I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my firstborn son in order to have cable at a reasonable rate.

In summary, going without cable has given me freedom from playing their game, more clearly defined the difference between a want and a need, and made for less mindless background noise and distraction in addition to saving me time, money, and stress.

I can honestly say that when it comes to going without cable, we don’t miss it even one bit and have no plans of crossing back over to the other side. If you’ve toyed around with it, just make the jump!

Have you given up cable? Do you miss it? What has your experience been? I would love to hear in the comments.