SparkPeople advertisers help keep the site free! Learn more
    TBOURLON   6,676
SparkPoints 		5,500-6,999 SparkPoints
 
 
Thinking of giving up DishNet

Thursday, February 21, 2013

It's a silly thing to blog about on Sparkpeople, but it's on my mind this morning. My DishNet bill has gone up again, now I'm paying nearly $60 a month (for the cheapest package!) and am being told that's a "good deal!" REALLY??? emoticon It doesn't feel so good. I figure I have about 6 TV shows I regularly watch, and this puts the cost of those shows at $10 each! Now 2 of them are on regular network TV, one of them I'm starting to get a little burned-out on, and then there's "Justified," which isn't streaming on Hulu right now. It's a great show, but is it REALLY worth the money? And I used to be a big fan of the History Channel, but the shows they've been showing lately are CRAP! I mean, "Pawn Stars", what's historical about that???

A problem with dropping cable is, my TV is old, not an HD tv, and I don't have an antenna either, so if I completely drop cable I probably won't be able to watch local tv stations either. There are 3 things I should be doing every night after getting home from work & making dinner: practice my guitar, exercise, and work on this book I'm supposed to be writing. Granted, I could put 1 hr into each of those, and no tv would help. I don't know, I'm still kicking around the idea - anyone out there cut the cable and survived? Some thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thanks! emoticon
SHARE
  Member Comments About This Blog Post:

ANGELARUTHIE 2/23/2013 3:40PM

    We cut our cable about 4 years ago for many of the same reasons and we haven't thought twice about it. We've saved ourselves a ton of money too. We have Netflix and we rent movies from the red box. You'd be surprised how much of life you can miss by zoning out in front of the tv. I've started to really enjoy finding new music to listen to and reading more books. I honestly don't think you'll regret it if you cut your cable.



Report Inappropriate Comment
NIXIE_DUST 2/21/2013 7:02PM

    Dude whaaaat? I pay $129.11 per month with Cox. Who, by the way, are cocks. If you can, I would see if you can pick up a wifi signal at your house, tap into it and watch all your shows on channel1, sidereel, tv duck, or my favorite, watchseries.cn. Pirating is the new age, sad to say. I have cable because it's a service I provide for my roommates, but before that, I had a laptop and google.

Report Inappropriate Comment
MIAKODA4 2/21/2013 6:28PM

  I would SO do it if I didn't have the kids....I really don't watch TV all that much (usually dominated by the kids or the hubby--and he doesn't watch it all that much either!)...I much rather read for my entertainment!

I say go for it!

Report Inappropriate Comment
LADYBUGFAERIE 2/21/2013 12:23PM

    We had our cable for free for awhile (a friend had removed the filter for us), but when we had a problem with our internet, the cable company put the filter back on. And we just didn't have our friend come remove it again.

And suddenly, I got SO much more done every day!! That was when I really started buckling down with my healthy lifestyle changes. And I was amazed to find that I had more than enough time to plan meals, batch cook, pack lunches, workout and do all of the other things that I thought I just didn't have time for!

In fact, when we moved to Denver, we sold the big, bulky TV we had (someone actually paid us $50 to haul it off!) and we didn't even have a TV in the house until Steve's son moved in with us in August! We still had our computers, but we didn't have Netflix or anything. And I have to say, I didn't miss it for a moment!

I have started watching Biggest Loser again via Hulu, and Steve's son has Netflix on his XBox, so we've caught a few movies and shows through it. But overall, I am so happy we got rid of TV! We still have our time wasters (mostly his computer games), but we no longer become zombies in front of the TV for hours at a time!

So personally, I wouldn't hesistate a moment to cut the TV out of your life. I think you'll be amazed by how little you miss it and how much you can do without it!

emoticon emoticon

Report Inappropriate Comment
BOBF15 2/21/2013 11:37AM

    I went cable free for a while and it was not all that big of a deal. I find I do use cable on the internet, that would be tough for me to give up as I socialize a lot over the internet.

Give it up for a while, and maybe you can get a better deal. I am with Cox and my bill is way to high as well. So maybe quitting and going elsewhere for a while will 1. show you are serious about leaving, and 2. help them appreciate you with a new package and lower rates. I have heard that bargains can be made from others.

Let me know how this goes and I am just about to go elsewhere as well. The whole idea of competition is better service and prices. My main reason for staying with Cox so far is they have always had excellent customer service whenever I need them. emoticon

Report Inappropriate Comment
MOMMASLILGUNNY 2/21/2013 11:31AM

    Yes actually we did. For the past 3 months or so we have had no cable. Granted we do have a few newer tv's so we just made our own antenna. But for the living room tv we just use netflix mainly. would still be without if husband wasn't getting antsy about making sure we have cable channels for the upcoming Nascar and Baseball seasons.

You can call them and see if you can get your price lowered. I was able to. It was only $10 less per month but it works. If not shop arround. Even if it means changing cable/dish companies every 2 years. I would do it.

Best of luck.

Report Inappropriate Comment
INSPIRATIONAL3 2/21/2013 11:16AM

    Thank you for bringing to point up. I too am supposed to be writing a book, exercising more, sleeping more, handling the stress in my life from a fire situation and trying to get my home rebuilt. I find myself trying to escape fro all the above into the boob tube and although I try to limit the time....I see myself spending more time than I want to spend and sometimes staying up for programs that rob my sleep.

After listening to you I thought about it too and see that I need to make a change that forces me to reduce the hours I spend watching the boob tube. I can always get some of the programming back if I am that unhappy.

Thanks for helping me reflect on this which I always push it aside to continue a negative habit that is robbing me of precious quality time for other things.

Yvonne

Report Inappropriate Comment

Add Your Comment to the Blog Post


Log in to post a comment.
 


Other Entries by TBOURLON