Cut TV entirely.
It is the habit of watching it, that is the problem, not whether you are watching cable, or antenna.
if you live near a metropolitan area you can make a simple over the air antenna OTA lots of plans/videos on the net. Most tv’s since around 2009 have built in tuners or you can get one and add it on.
check this site, put your address in and it will show you what channels you can probably get with indoor or outdoor antenna.
I cut my cable and only wish I had done it years ago. I also use Netflix and got a tv that had built in Roku box.
Get rid of your cable, and you kids will be more likely T maintain their Mora compass.
How much tv do you really need to watch anyhow
Go cold turkey and don’t look back. We did it 13 years ago. Our kids have an IQ as a result.
All you need is internet - I have rabbit TV over the internet for $10/year - all it does is consolidate the free stuff and offer pay per view. The free stuff is plenty includes all sorts of international as well as govt and other stuff - movies classic tv, current tv, etc.
Again it isn’t 100% as newer stuff and sports you have to ppv, but I don’t need that anyway. What sports I need I can find free elsewher on the internet
What’s a cable?
DANG, I love these threads!
Went through SMART TV - Horror highway.
Went through the Roku thing - sucked for me.
Both are hinky and really lack selection IMHO...
Go find you an old desktop computer and hook it to your TV. It’s AWESOME. Anything you can get to from your laptop is now on the tv, to include anything you might get from a Roku or SMART TV... And you can throw out your DVD player, and all the other extraneous little black boxes you might currently have connected - The computer can do anything they can do.
You will find that you will need a reasonably big tv though, to see the desktop from across the room - It is tough sledding with an old-school TV. If you have a Big Screen of some moderate size (mine is 38” Samsung SMART TV, I think) with HDMI input, it’s easy to hook up and reasonable for viewing and operation... I can also access the media computer from my laptop, using TightVNC (free program), and run it from my chair... Outside of the TV, my outfit is listed below:
Used Acer computer running MS Vista, with BlueRay DVD and HDMI capability. Runs like a top. $25
Wireless Keyboard w/ glidepad from WallyWorld - $30
Wireless N series NIC to catch internet from my router - $15 (Though I am actually going to run a wire to it eventually)
HDMI cable - $10
I have Amazon Prime - $90/yr, Netflix - $100/yr... And I watch a ton of Youtube for free. There is also Hulu or HuluPrime($90/yr), but so far, I don’t have the need of it.
I have kept Cable TV for one year, in order to acclimatize and test my way into the cable-free life (I was really worried about clicker withdrawal and not being able to have a bump-channel to go to during commercials, which turned out to be kinda true)... But I find that I rarely use the cabletv at all anyway. A bigger problem turned out to be what to do in the bedroom when sleep eluded me - TV used to be used to lull me to sleep - That was really the most difficult thing for me to overcome. That was fixed with an Android tablet and Youtube radio stuff... Or Coast2Coast AM...
If I had gone cold-turkey, I would have missed NASCAR and FoxNews (if there were some National emergency of some kind... I don’t watch FoxNews otherwise), but over the year, I found I can comfortably live without them... not enough reason to keep Cable.
Appropriately, on the 4th (Independence day), there will be no CableTV hooked up in my house. When I go to pay my bill, I will bring them back their boxes and clickers. Good riddance. With the extra $80/mo (going up to $100 in July), I will first pay up streaming services, and then buy the machinery to outfit the bedrooms to run like the living room does. From then on, the savings will go into my pocket
There wasn't much we were really watching anyway so I don't miss it too much.
Maybe I will add Hulu soon as well.
Ditch the subscription!
Get netflix or hulu if you absolutely have to sit in front of the boob tube. You can rent off of redbox or get dvd’s cheap at wally world.
After a month of so, you won’t miss it in the slightest and you will have at least an extra 100 in your pocket each month. You can also buy ChromeCast and stream youtube to your TV if you have an HDMI port or any other media your laptop is capable of playing...
Bottom line, best thing I did for my kids and I was get rid of cable.