Day 17 on No Cable Island

So we have made it to day 17 of no cable without any real signs of mental breakdown. We did sign up for the Netflix 1-at-a-time unlimited plan with unlimited online viewing ($9.95 per month). This gives us a decent stream of online TV and movie content and we still appreciate a savings of $110 per month. I still miss my sports a little but I am adjusting to the concept of listening to games on streaming radio and watching GameCast style content online. All in all we are watching less TV as there is a lot less to loss but we are spending more time together as a family and being a little more selective in what we watch. I for one was someone who put the TV on by default and next thing you know six hours of my life is gone.

As an aside I have basically been sick for two weeks so going to bed a little earlier sans TV has probably helped a little. Right now I am typing this obviously but I am listening to Air Force football free online and I have Yahoo's GameChannel on so I can check up on the stats.

In the heat of college football season and no TV!

So we didn't really ask the boy but my wife and I agreed to give up cable. We had a package that included about 6 million channels, our house phone, and digital internet through our local cable company. Very luxurious, hi-def, VS Sports, Speed Channel, our bill was also about $175 per month. When recently looking for ways to save many we came up with the radical (and possibly communist) idea of getting rid of cable. While I am slightly concerned that by eliminating cable I will miss the opportunity to see the latest products to purchase and I will be letting down the economy by eliminating the house phone and cable we will save about $120 per month ($1,440 per year).

So the gentlemen came on Wednesday and removed the box and frankly I didn't really miss TV until Saturday. I am a huge college football fan. I improvised but it isn't quite the same. Both Yahoo and ESPN have game center type features where you can find live scoring and updates (I am sure there are many others as well) and with a little effort there are many free radio stations available on the internet. I discovered googling team name, football, radio was pretty effective. I tried several different teams and was able to get a free live radio feed on all. Nebraska made me sign up for something (also free but tedious) but again I googled "Nebraska football radio" and spent about ten minutes signing up and I was in. I also discovered that Nebraska has an all online MBA program, but calculus is a prerequisite. Seriously, where are all these business people using calculus? I must be really low on the food chain because the subject is never even mentioned at my level. I am actually more intrigued with this which I also found last night.

A sloppy 17-3 win over South Dakota State ensued. In making our decision I really thought about it and half the time I don't really watch the games anyway, I mostly listen and half pay attention anyway. For $120 a month I'll improvise.