Poll: When Did You Cut the Cord (Cable and/or Satellite)?

[TripleLindy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harris4crna Did not know you were my neighbor

Now that’s funny.

As far as cutting the cord goes, we finally did it in our primary residence a little over a year ago. Our cable pricing was actually ok and service was good, but the equipment fees (cable boxes) were what drove the price up. When I called to cancel, I was told that TV was only provided to existing customers and they were not taking new subscribers, so the writing was on the wall. I asked about the equipment and was told to recycle it. Just proves what a dumb business model it was.

We never had cable at our 2nd home. We had an attic antenna and gave PlayStation Vue a try for a while, but just used our cable subscription to access streaming services of channels like ESPN. It was kind of a pain to do, though, because you had to switch in and out of individual apps on the Roku.

We also never had cable in our first home, where we lived for 12 years. We just used rabbit ears. When we moved into our current home more than 25 years ago, I had an attic antenna installed because I found it hard to justify the cost of cable - part of the mentality that got me to early retirement. I didn’t get cable TV until cable internet became available.

So, while we only recently cut the cord for the last time, we’ve spent more of our adult lives without cable than we did with it.

[retire48in2018]

5 years ago.

When we wanted to add a TV into bathroom - so visible from tub - and we would have to add a cable box, route a coaxial line there, etc

Cable company required boxes to descramble- even basic cable. No TVs came with that card. Plus wanted to charge another $6 a month for that unwanted box

Plus, cable company was going to double the monthly cost - as promotional plan was ending and they would not renew it again - even with threats of leaving cable

So threat was actualized.

Love it - no extra boxes. Hated the extra box - really bad if you wanted a DVR - humongous loud box that hummed and beeped a lot.

Half the cost (now maybe 1/3 cost as cable kept increasing and streaming not increasing as much, plus more streaming options)

[ShokWaveRider]

No cable cutting here. We have basic digital HD that has all the channels we want plus high speed internet. No "Paid" streaming channels at all. There is plenty of no charge content on the net.

If there was a reliable high speed internet alternative, we would drop cable. However, having basic cable is only $25 more than the cost of cable internet alone, not worth cutting for that.

[ElizabethT]

We cut the cord in 2011, along with our landline phone, as the two were bundled with same provider. I just took a look, and we went from $132 monthly for internet/cable/landline, to $30 for just internet. So that's a $13,200 savings over 11 years.

We pay $0 for streaming as an FYI, other than internet fee. We get Netflix for free via our TMobile 55+ phone plan, which we share access to with our two DD's. In return we share their Hulu and Amazon Prime subscriptions.

We watch very little TV these days, a deliberate choice. And a very big change from our working years, when we'd return home too exhausted to do anything else in the evening. Now, the things we do instead of TV on the nights we're home is read while listening to instrumental music (our most frequent activity), play guitar and piano together, play games, do puzzles. Our normal TV time is 8 - 9pm, after which we go to bed.

For a white noise factor, we stream a ton of these YouTube cozy jazz videos (commercial free thanks to a another family member adding us to their account) on our 65" TV. They are static screens for the most part, with falling rain or snow or waves, plus instrumental jazz. They 'fill' the room without being a distraction. Super cozy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sckheyO_OVY

[sengsational]

No entry for "Never Had Cable (so never anything to cut)"

[jollystomper]

We still have cable, but I rarely watch anything other than live sports. DW will rarely watch it. Dropping it rattles around in my head, but it is less than 2% of our expenses are we are already not spending as much as we could, so I have not focused on it. Perhaps after the Super Bowl I can "trial" dropping it for a few months (though that runs into March Madness, darn) to see if we can live without it .

[bloom2708]

Last DirecTV payment was 5/16/2016.

Overall happy. Some things better, some things harder.

My 70 something parents are being forced to "streaming cable" in a week. Their cable provider is stopping cable through traditional means.

We made the switch easy, but they will have a harder time adjusting I am sure.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational No entry for "Never Had Cable (so never anything to cut)"

When I moved to NJ from Cincinnati in 1978 I was spoiled. I could get the 3 major networks in Cincinnati AND Dayton as well as UHF channels. I moved to an area in NJ that was commuting distance to NYC but in a bit of a valley and reception was awful. I just stopped watching TV since I was studying for actuarial exams anyway.

Then I moved in with my first husband. At his insistence we had an insanely expensive cable package- I know it was $150 or so per month back when we divorced in 1997. That included some music service that was similar to Sirius but never worked. He signed up for Bravo when they called and said they'd make a donation to some charity if he did. A year later I dropped it and he never noticed. It was a happy day when I called the cable company and pretty much cut the bill in half. I had to keep one bundle because DS liked Nickelodeon.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational No entry for "Never Had Cable (so never anything to cut)"

Both our adult children never had cable after they left home. They are in their 40s now and one thing they have commented on since moving back to England is that all the OTA channels are available through their apps over the internet (OTI?) so not even an antenna needed for high quality TV. Yesterday our daughter just signed up for Gigabit internet in the house she took possession of yesterday. Cost is £45/mo ($55).

[COcheesehead]

I know some 20 somethings who have never owned a TV. They live with a device. I think some of these same folks have never stepped inside a grocery store well.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElizabethT For a white noise factor, we stream a ton of these YouTube cozy jazz videos (commercial free thanks to a another family member adding us to their account) on our 65" TV. They are static screens for the most part, with falling rain or snow or waves, plus instrumental jazz. They 'fill' the room without being a distraction. Super cozy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sckheyO_OVY

With the Apple TV we play music of choice and turn on the Apple TV screen saver which cycles through various outdoor videos slow and peaceful on our large screen.

[pacergal]

We are holdouts, still have cable! We honestly don't watch much.

DD dropped hers last year and DS doesn't even have a TV.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational No entry for "Never Had Cable (so never anything to cut)"

Yeah, that seems so foreign to me that I didn’t think of cord nevers. Sorry.

[thod]

Had to go back and check my Quicken data. It appears the last check I wrote to Dish Network for satellite was in Feb 2016. Just an OTA antenna since then, with a DVR and some streaming services.

[Ally]

We still have cable, but mostly watch streaming with Roku. Every time I think about cutting cable and call them, they lower the price. We love their high speed internet, so even if we dropped cable, we would keep the internet. Just last week, they reduced our cable costs to less than $20 over the cost of the internet. We don’t have anything but the basic cable, but still that seems like a deal. My husband watches old movies and some sports, so it seems worth it.

[old medic]

We never had access to cable, and only had satellite for a few years... Son hooked us up with a PanSat satellite system... Man alive was that something... you had to be careful scanning around on that thing... And still, The meme was true. thousands of channels and was watching Andy Griffith re-runs..
About 2015 we cut the landline/broadband line and went to using our cellphone hotspot for internet.

[wmc1000]

Count us in on the 2008 cord cutting list! Never looked back after that.

[Surewhitey]

2003 cut the land line phone and went to Vonage voip. Moved to Mexico in 2007 & never had cable TV again. Haven't missed any of it. Our pet / house sitter has us logged into her HULU & Netflix, so we sponge off her (with her knowledge of course)... So she doesn't have to re-login, really.

[Car-Guy]

We have DSL "out here" and it often "drops out" and requires resetting but it is rarely actually "out". That disrupts streaming services and is a PIA but workable. So we still have DirecTv (~230 mo) plus Netflix Streaming and DVD service. (~$25 mo) We also have and watch many of the free streaming services. Tubi, Roku, etc, etc, etc. Never watch OTA since we only get one or two stations "sometimes" and they are awful. But, the DW likes her TV soooooooooo.....

As a side note: Our main big screen TV died out about a week ago and according to her, the "end of the world was near". To save the world, I moved our other big screen TV from the guest room to the living room (PIA). Our new big screen TV arrives in the next day or so, then I get to move the guest room TV back and then setup the new one. I can hardly wait.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Yeah, that seems so foreign to me that I didn’t think of cord nevers. Sorry.

Including myself and counting the generation that "welcomed" the Cable monopolies into existence, I count 2 reports so far, so long tail, certainly. I've always been in a place where I could get OTA big 3 plus PBS. The latter made up the majority of viewing, but on a total hours, we just didn't and don't watch much TV.