Our Switch
About 1-1/2 years ago we realized that we were wasting money every month paying a cable bill just for fun. The realization came on night when we looked around and discovered that no one had turned the cable on in a whole month. What a waste of our money!
At that point we were already Netflix members as I had signed up when I took a Film and Politics class at Portland State University. Since we were watching a movie a week and they had almost all the movies in their collection it was a good investment. When we gave up cable we switched to Netflix for our TV viewing entertainment.
In all honesty we have not missed out cable at all. I should share that we are not a sports watching family so there were no games for us to miss out on, and even for you sports people out there I hear that this year the Superbowl will be live streamed online so there are really no excuses anymore.
6 Benefits to Streaming
Since we gave up cable we have noted some benefits to our lives that had both been expected and unexpected. Here is our list:
1) No more cable bill. Even with the changes to subscriptions that Netflix has undergone the savings is considerable, especially as we dropped the DVD portion when they split them (we weren’t watching them anyways).
2) No more advertisements at Christmas time. I have two school aged kids and while they hear about stuff from their friends they are shielded from the onslaught of commercials for the latest chunk of plastic or useless electronic that barrage our favorite shows come fall.
3) No more political ads. For us this has been a great and unexpected benefit, especially heading into an election year like this one. Right now we are having a special election for a new Senator and since we haven’t seen adds our decisions are based on what is on the ballot, their websites and our voter’s guide. This allows us to make a decision without hating the idea of voting due to negative ads before out ballot even shows up. For us this is a good thing.
4) No more missing the show. This is great for all of us, if you doze off or have to run a kid to an event before the show is over there are no issues, just watch it later. Sure you get this with DVR but then you probably have a higher bill than I do.
5) I know what the kids have been watching. They have the chance to cruise the available shows and movies on Netflix and there are some that they are simply too young to watch. Since everything you watch kicks over to a “Recently Watched” section we all know what each other is watching. A much easier way to keep tabs on things, though my kids haven’t tried watching anything they shouldn’t.
6) Exposure to new shows. I have found that documentaries that interest me are far easier to come by then they used to be with my cable provider. This also means my kids have gotten into “How It’s Made” that they would have been unlikely to run across before our switch.
Do you stream?
While it is not the best answer for everyone, the switch to streaming TV has been great for us. So tell me, have to switched to streaming and if you have what benefits have you seen, if not, why not?
