It can boost your personal finances a lot to “cut the cable” — that is, to eliminate your cable or satellite plan’s monthly fees. Remember, they’re a fixed cost and they occur every month whether you watch much TV or not. My book explains why cutting fixed costs is a great way to improve your budget.
But is there anything to watch if you don’t have cable? In most of the U.S. there’s quite a bit. In fact, you’ll find that cable subscribers often spend much of their time watching content that’s available over the air. It takes some work, but you may get excellent results with a rooftop antenna.
The final piece of the puzzle is a DVR, or digital video recorder, to record things for later viewing. I can now recommend the DTVPal DVR for this purpose. It has been out for a year now and most of the bugs are worked out.
Here’s how it works: Just hook up the DTVPal DVR to your antenna lead-in, and then to your TV. A simple setup routine finds channels and then you’re in business. Here’s my more detailed review of the DTVPal DVR.
You can save hundreds of dollars every year by “cutting the cable” and switching to antenna TV. And with Redbox or Netflix, you can easily get all the movies you’d like to replace cable movie channels.
Finally, what if you end up watching less TV because there’s less available? For most people that would be a good thing. Go outside and play, spend more time with others, or volunteer to do something good. It all starts with “cutting the cable.”