Getting Rid of Cable TV -- The Why and How

Several years ago I suggested to my husband that we should get rid of our cable T.V. I was tired of the junk that was constantly being shown, and I’m not just referring to the shows or movies, but to the commercials as well.

Every time my family sat down to watch something, I found myself often having to switch channels when a commercial appeared. Sometimes the commercial was for a product, but most times the commercials were for the inappropriate shows being aired on that particular station. I quickly grew tired of this.

I wish I could tell you that my husband was instantly on board with the idea of unsubscribing to cable T.V.

The idea of not having cable T.V. was much easier for me than it was for my husband. He really enjoyed watching the sports channels and the thought of not being able to watch the games he wanted was not appealing to him.

It took my husband about two years to finally agree to our getting rid of cable.

How was I able to convince him to unsubscribe from cable T.V.?

We discussed the financial benefits of unsubscribing.
We discussed the kind of values we wanted our children to have and questioned how cable T.V. was helping us teach those values.
We researched alternatives.

So what did we replace cable T.V. with?

We replaced our cable T.V. with Netflix. At the cost of only $8.99 per month it offered us a huge savings over cable.

My family really enjoys it. They offer a lot of family-friendly movies and various educational documentaries. (As I write this post, my children are watching a documentary about Pixar.)

How did getting rid of cable T.V. affect our family?

Unsubscribing to cable T.V. has given us better control over what our family watches. We can now choose what we want to watch without worrying about those non-family friendly commercials. Through Netflix, we have been able to watch several Christian movies, giving us an opportunity to discuss our faith. We also now have the option of using our T.V. for educational purposes and not just for entertainment.

Although we still do have access to regular T.V. (It was the only way my husband could still enjoy watching football.), we rarely watch it for anything other than sports and one family-friendly cartoon station. I will add that by getting rid of cable T.V. and using a regular T.V. antenna, we were given access to several Christian channels which we didn’t have before.

As a family, we are much happier with our T.V. choices now and we do not miss cable T.V. at all.

Has your family been considering unsubscribing from cable T.V.? For those that do not subscribe to cable T.V., how has it affected your family?

Clara has two sons whom she is currently homeschooling. She loves the Lord and depends on him for inspiration when blogging at A Slice of Homeschool Pie. She writes about her faith, parenting, raising boys, and homeschooling.

2 thoughts on “Getting Rid of Cable TV — The Why and How”

Leah Courtney

February 27, 2014 at 1:08 pm

We had done this, but last summer, we took a “deal” and subscribed again- mostly for sports. And I love the cooking channel. I’m really wishing we hadn’t done it. We can’t cancel before the “deal” is up. We do have Netflix and Amazon Prime, and I would much rather use those for viewing because we can control what’s on!
Gina

March 3, 2014 at 1:50 pm

We have cable. We are limited in what we watch. With commercials, my littles(7, 5 and 4) only watch PBS which really has no commercials expect for Chick-fil-a and other family friendly stuff at the very beginning of shows and educational DVD’s. My older kids(11 and 14) watch the Weather Channel, MeTV(which is all older clean shows like Emergancy and I Love Lucy) and DVD’s. My oldest also enjoys watching sports and Fox News with his dad but cannot alone. I barely watch TV unless it’s with my kids. We also have Netflix for all of the great movies. At this point it’s whats working for us even though it’s different than your family.