Life without Cable TV – Week 1

It was an interesting week. Me – being the TV fanatic that I am – living without cable? My Grandmother thought it would more than difficult for me.

So far, I have to say, it’s not so bad.

I grew up with cable TV and, after it was dark and time to come inside from riding bike with my friends, television and movies were a big part of my 8-year-old world. I loved the characters, the suspense, and the cinematography. It was like reading a book, but a little better because I could watch the story unfold before my eyes. The directors and producers show you what they want – leading you on a journey that can be happily predictable or surprisingly confusing. Either way it’s fun to go along for the ride.

Last week I decided to cancel my service though. What sense does it make to keep it when a cable bill costs $73 a month (before taxes) and there’re just a few programs I watch religiously? I found myself watching WWE and Friends reruns on Nick-at-nite. I’m usually about 6 years behind when it comes to TV shows. This past summer is the first time I saw an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It seems that when a show hits syndication, I start to watch it.

Anyway, watching a few shows a week for $73 just didn’t compute, especially when I have 20 – 30 movies in my DVD collection. The apartment complex I live at has about 50 DVD titles they rent out for free. There are more options on top of that. I can buy movies for $3 at Big Lots, $4.75 at Target, and $5 at Wal-Mart. Plus, it costs just $1.20 to rent movies at Redbox. I figure I can get a lot of $1.20 Redbox rentals for $73.

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing this week – watching about two movies a night or watching a few episodes of The Nanny and Seinfeld (I scored season 4 for just $7.99 last week!).

So far it’s a lot cheaper. The only problem is that at two movies a night, I’m going to run out of entertaining movies to watch. I think that number will probably decrease as the weeks go on though. We’ll call this the ‘adjustment period.’

My goal is to use this newfound free time to exercise regularly and practice my writing. I have a few books on my shelf that I’d like to use as more than decoration too.

I’m sure I’ll eventually hook up the DVR again, but I’m not missing it so far. We’ll see how long it is before I cave in.