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How to Survive Suburbia

We Got Rid of Cable and My Kids Survived: Part 2

C’mon, I know you’ve thought about getting rid of cable at least once. Do you really need all those channels? What could you do with more than $1600 this year? Even if you bought ten series on iTunes, you still come out ahead. What do you have to lose? Cut the cord! Cut the cord!

For more on watching your favorite shows without cable, click here to read my previous blog post.

If you decide to go ahead with ditching cable, you will need:

A Netflix account or Amazon Prime account. My kids were already Netflix-junkies. If you don’t already have a Prime account, click here for a free one-month subscription. You not only get free two-day shipping from Amazon but also access to over 40,000 movies and TV shows.
One or more streaming devices (there are others out there that I will not discuss):
Apple TV: this is what I use. Many apps are included such as CNN, PBS, PBS Kids, and Lifetime. FYI: I find the remote control too small and hard to navigate so the remote app on my phone eliminates this problem. Although

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We Got Rid of Cable and my Kids Survived: Part 1

Cord-cutter: that’s who I am. Two months and proud. My kids haven’t complained yet.

You may think that my sizable cable bill motivated this decision, however, the real reason was that I simply could not justify paying one more month for my home phone. With the exception of telemarketers who dialed me incessantly (despite my placement on the no-call list), my home phone sat silently accumulating dust until I finally unplugged it. FIOS informed me that if I chose to keep internet and cable TV but dropped my home line, my bill would actually increase. (I had the Triple Play package).

Frustrated, I shopped around online and discovered CableVision’s Cord-Cutter package. For $50 per month including taxes, I could receive high-speed internet, a router, and digital antenna. My FIOS bill cost me close to $200 per month. Do the math. At the end of the year, I would have an extra $1600 in my pocket.

Sure, cable makes channel-surfing convenient, but I can honestly say I do not miss it. I still manage to watch all my favorite shows: Downton Abbey (may it RIP), Vinyl, The Affair, Girls, Shark Tank, Real Housewives, and Real Time with Bill Maher.

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