Bill,

I agree with you. I hardly have enough time to do what I have to do, when would I ever be able to use all the premium channels, streaming movies and etc?

We have Cablevision's triple play (Internet, basic cable and telephone). When we had 7 channels of broadcast TV I thought there was nothing to watch, now with over 100 channels on the cable, I still think that there's nothing to watch. But, I do watch the local news sometimes.

A Serius/XM 1 year subscription came with my car but now that its over I won't renew. I did like listening to some of the music channels once in a while, but mostly I listen to the news when I'm driving. When not the news I'm satisfied with a cd or part of my music collection in mp3 format on a flash drive.

I have discovered that my local library, and my county's library system, has an extensive collection of movies on DVD and Blue Ray. I'm able to borrow the old silent movies and the cinema noir from the 40s and 50s that I love (and all the other classics too). Liz likes more current movies and our library manages to get them very shortly after they're released. No need for Netflix.

Both Liz and I carry smart phones. I find mine to be indispensable for checking the weather, stock prices, my e-mails ant text messages. I can even arm and disarm my home alarm remotely. Just recently, my bank added mobile deposits to it's app. Now I don't even have to go to the bank to deposit checks! Actually it's a double edged sword. I love knowing what to expect at work in the morning, but hate the fact that I can no longer "hide" from work in the evenings and weekends.

I do know lots of people who subscribe to every form of entertainment from premium cable to streaming music to serius/xm but I just don't see it. There just aren't enough hours in the day to take advantage of all these services that are costing you money. And some of these people spend an awful lot of money on these things.

 

Is that actually in the entertainment column or the maintenance entry in the expense ledger?
I think the kids are definitely a maintenance expense

 

Pretty interesting question, and while I am not a true Vintage member, it's a topic that a lot of people my age discuss as well.

Background on me - 27, married 1 year, lived in an apartment since college, bought a house ~6 months ago.
This is sort of the question a lot of my friends and I have realized as we figure out how to budget for things once we join the real world and get regular paychecks.

My original post was too long, so I'll stick to my main point - anyone who needs to have cable as well as all of the additional services you've mentioned is likely just throwing away money. Cable and cable packages are enough in their own right and certainly deliver plenty of content to keep you entertained. Needing more TV through netflix/hulu etc. is overload. Maybe people want every option available, but definitely not required for the average person.

Having subscriptions to non-cable/tv services is a different topic, but still related. If you aren't watching tv you might enjoy reading more, and buying books on Kindles is more of an a la cart thing. Same with iTunes, all a la cart.

My wife and I decided not to spend the money on cable, and have done so for 2 years now. We pay $40 for cable internet and then subscribe to Netflix and Hulu Plus. Those provide enough tv content for us. I don't see the need to hand over 100 more bucks to Time Warner for a ton of channels I will never watch.

Maybe having all of the subscriptions is just part of keeping up with the times. Would any of you drop cable for the model I've adopted? I might guess most of you would prefer to keep cable as it's just a normal thing to have, but if you want to also try the new things like netflix/ sirius (not that new) or things like that, you'll end up with both and before long you have it all

Point is, if you need all of those subscriptions to keep yourself entertained, you're either wasting money or you need to unplug and go camping for a week

 

When we discovered (about 3 years ago) that the TV was off WAY more than it was on, I dropped the "HD Enhanced" tier from Comcast. Last year, I dropped that to the cheapest HD they offered. With Roku and wifi, we haven't watched cable TV for over 2 years. I just bought a HD antenna for the times when we might want to watch something on TV (if anything of value ever comes on again) and Comcast TV is going good-bye. We use Vonage for phone service because it's much cheaper than Comcast triple play and it gives MDW access to international calling for one low price. One of the best moves I ever made.

 

I was recently forced into Comcast for internet at my office, but I must say it is working better than I expected.Not only is it faster, but their spam filter has worked flawlessly, eliminating 99% of the hundreds I get each day, while, so far, not pulling out a single legitimate email.

At home I have DirecTv, no cable available, which works well, even though I pay for crap I don't watch.

 

In our previous house we had always avoided cable with a big antennae up in the garage.
Now that we've moved in of the shadow of the hill which effectively blocks all of the Boston and NH stations, we have option of he Spanish station in Worcester or a good book.
When we moved in cable was on and remained so for about year with just using the DTV tuner of the TV.
and then one day it went dark

so after about two weeks I called about getting cable turned on for internet access and "let them talk me into getting a bundle deal"

I really wish i could just use an antennae now.

 

I read that last sentence and for some reason I thought it said Benny Hill. And then there was this mental image and I couldn't help but laugh.

I hear ya on having to buy stuff you don't want in order to get the stuff you do. It's a bummer. Now, I wonder...could you set up Parental Controls such that when you fire up the TV it ONLY shows you the stations you want so that you aren't subjected even for a moment to the stuff you don't want to see? I mean, it's possible life would probably be better if you had to do a google search to find out who the heck Benny Hinn is in order to understand the reference above (like I did). I'm ignorant, but it's blissful, ya know?

 

HD cable with dvr and internet is about $150/month. We rarely go to movies and eat at home most of the time. Our entertainment is mostly books and music although we do enjoy some tv. We're angry that Time Warner has blacked out CBS. If we had other cable options we'd bolt, but its the only thing available in our area.

 

Thanks. That approach might work if my monthly bill had some sort of Parental Control setting. Seeing all the dreck as I flip through the channels doesn't bother me. It's seeing the amount of money I'm compelled to pay for it, so that I'm allowed to watch the stuff I like.

To me, it's not unlike a mob protection racket. The satellite/cable company could send Bruno "No Nose" Vitellini to my house every month to relay the same message, "Ya know, it'd be a real shame if somethin' was ta happen ta that David Attenborough fella, if ya know what I mean." The overall effect is essentially the same.

 

We pay about $300 a month total for TV/Internet and Phones, both landline and mobile and my iPad with cell service.

I'm considering getting the Comcast bundle, and just not moving the phone over (effectively having a dead number) to get a rate reduction.

We do watch a bit of TV. I can always have history or ESPN on for noise, and Cindy likes FoodNetwork and HGTV in the background. I don't think a subscription would work, I tend to also watch a lot of random shows on random stations, so if I subscribed individually to those stations/shows only, I would think I'd quickly add up to the cost of the whole package I currently get (and don't use most of).

As to the free market comments... Agreed, if a station can't stay afloat without subsidies, it shouldn't be afloat. On the other hand, I bet we would all be surprised at the number of owners of all those stations. There's probably less than we think - so when they negotiate, its ALL of our channels or NONE of our channels. (What's the situation today with one of the cable companies, CBS and Showtime?) Since owner/company 1 has a station about sports, company 2 needs one too. Just like if McDonalds goes into a town, a BK, Wendy's or something is bound to follow. Someone paid for the research, so they all jump in to get a piece of the action. Do I really think FoxSports 1 is going to be able to compete with ESPN? Everyone seems to want the 'me-too' channels.

As for ala carte, I can't imagine this would make it. Just like cars... The cost to buy the DX and add 1 or 2 options is usually more expensive than buying the LX or EX with those 2 options and 3 others, whether you like them or not. I really don't need the 14 speakers in my Civic, but if I want power windows and locks, I have to have it. Sometimes there's only one choice... Walk Away.