Go on a cool vacation with the savings. And get off the treadmill of consumption that commercials say you MUST be on. http://www.businessinsider.com/tv-business-collapse-2012-6
I gave up paid television services three years ago. I admit I have an antenna up because I like to catch the news. My daily "television" use is roughly 45 minutes. I hate to think of the YEARS of my time I wasted watching shit that doesn't matter. I am no better off for having "invested" the time in watching. People have to realize the sole purpose of television is to get you to buy shit you can probably do without.
A $30 HD antenna gives you 20+ channels, about 5-6 of them in HD, for free. The trick about not wasting life to do something else (browsing internet, making love, working out,) while the TV is in the background...
Yeah good idea. I should get rid of it and go on a cool vacation! Hmm...how about Goa, India! That would be pretty cool right? Lets look at the economics first though...the average american spends about $50 per month on cable, so lets use those numbers to figure out how long we have to save for... Ok lets look at plane tickets. Uh-oh... It cost $2,000 just for 1 ticket. That means 40 months of no TV to pay for the plane ride. Oh but wait...I want a hotel. Thats another $1,000 for 2 weeks. Plus I'm going to need some spending money and buy some knick-knacks, travel insurance, taxi money, food money, change for the beggars and lets not forget the few dollars I'm going to lose getting pick pocketed and lets say thats another $2,000 total for all that. Ok...so my trip will cost about $5,000 total or 100 months without cable. Thats 8 years and 4 months without TV for a 2 week trip. 8 years 4 months of no entertainment for 2 weeks of entertainment (although I dont think the 24 hour plane ride there and back counts as entertainment)
everything is 'bundled' today. if i give up tv subscription-my internet and phone 'bundle' will go up roughly for same amount..maybe lower by like $25 and other 'fees' that related to TV(dvr and all that stuff). i'm paying like $340 a month for regular phone line(unlimited calls usa\canada,300 minutes to call overseas for like +10$),3 cell phones, fios internet,dvr and pretty good variety of HD channels(everything,except premium like hbo,cinemax). and set of damn russian channels for like 25$. bill is huge,but imo-decent value. about 10-25% of whole bill goes to various taxes and 'fees' but...i have to agree-the industry reaping us off,cause we have no alternatives. talk to the some guys from russia the other day-for like $9 a month(service only) you can have decent internet at home and unlimited local cell phone service + provider covers whole entire city with wifi, so you can use a smart phone and internet anywhere for no additional charge. in US such plan probably cost you $100+ a month
well..that's your choice..but i love to watch something like Colbert report or Jon Stewart show in HD at the dinner.
I did the same thing. Gave up the ever-increasing cable TV for the free over-the-air HDTV last year. I was very surprised by the excellent quality and the number of channels (over 90) available in my metro area. I also dropped my cable phone service after switching to the free Google phone. Total savings over $100 per month!
Why was it wasted? Were you not entertained for that period of time? Many of todays inventions are the product of someone watching TV. Lets look at Star Trek for example. People watched captain kirk use his communicator and 20 years later flip phones(cell phones) were invented. Fast forward to Captain Picards ship and you see the crew using ipads 20 years before an ipad was invented. Television sparks your imagination. There are people today working on ways to transport matter from one place to the next because they saw them do it on the enterprise when they were kids. When the show ER came out, many people decided to go to school to become nurses/doctors because of it. Ever watched Storage wars? Before that show came out, you would go to an auction and 6 or 7 people would show up. The last one I went to, more than 50 people showed up. People join martial arts studios because they watch bruce lee. People change jobs because they want to try something else they saw on TV. Think back to before people had TV. All they did was stay at the same job for 50 years and never tried anything new because they were not aware of anything new. People didn't go to hawaii for a vacation, because people never saw on TV what Hawaii looked like. Inspiration is the key to human advancement and Television provides that...it exposes you to things you never imagined so that you can create a new world.