by Claire
You’ll be happy to know that cable is disconnected and without anything set up for Roku. We had to go pretty extreme and just cancel cable without having anything lined up b/c time is the challenge for us–if we wait for the time to get things in order on Roku and THEN cancel cable…well then weeks go by and suddenly it has been a month since we first considered breaking up with cable! That’s $140 a month we don’t need to spend so it has been cut to $35 for the internet only. We did go out and buy an “old school” antenna and are amazed at what we can get for FREE. Ridiculous that it took us this long! Somehow both hubby and I became convinced that we needed cable to have television. In fact, when we first discussed this my husband even said “we won’t be able to watch the Super Bowl.” Imagine our surprise when our $24 antenna got us crystal clear local television reception. We felt pretty dumb.
We are waiting on Roku b/c we need to educate ourselves on perhaps using the Playstation 3 and Wii that we already have. I understand they can do the wifi feed but we need to figure out how that works. Let me know if you have info on this topic.
Today marked our first volunteer time at Mobile Loaves and Fishes. We can see that being a wonderful addition to our busy schedules! It was a great time for all as we made 100 meals for the homeless. It was empowering to see how the power of many can knock out a task like this in absolutely no time. We were finished in an hour! We hope to go out on the truck next time but there were other volunteers for that duty today.
The evening ended with trips to CVS and Walgreens where, with the help of coupons, we bought two 6-paks of Bounty papertowels, two 6-pack “double rolls” of Charmin, 2 large bottles of olive oil on clearance, 5 boxes of cereal (to include Life–my all time fave happened to be on clearance for $1.50 b/c it expires in May), a gallon of milk and a pack of gum for $9! So exciting for us! We laughed as we looked at this Friday evening compared to Fridays in the past—we used to eat at a nice restaurant and drop at least $80…but tonight we happily saved a lot of money on things we need and use and celebrated no cable television! I am so excited to be done with that bill—and the $105 will go straight toward savings and debt!
Notice the slightly updated numbers–the savings is up to $650 and a $145 line of credit is paid off! 🙂
Born and raised in Texas. I’ve at least driven through every state in the US courtesy of a roadtrip loving Dad.
I’m single with two children and a good parenting relationship with their father.
I am a “life is just half full of funny” kinda gal. Humor is my saving grace and I am thankful for it every single day. I have a strong Catholic faith and am thankful for that foundation.
I read a lot for a living but still enjoy a good book. I love biographies but in recent years have found the need for fun fictional books–sadly, for a long time I just didn’t enjoy fiction!
I love live theatre of any kind–from local productions to Broadway.
I love to scrapbook and pride myself in my kids’ albums.
I love being a mom but also love my career. I’m blessed to have found a balance allowing me to be at everything my kids need and want me to be at–while also having a career.
Favorite Quotes: Well behaved women rarely make history.
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. -James Bryant Conant
The Playstation 3 works well as a streaming client. We’ve used ours to stream Netflix and Hulu+. I think they’ve recently added the capability to stream Amazon Video as well.
If you already have a PS3, you probably don’t need a Roku on top of it (although the Roku is a great solution for folks who don’t already have a game console or some such). Also, I’d use the PS3 over the Wii–the PS3 is capable of higher resolution (1080p for the PS3 vs. 480p for the Wii).
I concur. I have the PS3 and the wii and use solely the PS3 to stream my netflix and hulu+. $18 a month using a console we already had and I never missed cable. We have it now, but thats only because of some ridiculous comcast thing that makes it cheaper to have cable and internet instead of just internet. Interestingly enough I’ve had cable again for 2 weeks and have yet to watch it.
See how much fun this is when you really began to get with the program? We have never had cable. One of the hardest things for me to do when trying to get out of debt was to realize we really had no where to cut. Small income, no cable, cell phone plans, gym memberships. We just had no where to cut. Hubby made $29,000 last year. It is always up to me. But look how well you are doing. I am so proud of you!
Check you out girl! We have an antennae and it rocks.
Instead of Roku:
2 words- VGA or HDMI. These are types of cables you can connect your computer and TV with. To watch something from online on our TV, we simple pull it up on our computer, hook up our VGA (20 bucks) and audio cable (10 bucks), we then do something quick mousework, and viola! Hulu, netflix, daily show, whatevs, on our flat screen.
We’ve been using this method for 3 years. Works fantastic.
We have the setup that Marilyn talks about too. We also have a PS3 that we can stream Netflix through if we want as well as the antenna. Since they switched to digital everything is crystal clear- it’s awesome!
Great job on your emergency fund and paying off the debt! Doesn’t it feel great to see those 0’s after the debt? 🙂
Question: On those high interest credit cards, do you have good enough credit to move the balances to a lower interest card? (The Dave Ramsey program did have information on how to negotiate with your credit card companies to lower the rate without ruining your credit, but don’t know if they still endorse that or not.)
Oh Claire, I am so proud of you! I cut cable years ago, or rather, I have just the basic at $11.99 plus internet. For the most part, I don’t miss it but once in a while I’d like to see HGTV, lol. Living debt free is really an awesome feeling and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I love the progress you are making but I’d rather see the updates on the first of the month-makes it more exciting to see the results. Congrats on a great Friday night. Love the volunteering for the homeless. I am sure your daughter loved it.
Awesome job on your progress. Way to go 🙂
Do you still get internet through the cable company. I didn’t know that was doable without cable. That’s great!
For us interenet is $35 a month. You don’t have to bundle!
If you have a PS3 you do not need a Roku, you can access your account via the PS3. This doesn’t even require real research, the instructions are on the Netflix website.
Yay!
I am so jealous! I can’t seem to get the BF to see eye to eye regarding the satellite TV service. We would save about $150.00 per month. Sigh…
Congratulations. We got rid of our cable a few years ago and haven’t looked back. Probably the best outcome is that we don’t sit in front of the TV very often. We do have Netflix (streaming), but should probably cancel that, too. We use our Blue Ray disc player and an HDMI cable, but your gaming systems should work, too. When it comes to questions of technology, Google it! There’s tons of information out there.
One other thing we did at the same time was to cancel our phone package. We now have a simple phone service through Verizon… no answering service, no caller ID, no bells & whistles. When we’re on the phone, people get a busy signal (crazy, right?). We can call anywhere in the US and Canada for $24/month and Verizon can’t increase the price ever, unless we cancel. We could’ve gone with a cheaper package, but we have family in Canada. I think the lowest option is in the $9 range! In any case, overall, we’re saving a bundle.
Keep it up!
wow, great progress. $150 a month is a big difference. if the debt plan takes 3 years, that’s $5400 extra you’ve paid down with this one change, or essentially a used car.
i like the directions those numbers are heading.
we also use the antenna – little known fact for the hubbster – the HD signal through the antenna is actually BETTER than the signal from cable. Cable goes up to 080i, but over the air goes to 1080p (higher quality).
great job on mobile loaves, maybe you can pick a day when your family used to sit around watching tv to do your mobile loaves volunteering, that way you dont even miss the tv shows.
at this rate, by mid summer you’ll have 5-6 debts paid off and a starter emergency fund. you’ll have so much more peace when the snowball starts to progress. the feeling is great.
question – are you canceling/cutting up the cards as you pay them off. you better be!
btw, i have a wii and it works pretty good for netflix, but i think the ps3 will give you better video quality (i don’t have one myself).
also, dont forget the wonders of REDBOX.
We have a Roku and plan to use it for the bedroom while streaming from the PS3 for Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon in the living room. I can’t wait to cut the cable cord but I think we’ll hold off until summer. My husband wants to put up a nice antenna but he doesn’t have time while taking two grad classes and working full-time. No classes in the summer means a long honey-do list.
We just use a cable between the laptop and the tv. We don’t do any gaming.
The nice advantage of this is that we can watch other things online as well. We can browse the internet online and watch things that aren’t just the specific things that Roku lets you watch (and that you have to first choose on your computer).
For example, twice a year our church has a worldwide conference that is streamed live for 2 days. This would not be watchable with Roku. Since we can do anything with the cable that we do online, we do that. We watch Hulu (free only) and we can watch anything else we want as well (You Tube do-it-yourself videos, church videos, etc.)
The cable was about $10. The Roku is expensive–and not needed.
I think the most telling thing, though, is that you used your time differently–a lot differently. You went out and served. That is more important than sitting around and watching tv.
It is AMAZING how much you can get done in all of the hours that you used to spend watching tv. Before you worry abut paying for Amazon or Netflix, think about all of the projects that you want to do. Think about the books you want to read, the skills you want to accomplish. Perhaps you want to learn to sew, garden, bake bread, etc. Perhaps you would like to serve more often. What can you do with all of that time that you used to spend watching tv?
Congratulations on the expense cutting! Great news. Keep it up. Once you cut things, you’ll rarely miss them or look back. Consider limiting your other forms of electronic entertainment – you’ll be amazed by the time you and your children have to bond as a family, read, exercise or play outside, socialize, cook together, and a hundred other things.
All very good starts. By the way, you don’t need to buy paper towels. Invest in some good microfiber cloths for general cleaning – I love the purple ones from flylady.net, and use newspaper or paper grocery sacks for scraping up greasy messes. Pet issues can be sprinkled with bulk bought baking soda and swept up. Handkerchiefs instead of facial tissues would be the next step but perhaps a bit uber-frugal for you right now 😉
Roku is SUPER easy to set up. I love it!! We have 3 channels we regularly watch: netflix, amazon, and hulu+. I already had an amazon prime account so the amazon channel is free to us and in my opinion much better than redbox. Most “rental” fees for movies on amazon are about $2.99 or $3.99 and I easily spend that much on redbox due to my inability to remember to return the movie or renting it because i THINK we’ll watch it tonight but dont so I only rent when we’re already sitting down in the living room ready to watch.
Netflix is okay… I’m bummed that they don’t have more new movies available on their stream option, but with 2 little ones we are usually watching Dora or Diego.
It also work on up to 3 televisions in your household.
the only true complaint i have about roku is that if you misplace the remote your out of luck unless you download the app on your phone and use your phone as remote. The unit doesn’t have buttons you can use to control the program.