So proud of our solution, HAVE TO share!

[justKate]

We've kicked the habit!

About a month and a half ago, we saw our cable bill and it was $87.00, NOT including internet. We watch like 3 shows regularly, so what were we paying for? So we cancelled the cable, and hooked our computer up to the TV. Now we are only watching what we download from iTunes, YouTube, or the internet--they have so many programs to choose from--everything we were already watching and lots of free stuff! You can basically download all of the same shows you watch on cable off of iTunes or the tv channel's website. We gave each family member a budget, and we're sticking to it, and its already saving us money.

Pros of "internet only" tv:
Only pay for what we want
Get more value by buying seasons instead of individual episodes
Lots of free videos/tutorials/programs on YouTube/websites
No taxes/service charges
No service interruptions because the new neighbors got cable and they accidentally cut our line (three times in 18 months!)
DD won't have access to anything we haven't approved
Huz and I watch less crap, because we don't want to pay for it
We have to actually make value judgments on what we will buy, rather than just watching whatever is on
Should teach DD financial responsibility when she has to choose shows to buy with her "budget"
And i'm sure there are more!

Cons:
A whole season takes a little while to download
The most current tv show episodes are more expensive (not really a con for me, I just buy the older season)
Ton of free stuff on the web (also a pro) so we still watch more than I'd like
DD will probably get to a point where she wants to watch stuff that isn't available (maybe?)

So has anyone else traded their cable for internet-only tv?

[briansmama]

I want to do that too! We're basically TV-free already, except for sports, so it feels like the cable package we're paying for just to watch football is a waste.

BUT, I really don't want my dh to have to leave just to watch a game and he only watches the second half anyways. So, I'm trying to figure this out.

We would love to go TV free otherwise though. Just need to figure out how to stream sports and occasionally National Geog and Discovery from the computer to the TV.

I've heard you can do it through the Wii, which we have, but I have no clue how to do that.

[Brittee]

You can stream current ish tv shows from certain websites like Hulu or TV shak. Usually they're about a week behind. Live sports shows has always been tricky.

[tankgirl73]

We've been cable-free for several years now, and yes it's all thanks to the internet!

We're in Canada, so the avenues we have to use are probably a bit different than yours. Hulu doesn't stream in Canada, for instance. But, we go to watch.ctv.ca for most of our "regular" current shows (Castle, So You Think You Can Dance, Big Bang Theory), watch.thecomedynetwork.ca for, well, the comedies (Daily Show, Colbert Report, South Park), and watch.discoverychannel.ca for the science-y reality show stuff (Canada's Worst Driver, Cash Cab, Dirty Jobs).

We actually get CTV on our aerial (it's the only station that comes in decent), but we usually prefer to watch online anyway because of a HUGE pro that you didn't even mention! FEWER COMMERCIALS!!!! The commercials on the network online streaming sites are like 10 seconds and only ONE per commercial break.

So the only shows we usually watch 'live' on TV are things that really matter if they're live, like So You Think You Can Dance Canada so we can vote.

Otherwise, we just wait until the day after initial broadcast and we can watch when we want, almost commercial-free, with pause and rewind etc And we can watch several episodes in a row if we feel like it.

Also, we just got Netflix in Canada a few weeks ago. I'm actually surprised how many current TV shows it has! Obviously not this current season, but lots of past seasons. And there's lots more coming, the selection is relatively limited right now. But they have Mad Men, for an example of a current show. And also LOTS of older shows, including a HUGE selection of British TV (which we looove.... Blackadder and Doctor Who and Fawlty Towers) and MST3K and I'm currently re-watching all the old episodes of Greatest American Hero... And it's only $8/month!

So far we haven't done anything like downloading shows from itunes. I didn't even realize that possibility existed, in fact. We've been fine with our free sources and Netflix. But maybe if something came up that we really wanted to see but it wasn't available otherwise, that would be an option we'd look into.