"So where's the guide?" Greg asked on the first night, holding the new remote like it had personally let him down. He meant the channel guide, the grid he's scrolled through every evening for about twenty years. It was gone, along with the cable box, and he was not pleased.
Let me back up. Our cable and internet bill had crept up to $189 a month. I pulled the October statement and went through it the way I've been going through every bill since March, and here's roughly what we were paying for:
- Internet: $74
- TV package: $82
- Two cable box rentals: $19
- Broadcast TV fee and regional sports fee: $14
That's $115 a month for television. We watch maybe six channels. With Josh in his apartment near campus and Emily in Columbus, there's nobody in this house who needs 200 of them.
What we kept
We kept the internet. I do my bookkeeping from the kitchen table now, about 12 hours a week, and I need it to work. When I called to cancel the TV, I asked three questions before saying yes to anything:
First, would our internet price go up if we dropped TV? Sometimes the bundle discount props up the internet price, and you find out when the next bill comes. The answer was no, $74 stays $74 for our speed, and it's not a promotional rate that ends in a year. I asked her to put a note on the account saying so.
Second, were there any cancellation fees? No contract, no fee.
Third, how do I return the boxes? Drop them at their store and get a receipt. Greg drove them over the next morning after his route. I put the receipt in the green notebook, because I've heard stories about $200 charges for boxes that "were never returned."
So the cable company bill is now $74 a month.
What we added
I'm going to be honest here, because otherwise the title isn't quite fair. We did add one streaming service at $11.99 a month. It's billed to a card, not on the cable bill. So our real television and internet spending went from $189 to about $86. The savings is $103 a month, or $1,236 a year.
The other thing we bought was an indoor antenna for $34 at Meijer. We live close enough to the Dayton and Cincinnati stations that it pulls in all the major local channels clearly. Greg mounted it in the family room behind the TV, and after one round of rescanning, we had about 30 channels for free. Not one more dollar a month.
The antenna was the key, because it's where the Bengals are. Most of their games are on local channels on Sunday afternoons. That was the one thing Greg said he would not give up, and I didn't blame him.
What Greg misses, and what we don't
Greg misses the guide. He misses flipping. He used to sit down after dinner and click through every channel without stopping on anything, which I always thought was a strange way to relax, but it was his. Now he has to decide what he wants to watch, and he says that's "work."
He's also a little worried about Reds season next spring, since not every game is on regular TV. We'll figure that out in April. It's a problem for later, and spending $115 a month all winter to solve a baseball problem in April doesn't make sense to me.
Things we have not missed at all:
The second box in our bedroom. We hadn't turned on that TV in months.
The fees. A "broadcast TV fee" for channels we now get free over the air with a $34 antenna was the part that bothered me most once I saw it.
The noise. I didn't realize how often the TV was just on in the background, especially since the kids moved out, as if we were trying to fill the house with something. It's quieter now. Some evenings that's a little lonely. Most evenings it's fine, and I read.
A few weeks in
It's been about two weeks. Greg has figured out how to search for things on the streaming service, mostly old westerns. Biscuit doesn't care either way, as long as the family room is warm.
Thanksgiving is coming, with Emily, Nate and Josh all here for the day. Josh already texted asking if we "still have TV." I told him we have the parade, the football and a 12-pound turkey. He seemed satisfied.
If you're thinking about doing the same, my only advice is to read your statement line by line first and ask about the internet price before you cancel anything. The rest is just deciding what you actually watch.
