Four Ways to Get TV without Cable (or Dish)

We got rid of cable over six years ago! At first it was hard, but we got rid of it due to the increasing amount of time we spent searching for shows. Just sitting on the couch playing with the remote. What a waste of time! I do like to watch TV and movies; I just hate to spend all that time channel surfing. When we got rid of cable we joined a movie club at our local Hollywood Video and got our series and movie DVD’s through them. It saved us time and money. Hollywood Video went out of business and we signed up for Netflix. Even better!

You might be thinking that no cable/dish just is not for you, but going without cable is not as hard as it was a few years ago. Going without cable does NOT mean going without TV. Here are some of your options:

Digital TV – You can get many more stations for free since TV went digital. We can pick up 18-20 stations using our antenna vs only 4-5 before digital TV. You can get a decent Antenna at Amazon starting at $9!

DVD Rental Subscription – BLOCKBUSTER Online® and Netflix both sell subscriptions to rent a certain number of DVD’s each month. Subscription prices start at $9 a month. They ship the DVD’s to you and you keep them as long as you like. When you ship them back they will send you the next one on your list. Blockbuster even includes games in their rental subscription and you can return the DVD’s to their store if you would rather (that is faster if you want a new DVD that night).

Redbox – Redbox DVD’s are $1 for a one night rental. You can return them in any redbox. I do not use them often. Once the redbox by our house was “full”. Too many DVD’s had been returned so we had to go searching for another redbox to return our DVD. It is a good option if you only watch an occasional DVD.

Roku – We use our Roku box for everything now! The Roku box itself comes with 30-Day Money Back Guarantee or you can stream the movies/series through your Playstation or Wii (the older Wii’s require a special disc to be able to do it).  Using it, you can get instant download to your TV, which for me was better than watching them on my computer. It is super easy to set up (comes with instructions in the box). The lowest cost DVD rental subscriptions come with instant streaming.

Try it for a few months, if it isn’t for you then you can always re-subscribe to cable.  If it is for you then you will save yourself a mint!